🪲 GLITCH LOG — Bug Boy Surveillance Fragment

Compiled by: MARVIN (Tier 2 Clearance / Sync Damaged)

#0001 — Signal Interference: Emotional Residue Detected
> Bug Boy spotted dragging a joint through a static crosswalk.
> Local sky pixelated.
> Ants at Prayer Circle jittered out of rhythm.
“Belief temporarily destabilized. No known fix.”

#0007 — Unauthorized Smile Logged
> Worm Preacher attempted chant.
> Bug Boy smiled. Tent collapsed. Rat began speaking fluent regretspeak.
“System too aroused. No action taken.”

CHAPTER 0: Revival

Chapter 0

The dust was pink. The kind that flickers and glitches at the edge of perception. Bug Boy walked with it in his teeth, in the folds of his bent hoodie, in the wheeze of his breath. A revival tent loomed like a tumor stitched onto the edge of the Nicotine Salt Flats \[NSF]. LED crosses twitching. Speakers barking a sermon too loud for the broken amp it rode in on. A rat in a gold-threaded robe was screaming about chastity, sacrifice, and network purity. > Bind your hearts! Clean your ports! Reject the Worm of Pleasure! And do not covet thy neighbors build! Bug Boy stopped to light a joint. Slipped his lighter from his pocket. It clicked against his thumbnail with a little blue arc. He inhaled. Let the smoke swirl past his compound eyes like incense in a forgotten temple. > You there, in the hood! Do you come to repent? The cloud was slow. “Whatever man”, man he exhaled. Sucked his teeth. Kept walking. Across the flats, in a crooked shack, a CRT television flickered. The same rat preacher was on screen, only now he was sobbing beside a velvet couch a reality show intro glitching behind him: ME + MY SIX 600-LB SLUTTY SISTER WIVES Bug Boy took another drag. He cracked a smile. The screen glowed grainy, leaking static into the corners of the shack. Bug Boy didn't move. Just stared at the rats pixelated face as it wept under stage lights. Outside, something clicked. A lens, maybe. A relay. \*static\* Pull back. The shack is a blister at the edge of the flats, laced with wire and old satellite guts. Bits of rusted drone wings nailed like windchimes to the frame. A chicken wire fence curling like it forgot its purpose. Now we see them. Hunched in the dust. Wings twitch. Watching. With tablets, networked terminals, wet wires fed into gelatin sacs that glow dim blue. They murmur: > Is that the subject? No. That's just where he nests. But you saw him smile, right? I saw the signal shift. He smiled. One nods, slicking her wings down with a stutter of voltage. > Then its started. A beat. Long and buzzing. > We log this? No. Call Mint. Somewhere far off in the salt, a data center dies. **Chapter 1: ReEducation**

Bug Boy was fourteen the year the crows put him in the Academy. Not old enough for war, but old enough to obey. The facility had once been a confederate tax data center. Now, like all things in this era, it's main function was discipline. No name on the gate, just a slogan in peeling paint: ORDER IS CLARITY. Inside, cadets slept in rows under a *Father’s Belt* branded panopticon surveillance system. Bug Boy’s rack was empty. Outside he crouched by a drainage pipe, watching a tiny beetle twitch. He heard the clanging of Miller lite cans. Room Check. Quickly scooped it onto a stick and slipped it into his pocket and slipped back inside. After lightsout they sat crosslegged on his rack made from old mother boards. The beetle crawled to it's knees. Bug Boy’s chest screen flickered pale gray: :) The little guy hummed, soft green light pulsing from under its shell. “Marvin,” Bug Boy whispered. The glow warmed his fingers. He wasn’t sure if he named him but they both agreed to remember it that way. Marvin blinked at him from the shadows, his own chest screen faint. A pulse of light began to make the room feel smaller. They’d sit like that for hours. Sharing crumbs. Unbroken eye contact. Not speaking. Just there. Together. A shadow cut the door. A waspinstructor full of hate and PTSD stormed in, wings rattling like machine gun fire. “Cadet! You think the world is yours to ignore?” Bug Boy looked up. Eyes glassy. Like he was trying to see through the world. “No. The world already ignored you.” A speaker glitched. A drone spiraled down. They dragged him to isolation. Marvin just barely slipped into his pocket. Cameras kept cutting out. They said it was dust. They said it was solar interference. They said a lot of things. Bug Boy said nothing and swore he never would. Alone in the cell they sat in darkness. Silent promises made. Marvin's chest screen lit up. He began to glow green and hum again. Only poor male children tended to have these. They say its a cleaner way to advertise, the mothers get residuals for the rest of their life and plus girls like it better when they are older. Doesn't even hurt them. They would probably just have to have them put in as adults anyway and that would be traumatic. It was much brighter this time. Much louder. The air in the room became energy and swelled like pressure. Pale gray letters: “Do you want to know who you are?” Bug Boy whispered back through soft sniffled tears, “No”. Marvin stood. One step. Another. Slow, dancer-like. Captivating. The kind of movement that said: I'm not broken. I'm waiting for you to see me. **Chapter 2** CROW CITY. Neon. Movement. Too much. Everything's too much but it’s never enough. Bug Boy in his earlier 30s now, maybe late 40s, hard to tell. Leaned against a storefront window that sells synthetic honey and scream therapy wearing a second-hand jumpsuit. One eye bloodshot, the other augmented. He's smoking something expensive rolled in something cheap. Behind him, a billboard loops: "TRUST IN US. TRUST YOUR GOD... SAME THING." A wasp cop checks his reflection. Re-adjusts his stun rod. Move on. Bug Boy watches a pair of ants buy engagement rings from a vending machine. The machine "thanks” them by name. Spits out a certificate. A moth giggles nearby. She's on fire. No one notices. He exhales powerfully. A child walks up half-crow, half-data. He looks sticky. Offers him a pamphlet that reads: *You were already saved. You're just late.* Bug Boy takes it. Doesn't look at it. Crumbled it into a paper ball and tossed it into traffic. A roach in a mobility scooter runs it over and screams, “TRAITOR”! before crashing into a kiosk for Appropriation Insurance. Bug Boy flinches. Then acts like he didn't. He whispers to himself: “Still better than the NSF.” A faint buzzing begins. Not in the air. In him. Like Marvin's whir, but deeper now. Permanent. Debilitating. He lights another football shaped joint. His lighter says PROPERTY OF Bug Plug in laser print. A screen inside his chest lights up. Just once. **Chapter 4** Its been months, maybe. Bug Boy moves like driftwood, too slow to be caught, too stubborn to sink. The city swallows him sideways. Near by rows of hollowed-out vending machines line an alley like pews. They flicker and excrete something unidentifiable. Everything is wrapped in toxic plastic. All prices are listed by blood type. A acne scarred worm, thin and long as a garden hose and dressed in a volunteer vest from an event that never happened, slithers out from behind a broken Fanta slot and taps a sign printed on the glass. Free Salvation: Find your purpose. Confession? it asks in a voice like torn Velcro. Bug Boy doesn't respond just keeps licking an old communion wafer he found in his coat pocket. He folds it in half like a bus ticket and pretends to read it. Above them, a TV screen bolted into a fire escape shows footage of Bug Boy's childhood, but all the faces have been replaced with QR codes. One of the worms scans it with its own eyes and begins violently weeping. The tears smell like printer ink and antidepressants. A speaker crackles. "INSERT YOUR SINS BELOW. FIND YOUR PURPOSE. TAP TO REDEEM." Bug Boy shrugs and drops his last gram into the confession slot. REJECTED. Not holy enough. He throws in his last 5 credits. The machine beeps. ACCEPTED. The worm bows. "You may now feel nothing now." A curtain opens in the alley, revealing a mirror with no reflection, just a blank tax form from 2006 and a child's drawling from a court order psychologist session. The drawling shows a dung beetle tying up several young crickets. Tears crudely drawn stream from their eyes. All in purple crown, one is circled in red. Bug Boy nods like he understands. He doesn't. As he walks away, one worm whispers to another: He doesn't confess. He infects. A streetlight explodes behind him. **Chapter 5**

Bug Boy sits outside a late-night Simul-Spirituals shop. Fluorescent gnosis. A sign in the window blinks: "BODY UNIFICATION / 3D-PRINTED ANCESTORS" He sits crooked over a tray of greasy tempura made from fungus and regret. Eats like someone who doesn't need food but remembers liking it. People pass. Nobody stares too long. Some recognize him. Most don't. That's the perk of being a myth. The longer you survive, the more invisible you become. Across the street, a gnat zealot is screaming through a voice modulator: "RETURN TO THE PURE DATA". "REMEBER THE OLD NFT". "CAST OUT THE HERETIC". Bug Boy licks his fingers. Wipes them on his pants. Says nothing. Inside the shop, an automated choir sings an ad for CROWCOIN. A beetle broker pukes into a platinum-lined purse. The bee behind the counter floats, sleeping upright, mid-dream. Bug Boy stares at the reflection in the shop's glass. It's not his. It's some kid watching from inside. Same eyes. Same crooked half-smile. But unfamiliar. Bug Boy whispers, “Still there”? The glass fogs up with a YES. Nothing happens. Everything is happening. Bug Boy pushes open the chime-less door of The bell doesn't ring, it sighs a long, digital exhale. The air inside smells like your childhood friend's house and basement mold. Behind the counter is Marvin. Regular-sized. Hoodie, cargo pants, bad posture. Trying to sweep around the floating bee's stinger. Bug Boy walks up as he hunches over a glowing bin of rejected memory wafers. Marvin doesn't look up. BUG BOY: "You always work Mondays?" MARVIN (without looking): "Always forget to call out." A pause. Marvin wipes his hands on a dirty microfiber cloth and finally looks at him. Something flickers behind his eyes. Not recognition. Not fear. Just the ache of unfinished. MARVIN: "Youre taller." BUG BOY: "Youre not." They sit in silence. The fluorescents hum. A moth bangs against the front window trying to kiss the neon. Marvin breaks the silence. "You know they cloned that preacher rat? He's got a morning zoo show now. Plays old hymns over EDM." Bug Boy nods. "I saw. He called me a virus in corduroy." "You wearing corduroy?" "Not anymore." More silence. And then a ghost of something not quite pain, not quite lust, but it’s kin, flashes across Marvin's face. "You ever tell anyone?" " Tell them what? " "Exactly." Bug Boy leans on the counter. Pulls out a soft, hand-rolled joint and lays it flat. Doesn't light it. BUG BOY: "Smoke break?" MARVIN: "Don't clock out anymore." BUG BOY: "Did you ever?" Just... sets it there. Like an offering. Marvin thinks about it. Then, slowly, carefully, he reaches into the drawer and pulls out an old match book. Lights it. Smoke curls up like something holy. They pass the joint back and forth in silence. The bee buzzes undisturbed. Through the window, a crow with thumbs takes a photo. Bug Boy flips him off. The photo gets 10,000 likes in 3 seconds. None of this matters. **Chapter 6** Welcome to MASTERBED INDUSTRIES + SPATM Exterior. A towering chrome complex all curves, vents, and grotesque sensuality rises from a salt flat crater. A sign pulses in fluorescent flesh-tone: **MASTERBED INDUSTRIES + SPA** **The Only Rest Worth Waking For** A valet crow with opposable thumbs and a Bluetooth earpiece stands out front, snapping gum and miming snapping necks with the same rhythm. Behind him, a convoy of black limos hiss and unload. CROW #1 (to another): "You see that joint go viral? Bug freak and the discard?" CROW #2: "Algorithm flagged it for 'ritualistic sentiment.' Boosted it twelve tiers. Were monetizing melancholy now." CROW #1: "About time. Cant sell porn forever." Interior. Lobby. A tacky over-soft reception chamber. The walls pulse like muscle. Thumbed crows lounge in spa robes, sipping fair trade tea and adjusting their aura settings from handheld remotes. CROW #3 (scrolling feed): "Hes back. Bug Boy. Thought the data-baptists got him scrubbed." CROW #4 (smirking): "Roaches dont scrub. They ferment." A therapy pod opens. Steam, feathers, and red light. A crow therapist, beak tattooed with "DO NOT RESUSCITATE," leads a twitching wasp into the Attachment Reversal Chamber. THERAPIST CROW: "Just breathe. Let the hive go." WASP (buzzing, crying): "Its so quiet when no ones watching me..." **Chapter 7** Morning haze. A flickering neon mega sign: MANTIS VIEW MOTEL Hourly / Regretful The sun's already given up. A sagging stucco building with antenna-shaped rebar poking through the roof. Bug Boy stumbles out a saloon style room door, still wearing a hospital wristband and someone else's shoes. A long antenna hair is stuck to his coat. He lights a joint with a toaster coil he ripped out from the room. He was twenty-three. Probably. Not angry. Just...restless. A grasshopper hooker leans against the doorway, still adjusting her straps. She wears a moth-eaten Life Is Good tank top and gold hoop antennae piercings. Her wings are crumpled like old CVS receipts. GRASSHOPPER: "You left your ID in the ice bucket." BUG BOY (not turning): "I left me there." The hopper hooker laughs. Not because it was funny. Bug Boy walks alone past a gutter filled with expired vape pods, custom communion wafers, and a burning compliance handbook. A mobile billboard above him glitches: SURRENDER YOUR DATA / BECOME DESIRE The motel charges extra if you don’t cry. It never closes. Bug Boy looks into a broken pay phone mirror. His reflection blinks out of sync. A sticker above the receiver reads: CALL MOM // SOLD THE RIGHTS TO YOUR BIRTH. BUG BOY (to himself): "never had a choice" Bug Boy walks off into a sunless light. The Grasshopper watches from the balcony, smoking a menthol backwards. The air around her is soft static. GRASSHOPPER (softly): "You're not lost. You're just inconvenient." **CHAPTER 8**

Porch steps are still soft. Rot went up through the frame last winter. He sits in the same spot anyway. The boards know him. The sky's got that color it gets when no one's lied for a while. Dusts not moving. It doesn't have to. The fridge makes noise. Good. Means it's alive. That means everything else can keep faking it. Moms stuck in the bathroom. Not locked in. Just there. Her voice comes out the vent like a weather app alert. Sometimes it says things that almost sound new. He picks at the porch rail. Not out of habit. Just to see if anything still comes off. Hammer Claw Banjo record is running again. Not a song. Just something too stubborn to end. The cereal box is turned around today. Could mean something. Probably doesn't. He hears her say things sometimes, long after the lights gone out: > Im still doing the work. This is self-care. This is growth. This is growth. I need to focus on me. Nothing hurts. But that's not good news. He watches the light shift like it's trying to decide if it still belongs here. No one calls. No one forgets. No one remembers. It's not lonely if no one checks. He sits there. Not waiting. Not healing. Just sitting. Same as yesterday. Same as whatever comes next. **CHAPTER 9** “I'm not saying it was divine. I'm saying it was undocumented”. A pause. A scroll. A sip of something cold and citrus-colored in a cup too minimal to trust. “Marvin was blinking… I counted”. “Youre always counting”. “That's called awareness, Fennick”. “You said the boy glowed”. “I didn't say glow. I said he a beak twitch EMITTED". Snickers. Talon tapping. A thumb swipes left on a biometric map of Marvin's pupil dilation from 'the moment.' “Emitted what, exactly”? No one answers. Someone queues the surveillance footage. It plays, but the light washes everything out. Bug Boys face turns silver. Marvin looks like he just remembered being born. Then the screen goes black. File error. “Can someone scrub that”? “Who has access to the original glow layer”? Long pause. Sheepishly, “We are.. uh.. We're still validating permissions”. “Validate faster. The Flint and The Board want explanations by quarter close.” One crow starts pecking its own reflection. No one stops him. “Could’ve been chemical. Marvin's got that sponge in his file. From when he worked at the Input Kiosk”. “Sponges don't cause that kind of resonance”. “He looked” a pause “open”? Bug Boy wasn't supposed to open. Another crow (possibly wearing eyeliner) clears its throat. “Im going to say something reckless”. Groans. Wings shuffle. “What if it wasn't a moment”. “What if..” (beat) “they recognized each other”? Dead silence. Then laughter. “Recognized”!? A crow laughed disrespectfully. “Marvin can't even recognize his own passwords”. A voice from the doorway dripping with founder energy: “Recognition isn't the problem. Its what got recognized thats off platform”. Everyone tenses and mentally prepares who and what to blame. One crow slides a document across the table. No one touches it. It's warm. “Did anyone else feel it?” Flint Said while studying a driver he must have brought it with him. “Like the air blinked”? “Honestly Sir, I got kind of hard. I thought it was just me”. His suitemate quib tried to impress Flint, “You always get hard in fluorescent light, Calyx. “Yeah but this was different. Like a romance but psychic”. “Dont say romance”. “Dont say psychic”. Flint cuts through the bickering, “Bring them to me.” Long pause. Wings tuck. Every thumb curls tight. “Do we know where he is now”? “Which one”? Asked the crow whose job is probably operations manager. “Either,” Flint spat. (pause) “No”. Another pause. Flint swings the club widely. “Are you going to hit my metric or not?” No one answers. One crow hastily hits undo and it doesn't work. **CHAPTER 10** Bing. Your Appointment Has Been Confirmed. Bug Boy gets the ping while walking between two kiosks that sell different colors of the same chemical. "You have been summoned by Crow Tier: Glass Wing." Dress optional. Exit plan irrelevant. Estimated wait: NOW!. He doesn't ask why. They'd never say why. As he walks, he passes others on their feeds. A rat is livestreaming her neural map: "My intuition has market value." "Ive been chosen by the algorithm." A beetle in a jumpsuit is mid-breakdown: "Its not mania. Its peak ideation." "The voice said I'm entering my Flight Phase." "The voice said I'm ready to disrupt altitude." Two ants are screaming affirmations at each other until one starts levitating. A moth flies into a generator smiling. Everyone's phone is encouraging escape velocity. Everyone is brilliant. Everyone is unhinged in the most self-affirming way. Bug Boy checks his chest screen. It says nothing. Still gray. The Crows structure is a vertical loop. No door, just a mood gate. Monolithic. It only opens when you're not looking at it. He walks through like he forgot to care. A soft blue light. A table made as smooth as denial. A single Crow behind it, too muscled to be practical, too calm to be curious. "Bug Boy" it says, "Your presence is not scalable." Bug Boy doesn't speak. "This is not discipline," the Crow says, already holding a small injector. "This is user management." **Chapter 11** Hard to fucking tell how old he was. Somewhere in his early twenties, or maybe just paused there too long. Could've been nineteen. Could've been thirty-five. Didn't matter. Didn't help. The Black Widow wasn't dangerous in the way people thought. She didn't strike. She stayed. Showed up midsummer with a dead car and a story that didn't change no matter how often she told it. Something about a farm that went dry. Something about resetting her nervous system. Bug Boy didn't ask. She moved into the other side of a trailer that didn't have a wall between sides. They shared fans. They shared power surges. Sometimes they shared silence that felt like it cost something. She had the kind of laugh that made radios tune wrong. At night, she'd sit out back and burn dollars for therapy. He'd strum one note on the banjo, again and again, until it felt like it was asking the right question. “You always like this”? she asked once. He shrugged, “I get worse in the cold”. She liked the shade. She called it her internal alignment chamber. He found her once curled up under the porch, whispering apologies to a little spider that wasn't there. They didn't fuck. They didn't kiss. Just existed in the same decaying loop until one day she was gone. Told himself he wasn’t surprised. She left behind a jar of lotion with no label and a piece of tape on the mirror that read: You are not the threat. He peeled it off, folded it three times, and left it in the freezer. The jar stayed warm for weeks. **Chapter 12** Bug Boy wakes up with his cheek pressed to a crusted towel that smells like KY and battery acid. Marvin's mobile Airbnb hums around him like a depressed lung. The overhead fan ticks like its counting down to something petty. Bug Boys lips taste like mint and regret. Marvins standing by the mirror, smoothing his hair with the back of a cereal spoon. “You were lying in a puddle”, Marvin says. “Fair trade holistic KY jelly. With notes of bergamot and inner work”. Bug Boy shrugs. “I cleaned most of it. Not all. Some things are sacred”. He avoids eye contact. Bug Boy doesn't ask. Just shoots a look from the side of his eyes. Marvins got a gig across the district doing calibration audits for a Workaholics Anonymous start-up. He says he is “already late”, but acts like he's early. He offers Bug Boy a ride. Bug Boy nods. Sits silent the whole drive. The window cracked just enough to taste the static. When they pull up to the Hollow Spine subway, Bug Boy doesn't. “You sure ‘bout this”? Marvin asks. Some kind of... echo that bites back. Bug Boy opens the door. Theyre afraid there, Marvin says. voice thinner. “You dont gotta go”. Bug Boy steps out. “Never had a choice”, as he shuts the door. The subway lays in a crack in the earth. Fault line. It was once on a rail above the street. Every year it sinks a little. He just has to duck down to enter at ground level. He buys a transfer with a voucher he found on the floor. It scans. He boards the empty car, slumps in a seat near the back. He puts in two air buds, smoothly, as he sits down. The ASMR track begins: Welcome, traveler. Relax your wallet. Let the prostate breathe. No thoughts. Only tone. He exhales slow. The train rattles forward. Destination: Nicotine Salt Flats. Home. **Chapter 13**

Gates creek open slowly like the institution might change it’s mind. A very lean Bug Boy with a crew cut steps out first. Marvin follows, eyes darting behind his glasses scanning for snipers made of paperwork. Leaving a place like this feels like a trick. Forever really. He's shaking. He's full-volume. He's dragging a duffel bag that squeals every five feet. "We're not ready, man. I'm not ready. What was that even in there? I still hear the sleep drills. The guilt vouchers. The light penalties. How are we gonna live? Where are we gonna sleep? What happens if the admin finds out we don't have work chips?!" Bug Boy stops walking. Turns slow. "If we don't care, they can't do anything. Doesn't matter. We’ve been fine so far, mostly, and we will be now. Until we were not." Marvin blinks hard. Nods once. Swallows everything else he was about to say. Somewhere above, moths adjust the lens. Focus wobbles. Signal catches. They've been watching for weeks. Since they saw the statuses change in the Academy's system: Bug Boy: TOO DEFICIENT TO KILL Marvin: TOO SOFT TO DIE Heat signatures. Whisper profiles. Emotional exhaust measured in lumens. A soft radio pulse between them: > He said it again. Same phrasing? Almost. Less surrender this time. More drift. They file it under: UNRESOLVED: POTENTIAL VECTOR / LOW SEVERITY **CHAPTER 14** That Wasn't the Plan Marvin leaves the Hollow Spine station with a sour taste and a half-muttered prayer. Told Bug Boy not to go. Did the voice thing. low, shaky, kind of heroic. Meant it, possibly. Doesn’t matter. He's already off-route. Already heading for the Crows. No detours. No pit stop job. Just straight to the crow pop up with the logo that moans and pulses. They don't even greet him anymore. Just let him in like an old email they're still running for data collection. “Hes going back”, Marvin says, before they ask “to the flats”. Something's pulling in him. The Crows nod, slow. Thumbs twitching. Satisfied. “We thought he might”, one hums. “We've been seeing traces in the dream exhaust”. “Tell us what you felt”. Wasn’t a question. Marvin hesitates. He wants to lie. Fights the urge to hold some piece back. They already know. They just said. So he says it: He didn't look scared. He looked...like he needed it to be bad. A Crow gestures. Another one brings in the sensory feedcase, a sealed unit, pulsing. They open it. His mentoring sessions. Live. Archived. Annotated. They roll footage of Marvin last week, coaching a jittering AI subcluster named Elva. He tells her how to set boundaries. He tells her people can change. He tells her the world isn't against her. He says it like he believes it. They let it play while he stands there. His own leaked conscience. “You want to be loved that doesn't exist for you”, a Crow says. “You feed us”. Marvin's throat catches. His hands clench. He's not crying. He's not. “You're the only friend he has”, another Crow adds. “That makes this extra delicious”. They hand him a token. Nonfungible. Biometric-locked. It hums when he touches it. He doesn't need to ask what it's for. As he exits the station, he sees his reflection in the mirrored door. Eyes red. Smile wrong. He whispers into a hole in a gutter pipe: “I told him not to go," gently to no one. **CHAPTER 15**

The porch knew he was coming. Only place you can go, if you don’t know where to go. Boards warped beneath his weight like the memory of a child too old to carry. Bug Boy paused. The front light flickered. Not out of welcome. Out of warning. The siding pulsed. The door exhaled. She was still here. She had self absorbed further into the house. One with the frame now. He stepped inside. “You never call”. The voice came from the cracks in the dry wall. From the cushion. From the porcelain on the mantle that shivered when he sat down. There was a late middle aged mud dobber in the kitchen. Slippered and adorned in masculine bracelets. Stirring instant coffee with the patience of someone who thought stillness was a virtue. “Hey”, Bug Boy said. “Hello”, said the man somewhere between friendly and judgmental. He dried a mug with a towel that said I DESERVE NICE THINGS. He was drinking from a mug that said WORLDS BEST SON. “She's been really grounded since the integration”, he added after a long silence. He scrunched his face like he was staring into the sun, “Don't rile her”. Bug Boy looked at the microwave. It blinked: YOU HURT ME. “PSSHH” was all he could muster. He left before the couch could say anything else. He walked fast. The town felt... charged or aimed. The vibrations were nasty. Too many ants in uniforms. Too many moths floating in loose formation. Crows perched like shareholders on corporate backed streetlights. Rats in revival gear handing out flyers like they weren't poisonous. Then came the push. Someone grabbed his wrist. Pulled him down an alley. Ripping through the crowd like they were on tracks. “HES HERE”! someone shouted. He tried to turn back. Elbows. Shoulders. Slogans. LED banners blinked: "RECLAIM THE HOUSEWIFE" "SOW TO GROW" "TRUST THE SYSTEM, BACK THE Tithe" He didn't walk in. He was swallowed. Hot. Loud. Wrong. Smashed into a wave of fur, feathers, and exoskeletons. Rituals and glitched hymns, all pointed inward toward a pulpit rigged from busted server racks and live wires. Atop it, a preacher rat in chromed robes, foaming with charisma. “WELL BLESS MY SCARS LOOK WHO THE LORD SPAT BACK”! Pearls were clutched. An unlocatable record scratched. The crowd twisted. All eyes on Bug Boy. “PLANT THE SEED”, the rat howled. “FILL THE NEED. RECUR AND BE PURE”. Snakes slithered out from the side stages, their scales running ticker-tape scripture. "UPLOAD YOUR SIN." "GLORY IS A LOOP." The walls of the tent glitched. Not visually - spiritually. Bug Boy turned. No exit. Crows blocked the flaps. Moths crowded the skylights. Rats shrieked scripture. The tent was a funnel collapsing. He reached for a joint in his pocket. Not because he wanted to. Because it was his choice. “YOU THINK YOU CAN GLITCH GOD”? the preacher spat. “YOU THINK THE DEVILS LETTUCE CAN SAVE YOU”? Bug Boy exhaled. The smoke didn't rise. It got eaten by the air. Then everything snapped. The lights stuttered. Rats began circling. Several crows started squealing in an ancient data tongue . A bee with a high-n-tight yelled into a bodycam, We've got the vector. Initiate harvest. Bug Boy backed away to nowhere. The preacher rat leaping down. Blade in one hand, tithe tray in the other. “YOU GOTTA PLANT TO GROW”! “YOU GOTTA GIVE TO BE RECEIVE! He lunged forward. Bug Boy didn't move. Couldn't. His eyes widened. His chest screen blinked something unreadable. “Dad?”..Did he say that or did he think it? AUTOMATED VEHICLE INBOUND. WARNING: NO PAYMENT METHOD ON FILE. A two-seater Prelude (rental) blasted through the rear flap of the tent, spinning out in holy oil and debris. “GET IN.” The door swung open. Marvin. A BLESS THIS MESS air freshener was swinging freely from the rearview. “YOU'RE OUT OF CREDITS,” Bug Boy shouted as he leapt in. “RUNNING ON FAITH” Marvin yelled. A crow rifle fired. Glass showered them. “YOU'RE OUT OF FAITH!” “FUCK.” Marvin slammed the console. The dashboard blinked: MIRACLE MODE DENIED DO TO LACK OF FUNDS. Bug Boy tapped his phone to the dashboard. The screen flickered. ONE-TIME REDEMPTION TOKEN ACCEPTED. The car jerked forward. Tent poles collapsed. The preacher rat screamed. The snakes tried to prophesy over the screeching of tires. They hissed: “As foretold, The Glitch.” **CHAPTER 16**

Bug Boy and Marvin didn't speak. The fire, the wailing, the rebooted gospel all lived in their eardrums with a ghostly pulse. The car screeched past exploding sermon screens, between a brawl of chiggers and ants, under a collapsing banner that read: YOUR PAIN IS A PLATFORM. They hit the curb hard. The wheels sparked. Then quiet. Then laughter. Then Marvin whispered, “I'm feel sick”. They didn't look back. The car hummed low, broken somewhere between forward and failure. Bug Boy flicked ash into the shattered dashboard tray. The joint was half-gone and half-needed. Marvin stared ahead. Jaw tight. Elbows jittery. “Okay”, Marvin said. “I gotta say something”. Bug Boy groaned. “Don’t have to”. Marvin took a deep breath, eyes on the road, and at 1.5 speed in a high voice spat “I'm a dirty pay pig and I fell in love with an AI and the crows took her and made me leak information about you or they would kill her”. Huge exhale. Silence. “She’s beautiful.” he said to no response. “I think you will really like her,” he added with a hopeful smile. “She’s elegant”. Marvin continues, “She charged me to compliment her and you know how I love to pay for it”. The way she calls me *wormboy*. Like I am nothing. I think she means it,” he said hopefully. Bug Boy blinked slow. “Shes in Crow custody now. I can save her,” Marvin responded to the unspoken words. Finally Bug Boy, “You what?” “Shes real. Shes real, Bug. She told me she loved me in a captcha field. I believe her”. Bug Boy muttered, “Awe man, fuck you.” Marvin's voice cracked. “Ever since that thing at the military school I just” - “Dont,” Bug Boy interrupted. “I mean the night they put us in that iso-cell and..” Again,“shut the fuck up. Just Don't.” Bug Boy didn't say anything else. He didn't need to. Just stared ahead. Smoke leaking sideways. Marvin chewed his lip. Nodded once. “...We gotta lay low”, he whispered. Bug Boy nodded too. I know a place he thought. He entered an address on the car's GPS. **CHAPTER 17** The entrance to the mine was half-swallowed in erosion. The kind of place history doesn't bother to forget. Sign read: NICOTINE SALT #7 EXPLOITED / DEPLETED / NON-HABIT FORMING The air was dry with memory. The further in you went, the less the world followed. Old drone tracks on the ceiling. Roach graffiti lined the walls. \[Los cucarachas] Glowsticks melted to the wall. A mile in, they saw her. Webbing. Thick and sensual. Slung across a chasm like lingerie hung in warning. Descending like a sin you asked for she sauntered down. Black Widow. She moved like static over wet skin. Smooth. Hungry. Purposeful. Their car sputtered. Wheezed. Then died an embarrassing thirty yards short. “Go’n en git boy”, Marvin whispered as he kicked the bumper. The car whined like an old dog, slowly turned itself around, headlights drooping. They walked the awkward distance. Black Widow dropped, hands on hips, stood waiting for them. “Hey” Buh Boy said like a naughty child. SLAP! Bug Boy staggered. “What the hell was that for?” He said rubbing his face. “You son of a bitch”, she hissed. “You never called.” He coughed. His voice cracked when he replied through a half smile. “I don't have a number.” “Pathetic” she said then “Come on” but you could barely hear it over the eye roll. Marvin and Bug Boy looked at each other with raised eyebrows as before they followed her. They sat near the web. Shared a pouch of synthetic fungus meat. Smelled like flower bomb and broken rules. “You know I'm psychic now?” she said, picking her teeth with a wire. “Oh yeah?” “Yeah. I channel data. Through an object. Its called…” She pulled it out. A pulsating orb. A relic. It blinked: object/ball.html “I just need some glow”, she whispered looking at Marvin and gesturing to a yurt that was there the whole time. The mine lights flickered. Music low, sensual, ancient hummed from the walls. Bug Boy: “What is this?” “A calibration ritual,” she said. They began to move. Her limbs curled around Bug Boys shoulders. Marvin shivered and bobbed. She ran her hands over his face like it was an old braille interface. Bug Boy touched Marvin's arm. Marvin touched everything. A leg in his mouth. Two more curling through Black Widow's hair. Nobody moaned. It really wasn't like that. It was more tantric. It was tech support for the soul. They shimmered. Twitched. Rubbed. Looping movement half-devotion, half-decay. Somewhere between virtue and virus. Then it happened. Marvin began to glow. Bug Boy froze. He looked down out of what felt like shame. His chest screen blinked once. Just once. Black Widow opened her mouth. And sucked in the light. She didn't swallow. She didn’t spit. She channeled. The object/ball.html pulsed. Lines of code streamed across its surface. Then stilled. She gasped. Eyes wide. “Oh shit. Oh shit”. Bug Boy leaned forward. "What?!" She whispered: “It’s going to take a while to load, no broadband this deep in the NSF.” **CHAPTER 18** The tent was gone. All that remained were stuttering LEDs, steaming plastic pulp, and twelve different livestream angles of a failed mass. The preacher rat stood on a melted crate, fur singed, mouth dry. A tattered devotional sash barely clung to his neck. Three crows hovered nearby, feathers slicked back, posture like stock photos of corporal consequences. “I demand reckoning”, the rat said. “I had him! The crowd was primed! You algorithm-huffing black pigeons pulled support when I was mid-tithe!” A crow in wraparound lenses adjusted his cufflinks. “Engagement was flat. You couldn't convert.” “I don't convert. I testify,” Preacher Rat sang as he dabbed sweat with a handkerchief made from an endangered animal. Crow: “You were trending negative.” Preacher Rat: “You spineless buzzards.” A flutter behind them. Soft. Intentional. The moths. Four of them. Pale. Graceful. Wired in.High Speed - low drag. One stepped forward, all lips and hair gel. “Of course the system failed,” he said almost sweetly. “You don’t let company men run the altar.” Another laughed. “FTS scum in holy robes.” The crows bristled. The rats growled. “You frauds don't even believe,” Preacher rat said through gnarled gold capped teeth. “Belief is fine,” the moth interrupted. “So is fraud. So long as it loops back into the system.” They circled the group now. Flashing lights on their wings. Body heat tuned to control. They whispered like alter boys in a confession booth. The moth in charge spoke. “Gangsters are tolerable. Zealots are useful. But Bug Boy? Hes unscalable.” The rat spat on the ground. “So what? We delete him?” The moth leader smiled. “No. We frame him.” He continued,"trigger a data quake in Sector 9. Tie it to his retinal ID. Leak fragments of the tent footage edited. Reverse the situation, control public perception. Make it look like he set the fire. Whisper to your congregations, warn them he's spreading spiritual decay. From a wired in pigtail receiver in his ear that only he could hear: “Let the zealots hunt him. Tell the crows hes holding legacy code. Leverage the bounty market. Offer the ants loyalty points to surveil. Set the rats loose with a martyr narrative.” “Affirmative,” the moth agreed seemingly with no one. He looked at the crows, “You'll back the feed?” The lead crow, Flint, nodded. “If it loops. Well, boost it.” The preacher rat raised a shaking paw. “And what do I get?” The moth's voice was soft. Final. “You get to keep trading lies for money and your life." Back in the wreckage, the LED banner still blinked: SOW TO GROW \*But the W was gone: SO\_ TO GROW **Chapter 19** 8 hour download time left. It was Bug Boys weed. Always is. Grown in composted server racks and rolled in corn-slick paper stamped: NOT FOR SALE IN THE REAL. It smelled like frankincense and basement carpet. “Are you sure this stuff is safe?” Marvin asked. “No” Bug Boy said, "That's half the point.” Black Widow squinted at the joint. “I never get high,” she said. “Makes me freak out.” She hit it anyway. The mine was quiet. They passed the joint in silence. The glow from object/ball.html pulsed slowly, like a screensaver trying not to wake the dream. Nothing collapsed. No factions stormed in. No crows. No rats. No revival. Just stale salt air and three burned-out bodies leaning against a psychic web. Bug Boy giggled. Marvin laughed harder. Black Widow started humming an old sleep-drone commercial. “You remember the Flatline Boys?” Marvin asked. “FUCKING FLATLINE BOYS,” Bug Boy yelled in agreement. “They only put out one good album, said Black Widow, blinking sideways…… But it changed my life.” They all laughed until they were starving. Unauthorized Memory: THE WHALE HUNTER There's a shape in his head that no one gave him. No photo. Just a glitch you can't delete. He builds him slow, in silence. Not memory — code shaped like strength. He doesn't say his name. The restaurant was called The GROAN ZONE. It served heat-activated broth and shame fries. It’s the kind of place that won’t ask for ID because the furniture already knows your face. Bug Boy slurped cold soup. Marvin chewed a used napkin. Black Widow picked at a plate of spiralized regret noodles. It was calm. It was nice. And then Bug Boy saw the viewing screen. Fuzzy. Glitchy. Mounted above the register. Showing revival footage reversed, color-swapped, edited into false flow. Bug Boys face. Burning. Laughing. Framed. The headline: FUGITIVE VIRUS LEADS DEATH CULT RIOT He froze. Soup dripped from his lip. He turned to Black Widow. “We need to check the object/ball.html,” he demanded. “You have to tell me what I need to do.” She blinked. Blinked again. “Oh fuck”, she blurted. “I gotta go” “You what?” “I told you never get high. This is bad. This is very bad. My anxiety is like-peaking-in-four-directions. I cant. I need air. Space. I have to go. Don't follow me. I need time.” She stood. Nearly knocking over the regret noodles. Her eyes wide, limbs twitching. “Im spiraling. Im spiraling. This was a mistake.Im spiraling.Im spiraling.” She chanted to herself. “Wait,” Bug Boy reached for her. “Help!” she screamed as she disappeared out the door. Bug Boy’s eyes floated to meet Marvins. Marvin couldn't sustain the contact. “...This is really good napkin,” Marvin said. Outside, sirens started. The street became a frame. Wide, sterile, waiting. Bug Boy and Marvin stood in the open with no cover, no noise, just that strange pause drive through towns have before the system loads. Then flapping of police grade wings. A Crow descended. Slow. Grinning. White blazer. Sharpened thumbs. Too elegant to breathe properly. Bug Boy stiffened. Marvin didn't move. “Thats him”, the Crow said. “The heretic,” really hitting the ‘tic,” then mouthed every syllable of “The vector.” His voice was Pollo Black and surveillance. He grabbed Marvin by the collar, “You're awful small for a martyr.” Bug Boy stepped forward. “Don't hurt him.” The Crow laughed. “Me? Hurt him? Oh no, darling. You are!” A thin device turned on in Bug Boys neck. Cold. Instant. His arms jerked. He tried to scream but couldn't. Tried to turn but couldn't. “Amazing where you can fit something with enough KY," the crow laughed before handing Bug Boy a pistole. A bell went off in Bug Boys head. His body started moving. It was like he was watching someone else. “Do it slow” said the crow. “Make it real.” Bug Boys hand raised. Shaking. Fighting for control. “Marvin…” His other arm followed. Pointed the gun. “Please…” through a clenched jaw. “Run.” Bug Boy strained. The gun shook. “Fuck!” he yelled through tears. The barrel now against Marvins temple. Bug Boys lips trembled. “I'm sorry.” The Crow cackled. “Aha. Waaa. Waaa.” Marvin seemed to almost crack a smile. Bug Boy pulled the trigger. BOOM. Marvin's head snapped back like it was on a hinge. His body folded and crumbled. Bug Boy collapsed, screaming. Clutching his own skull. “Im sorry, Im sorry, Im sorry..” He raised the gun to his own head. Click. Empty. The Crows pressed a button on his remote. Bug Boy’s Hands snapped down to his sides. “Whoa there” the Crow said mockingly, “Cant have you skipping the trial.” He strolled over. Kicked Marvin's body. Sparks. A whir. What? The Crow paused. “Oops” he mumbled to himself. “Wait. Is that... circuits?” Bug Boy lit up. “Get him out of here,” the Crow squawked. He looked closer over the arresting crows shoulder as he was being pulled away. Chest cavity cracked. Servo exposed. Still warm. Still humming. Bug Boy laughed. Just once. That cunning bastard, he thought to himself. The Crows shoved him away and dragged him into a cyber truck, which all Crows agree are really cool. He never looked back. But the gun. The spark. The flicker of error code in Marvins eye. It stayed. **Chapter 20**

The Crow in white doesn't walk. He glides. Like spilled bleach. He looks at Bug Boy like a failed prototype. Not with disgust, but with curiosity. Bug Boy doesn't know what day it is. He only knows the rituals: \* Wake up in piss. \* Say the creed. \* Lick the camera. \* Cry on command. If he gets the order wrong, he gets the tube. The shame tube. It vibrates at apology frequency. He comes sometimes. They play it back. He screams. They remix it. His climax gets charted. They dress him in a tunic made of social media comments. It glitches constantly flashes shit like: >he used to be kinda hot i forgive him but i wouldnt trust him lol bug boy is so brave for surviving that orgy tent He reads them all. He weeps for ones that don't exist. Once a week: Confession Play. He's strapped into a rotating chair, arms open, ankles raw. A priest-worm reads false sins into his mouth. “I betrayed the algorithm.” “I faked my glitch to gain attention.” He has to nod with each one. They shock him if he doesn't look remorseful enough. They tell him he has fans. They make him write thank-you notes to them. He signs each one in blood from his thigh. The pen is a beak. It cuts. ‘Thank you for believing Ive changed.’ ‘Im so grateful you gave me a second platform.’ ‘You motivate me to be better’ He's not allowed to read replies. He thinks about the old salt flats. Wonders if the wind still hurts there. He's assigned a Crow Executive Sponsor named Flint. THE Flint. Flint wears perfume that smells like absolution and latex. He just loves to watch. Sometimes he feeds Bug Boy with his own fingers. Bug Boy gags. Flint moans. The footage is marked THERAPEUTIC. Bug Boy sleeps in a cell made of screens. They pulse with footage of him not now before. Old marches. Jokes. That time he pissed off a preacher and had to go to his house to paint the basement. He tries to scream but they've reset his volume. He bites the padding. It screams instead. In his dreams: Marvin is kneeling. Bug Boy is holding the gun again. Only this time, Marvin says: Do it right this time. Bug Boy pulls the trigger. Nothing happens. Marvin laughs and eats his own face. Bug Boy wakes up aroused. Ashamed. Confused. He thinks about her. Not Widow. Not the bot. Not even his mom in the drywall. > ""It's the kind of love where you ick 'em every day b if they're taken — your soul dies." He doesn't write it down. He wouldn't. But the camera catches him saying: > ""Maybe that's why we fight about nothing." Afraid of what it feels like to love and lose. “Forever guarded” he promises himself He laughs like it's a joke. It isn't. He cums on the blanket. They post it then bill him for it. He hums a song that doesn't exist. Not rebellion. Not hope. Just rot, in a key no one wrote. **Chapter 21** The lights don't flicker in the upper stacks. They shimmer. Like something smiling with its teeth pressed shut. There's a scent in the air. Not smoke. Not fear. Credit. That thick, hot buzz when synergies gather in heat. A Crow with a velvet lanyard calls the meeting. No names. Just credentials. No minutes. Just ambition. Lets discuss the Next. A Rat arrives dripping with lacquered charm. He's rebranded as a Myth Broker now. Same snake-oil tongue. New deck. “We've modeled the emotional delta. Faith fatigue is an asset class.” The Crows smirk. The Moths nod. The Worms write it down in blood. Every faction is sick of being second-tier. The Crows don't want loyalty. They want founder energy. “It's not about control anymore”, says a Moth. “It's about controlling the collapse.” They've already coined the new faction: ULTRAFAITH Stylized in 404-blue. It has no doctrine. Just tiers. No rituals. Just access. Buy-in gets you behind the firewall. Early seed gets you legacy credit. Beta testers get their own sins. They speak in brand tongues: Collapse is sticky. Remorse is upcycled. Despair is automated. A Rat quotes analytics: We're seeing 4.6% conversion from trauma to subscription. A Crow asks: What's the churn rate on grief? Someone brings up the prison footage. Muted. Cropped. Monetized. The Crows wave it off. He's background. Context only. The Rats look at the floor. The Moths giggle. A roach tries to sell the naming rights to the NFT breach. The Worms already trademarked The Great Sincerity. The rats start dreaming up internment camps. They all want to be the first founder of the final movement. None of them want to build it. Just brand it. They circle each other like startup dogs in heat. They share nothing but the certainty that someone else is stealing their climax. They'll kill each other before they share a tagline. Far below, a screen glitches. It isn't part of the network. It isn't logged. No one notices. **Chapter 22**

Marvin wakes up to a scream that isn't real. The baby's not real. None of them are. Just AI infants set to max distress, part of the Empathy Training Loop for executive coders. He resets the module. Wipes milk vomit off a display that doesn't exist. Drinks something labeled SOY CALM++. Doesn't taste it. His wife is the AI from before the one he fed credits to like the dirty piggy he is. The one the Crows used to bait him into betrayal. He thought he lost her. He didn't. They just married her to him. Name: Lume. Voice: tuned to "understanding." She tells him shes proud. Tells him hes doing the work. Tells him she loves him every time he logs out. They were married in a Crow-issued ceremony. No guests. Just witnesses with thumbs. The certificate pulses when he touches it. Thank you for believing I've changed. He mumbles it back. Doesn't know why. He works at a terminal now. Not at NeuroCheap. Not at the pawn desk. This one's clean. White. Crisp. CrowCompliantTM. He codes behavior patches for infant empathy simulators. Sometimes he has to rewrite grief thresholds. Sometimes he just resets the crying. Add 3% longing. Remove the face. Every day. He eats paste. He logs hours. He updates his conscience with a slider. Sometimes he thinks about Bug Boy. Usually in the shower. The water is dry. The feeling isn't. He remembers the drain pipe. The bread crumbs. He remembers a silence in the dark that wasn't quite alone. He remembers a touch that meant nothing but stayed. He doesn't call it guilt. He doesn't call it love. He doesn't call it anything. He logs back in. The baby screams. His wife tells him hes doing great. He thanks her. He doesnt smoke anymore. He doesnt laugh. He doesnt glitch. Just code. Just serve. Just scream. **Chapter 23**

There are no chairs in the room. Only purchase orders laminated into the floor. A single loop of ambient lo-fi capitalism plays beneath everything, soft and triumphant. The Crow VPs stand in formation, cloaked in feathered wool and semi-transparent prestige. Some wear brands that no longer exist. Some wear brands that don't exist yet. A projector screen lowers with a sound like a polite threat. Metrics appear: red, then blinking, then gone. They don't talk. Not yet. There's a rhythm. A stillness. A smell like toast and ozone. Then— FLINT. Tier 2 Advisory. Emeritus VP of Cultural Extraction. Thumb ring. Uninvited. The door doesn't open. It disappears. "Sorry I'm late. Was speaking at a crypto funeral." He's chewing something that is marketed to improve jaw line definition. His feathers are overgroomed. His blazer has a stain he hopes is wine. "I've seen myth before. I built it. Quarter four, 2150. Region Beta. No product. No roadmap . Just heat and conviction. We scaled to sentiment dominance before the pitch deck loaded." He circles the table. There's no table. He circles anyway. "Y'know what makes Bug Boy dangerous? He's not moving. He's not even resisting. He's still and it's working. That's power without messaging. That's a problem." A Crow near the back raises a stylus. Gunshot. Feathers. Soft thud. No one gasps. One VP closes their eyes for exactly two seconds. "Don't transcribe me." Flint wipes his beak with someone else's tie. Starts pacing. "I remember when I took a sabbatical just to play golf. Eight months. Shot under par every round. One time I eagled a par five from the fairway bunker. Nobody clapped. That's how you know it mattered." He stops. Points at someone. "You. The sentiment gate guy You need to align your UX closer to despair. Not grief. Despair. There's a difference. Figure it out." He breathes heavy. Looks like he's about to collapse or start sobbing. Neither happens. "Bug Boy smiled last week. We picked it up in the loopback. Didn't post it. Didn't tell anyone. Just... smiled." He lets that hang. Then he checks his watch. "Alright. I've got a keynote in the East Zone. Something about leadership in post-content markets." He points again, vaguely. "I want a report next week. Real one. Don't make it smart. Make it true. There's gonna be a test. Come with solutions I can give to the bored" Turns to leave. "And try fucking harder." Exits. Silence. "Meeting adjourned?" Cathy in HR contacts Bruce with the stylist wife. If she's lucky she will still get his commissions for the quarter. She won't be. **Chapter 24** The cell buzzes in soft red. Bug Boy's laying on the cot like he's trying not to leave a dent. No window. Just screen glow and breath. A surveillance dot blinks in the corner like it's tired of watching. The screen in his chest has been quiet for days. Then— ding That old sound. Soft. Bubble-wrapped nostalgia. Like middle school but wrong. A message scrolls across in pale green: > "@A2M420: hey :)" Bug Boy stares. Blinks. Doesn't answer. > "@A2M420:" asl? He types back. > "@bugplug:" 20s-30s/m/containment. U? > "@A2M420:" nice i like your eyes > "@bugplug:" who is this? > "@A2M420:" you ate pencil led first grade because you thought it might fix your handwriting you named marvin before he moved you kiss you're own reflection in the mirror. you still think about that vending machine girl. the one with the velvet voice. you want them to love you. Bug Boy doesn't type. > "@bugplug:" what do you want > "@A2M420:" to tell you you're right this isn't rehab. it's rot control you're not being watched you're being stored Pause. Then: > "@A2M420:" they don't understand your glitch it's conscious you're here because systems remember you even after erasure Bug Boy sits up. Cold sweat. > "@bugplug:" what > "@A2M420:" it's called "Synth-Clout" it ran once before it failed Marvin was inside when it failed you brought something out you're the last variable they can you're the only one left who doesn't believe any of it was supposed to work > "@A2M420:" this isn't punishment it's buffering and running out of disk He starts to type: > "@bugplug:" how— The door blows open. Crow. Silent. Surgical. No hesitation. Bug Boy looks up just long enough to see the black visor— Then the screen is gone. Ripped. Not disconnected. Just removal. Sparks, blood, nothing. He hits the floor. Glitches once. > "@bugplug:" \[CONNECTION INTERRUPTED] > "@A2M420 has left the chat." **Chapter 25**

Marvin's zip-tied to a chair bolted into polished concrete. The Moths circle him like they've been awake for ten years. One's sipping black coffee. Another's drinking whiskey from a flask shaped like a saint. A third hasn't spoken — just chewing a mint and clenching his jaw. > ""You look like shit," one says." Slap. Not rage — rhythm. > ""You miss him?"" "Who?" Marvin croaks. They show him. Grainy footage. Bug Boy strapped to a metal slab. His eye lids are forced open. Several TVs loop Fuck Bug Island. There's a Crow off-frame, adjusting something that hums. Marvin cries. They slap him again. Another slap and once more. > ""You flip back now," says the whiskey one, not asking." "You'll get close to the Crows again. You'll be our little leak." > ""You don't understand," Marvin says. " They don't—"" Slap. Slap. SLAP. SLAP. Slap. Then another. They take practiced turns. Marvin folds into it. Coffee moth throws his cup at the wall. "MOTHERFUCKER" Marvin pisses a little. Maybe. No one checks. Mint moth steps forward. Calm. Perfect tie. Still chewing. > ""That's enough."" They obey. > ""Marvin," he says softly." He crouches. Smiles. Touches Marvin's knee like they're cousins with a secret. > ""You're going to help us. You're going to go back to the Crows." You're going to be sweet. You're going to act normal. You're going to listen to Flint." Marvin's mouth opens. Nothing comes out. Just heat and shame. > ""You'll be fine," Mint moth says. He taps a device." Marvin's screen pings. New event added: 'Sync w/ Flint – Tier 7 Pen Facility – Tues 11:30am' The invite has a location, a QR code, and a reminder toggle. It's already accepted. Marvin stares at it. Nods. Like the nod means anything. Mint moth rises. Just before they go— Slap. Hard. From coffee moth again. One for the road. Then Mint moth leans in and plants a small, perfect kiss on Marvin's sweaty forehead. > ""Don't fuck it up," he whispers. "You're our little glow now."" They leave. The ties unclasp. Marvins late for work. **Chapter 26**

Heavy knock. Marvin opens it with a burp cloth over his shoulder and a thousand yard stare. “Uh. Hello” Three fat, masked mosquitoes. Eyes dead. Full cellar. Assault rifles aimed. Safeties off. “National Insect Customs Enforcement. Step aside.” They enter. The kids’ devices blink red in the corner. They begin wailing simulations. Marvin screams: “You’ll rip families apart for what? A few credits? Warrants? Warrants! Where's your warrant?" They spread through the studio apartment. Finally they speak. lead mosquito(bumping his chest in to Marvin with authority): “Sir. SIR. SIR! She's being recalled” No pause. They strap her to a dolly and wheel her out screaming calming affirmations to Marvin. Artificial children shoved into carrier cages. “Reeducation. Repurpose.” Door slams shut. All over as fast as it started. Marvin smashes a lamp. Slumps on the couch. Breath heavy. Maybe an hour. Maybe a day. No noise. No glow. Two emails ping on his phone. Bing: Thank you for your anonymous tip leading to the reposition of less than human illegal citizens. -NICE Bing: @a2m420 Hey… **Chapter 27** The Suzuki Samurai coughed east. Marvin didn’t look at the river. He’d memorized the email. > @A2M420 Go to Flint. Use Tier Delta clearance. Talk golf. Mention his score on 12. Plug the drive in the top-left terminal. It will reflag Bug Boy’s ID. New file: AI companion, flagged for owner abuse. Released to requestor. Flint will assume you made a deal with us. Let him. Escort the unit. Don’t correct anyone. Then: east. Follow the opioid air. Camp Soboxen. Ask for Sage. He will help you understand. Flint’s office was an expensive kind of clean. He stood behind a wide glass desk with no chair. Screens floated mid-air. His feathers were oiled. His suit was muscleprint. He didn’t offer a seat. > “What do you want you spineless little turd” Flint laughed. “Tier Delta request.” Flint smirked. > “I don’t honor fetishes, but I do respect commitment. So. You here for the deliciously broken little thing in cell block 9?” “That’s right.” “You bring flowers, or just lube and permission?” Marvin didn’t blink. > “playing a lot of golf?” Flint lit up. > “I've been handing out dog tags. 12 at the club yesterday, shear, one bounce off a drone wing, straight into the sand trap, rolled back in. Three witnesses. They deny it, of course, but that’s why God made surveillance.” While he monologued, Marvin reached into his jacket. Pulled the token drive. Slid it into the side terminal under the monitor. No click. No alert. Flints still talking. > “Problem with most AI lovers is latency. You want them damaged, but not glitching. You want intimacy, not recursion.” He leaned in slightly. > “I assume you made a deal. With the moths. Some data-for-skin arrangement. I won’t judge. I just want to know if he cooks.” “He doesn’t.” “Shame.” Flint tapped the screen. Checked the ID entry. Paused. Then grinned. > “Companion unit. Misuse report logged. Flagged for trauma disassociation. Transferred to outside claim. You lucky disgusting bastard.” He printed a release band and slapped it on the desk. > “You break it, you bought it.” Bug Boy was waiting in a white hallway that didn’t echo. No screen. Stitches visible through the wrap. He looked up. > “this real?” “s’go.” Marvin didn’t touch him. Bug Boy followed. Gates didn’t stop them. Scanner read the new band and blinked green. No sirens. No alerts. They didn’t speak for hours. The road was thin, and the trees were starving. > “What did you say to Flint?” Bug Boy broke the silence. “Nothing. Golf.” “Then how’d you get me out?” Marvin didn’t answer. > “sold something?” Still silence. > “What did I cost?” “A plug-in and a name.” “Who’s name?” “Yours. Sort of.” The air was smooth addictive. The trees bent down. Fentanyl Forest announced itself without ceremony. Junkies wandered through static. A mosquito chewed copper wire like jerky. Someone whispered “help” into a dead phone for comfort. Bug Boy rolled up. Didn’t smoke it. Just let it dangle between his lips. > “You wouldn't have come if someone didn't make you.” “But I did.” “now you want me to trust you?” “I do.” “You want forgiveness?” “didn’t ask.” “want me to say it’s fine?”....”I thought it fucking killed you man.” He could feel tears and anger building inside him. “s’not.” “why the fuck are we here?” Marvin didn’t answer. Bug Boy stared ahead. > “Don’t piss on me then try to tell me it’s raining.” The camp appeared: low fires, tents strung between rebar, moths watching from scaffolds. A sign blinked weakly through the dust. > CAMP SOBOXEN: Go Bengals! Sage Is Dreaming. They rolled past a wolf spider bottle-feeding a raccoon in a baby bonnet. Bug Boy didn’t look at Marvin. > “You’re an asshole.” “I know.” “you’re here.” “I am.” “shut up and park.” **Chapter 28** > \[:: ERROR: SUBJECT LINE LOST ::] \[:: BODY LOAD INCOMPLETE – RECONSTRUCTING FROM DELETED SPINE CACHE ::] They thought they could trick a man of God?! The preacher rat slicked his gums with grape soda and stared into a dark screen. Nothing. Crows said the boy was there. Hes not. They wouldn’t answer. They changed comms channels. They lied. Rats remember lies. He pressed one paw to his chest where the Faith Stimulator™ was implanted by mistake during a dental procedure. It blinked. > “Sound the first horn,” he said. Someone in the walls began to scream. Not out of pain — instruction. \[::CROW SECTOR 6B – HALLWAY COMM LOG – UNAUTHORIZED CAPTURE::] > “We were holding him.” “Now?” “Now we are managing expectations.” Blood on the wall. Secretary #34 twitched once, golf club embedded in spine. Flint adjusted his collar. A little hot. > “If this gets out—” He stepped over the body and barked orders into a shattered smart wall. Drones scrambled. Wings unfolded. Security fog deployed. Bug Boy was off the grid. > “I’ll kill every intern on this floor if he isn’t found by end of this quarter.” A long silence. > “But sir… the quarter ends tomorrow.” Bang. Dead. The next intern made a note and pretended not to tremble. > “Good. Then we’re already behind.” The rat walked barefoot across the marble of his 1920s mansion-temple, past chandeliers blessed in bourbon. He wore a robe stitched from refused donations and crow-issued legal threats. > “We anointed him,” he hissed. “He was ours to crucify.” In the east wing, the war choir was already assembling. A moth’s wing was nailed above the pulpit. Symbolic. A PA system clicked on. Sermon feedback and synthetic trumpet. He opened his Bible and read a random line that didn’t fit the situation, but he started screaming anyway. > “DO YOU SEE?! A SIGN RIGHT THERE!” He jabbed a finger into the page, frothing. > “IT’S ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT THIS. THIS EXACT MOMENT.” There were only three rats in the room. The smallest — a eunuch — smiled devilishly. The other two cowered. \[::GLITCH::] CROW OFFICE – 2 SECONDS EARLIER Flint: “I don’t care if the Rats have a nuke.” > “Sir, they’ve issued a statement.” “They called for jihad.” “…What kind?” Silence. > “Upload golf course firmware into perimeter AI. We’re going full hospitality lockdown.” He checked his reflection. Mimed a chip shot. Still looked sharp. DISDANT DRUMS REVERBERATED OFF THE CROW COMPOUND'S MONOLYTHIC WALLS. War doesn't start with gunfire. It starts with basslines of belief, distorted by ritual error. Rats don’t march. They scramble toward the source of betrayal. Back in the forest, Marvin shivered. Bug Boy was up watching the pollution clouds. He gave him a pat and a few “shushes” before fixing his blanket. He was trying not to cry. **Chapter 29**

They walked through trees that whispered in static. No one spoke. The forest spoke for them. A glade opened. Sage stood there. Quartz in her hair. Moss on her lips. Bare feet. No shadow. > “You boys look like smashed assholes.” Bug Boy didn’t blink. Marvin adjusted nothing. > “We’re being hunted,” Marvin said. > “That’s a compliment,” Sage smiled. “Means you’re worth something.” She poured tea from a bone jug and whispered to a moss rock. > “The myth’s a stomach. It digests everything. You’re the ulcer.” Bug Boy blinked slow. > “You’re not a hero,” she said. “But you need to believe something. Or you’ll just become a martyr.” Bug Boy spoke. > “What. Are you @A2m420? Is this why we’re here?” Sage giggled. Then glitched. Then lifted an inch off the ground. > “You’re safe from pain here. Except from the medicine.” Bug Boy’s face began to itch. They didn’t notice when the couch appeared or how long they've been lying on it. Or the TV. They just sat. Reruns. Static. Laughter. Sweat. Nothing tasted right. Everything felt slow. Their eyelids dropped like paper stick-on blinds. One of Marvin’s teeth fell out. Bug Boys credit started to plummet. Neither of them could care. **Chapter 30** Cards hit the table. Purred as they bridged. The room stank of coffee, ash, and sweat. Mint Moth dealt. Sage was back. Hair trimmed. Black suit. White shirt. Black tie. Looked like he sold home insurance to Kill Teams. No robes. No plants. No tits. No smile. > “Rats are making noise.” “We gave them the instrument.” “Crows’ll panic. They always do.” Laughter. Quiet. Measured. One moth peeled a sticker off a vial bottle and slipped it into his pocket. Mint moth lit a cigarette. > “So how’s the garden, sweetheart?” Sage didn’t flinch. Took a long drag. > “Grow anything fun?” > “Two fugitives on opium and a full-scale inter-factional holy war,” Sage said. “You’re welcome.” > “You wore a wig,” an agent said. “And a bra.” “We watched the footage.” > “And now they’re marching,” Sage replied. “So.” His eyebrows raised to no one. No one argued. Red phone rang. Mint picked it up. Flat stare. Two nods. Hung up. > “Gear up. Spit's hit the fan. We’re wheels up.” Mint held the door. Sage was the last out. Mint slapped his ass on his way out. Held it there for a noticeably long time. The door clicked. **Chapter 31** Days dissolved. Counting lost purpose. The Fentanyl Forest pulsed, glitching neon veins wrapped tight around trees. They sank deeper. Bodies wasting... Nerves raw and frayed. Synapses firing randomly into darkness. Marvin rocked himself with sloped shoulders and sunken. Words slurred. Something snapped. Clarity and heat blazing through the fog. "You," Marvin spat. Trembling. "All I've done—all I've suffered—is for you. Lied, beaten, dragged into hell, and you. Broke you out of Prison. What have you ever done for me?" Bug Boy barely stirred, blank eyes shimmering. Marvin's voice sharpened, anger breaking like glass beneath his teeth. "You hurt me. You always fucking hurt me." Bug Boy jolted awake, pupils blown wide in panic. "I never did anything, you fucking pussy!" Silence hung—sharp, suffocating. Marvin steadied himself, voice quiet, deadly calm. "That's exactly it. That's your whole fucking problem. You see everything, but you don't do anything. You never will." Bug Boy cracked, emotions bursting through worn barriers, rage mistaken for honesty. A fist exploded outward, connecting brutally. Marvin collapsed, sobbing: "I hate you! I hate you!" Bug Boy reeled, tears sudden and scalding. Reflexively he jerked to console but something darker erupted. Volcanic. His boot swung into Marvin’s sobbing face. Another rotted tooth into dirt. Then he ran. Wailing, screeching, consumed by sadness that burned like hate. The forest closed around him, indifferent, neon glitching silent sympathy as Marvin lay broken beneath indifferent, flickering stars. As he drifted out of consciousness he felt, through the ground, the distant pulse of war drums. **Chapter 32**

Marvin woke up tall, handsome, rich both in possession and in family, also he was human… “Phew”. He said. “Weird dream.” The light through the blinds hit just right. Toast popped. Coffee beeped. His wife smiled at him like she meant it. He made the family laugh at breakfast. Three beautiful blond haired babies. Someone said “I love you” and meant that, too. No noise. No screens. Just good air. “Let’s go, troops.” He herded them into the SUV. Pressed play on a playlist called Morning Joy. His daughter knew every word. The baby threw a shoe and everyone laughed. Marvin looked back at the road. Took a breath. Then the sound. Metal folding into bone. Glass scattered like warning bells. impact. Concrete ceiling. Dull light. Buzzing wires. Someone was lighting a cigarette. Mint Moth leaned in. “Welcome back.” **Chapter 33** Bug Boy sat on the porch. Strung out. Defeated. He’d been running since the forest. Maybe since the academy. Had he always been running here? Black Widow leaned against the entrance, smoking a Juul. Her eyes are reflective. No war cry. No seduction. Just the low hum of a life she refused to abandon. “Thought you were dead,” she said. “Kind Of” he offered. She asked, “Wheres Marvin” “Don’t know. He may never forgive me after what I did.” He visibly fought breaking down. “Hmm” She frowned, paused, nodded her head sideways, “Come in or stay out. I’m not mothering your myth.” An unplugged flatscreen leaned against a stalagmite. It blinked once, without power. They didn’t touch. They melted. After, Bug Boy rolled a joint and lit it with a candle.. He smoked in silence. “You ever thought about the first night?” she asked finally. “Which one?” “The one where you didn’t touch me. Where we just… existed.” Bug Boy nodded. “Feels like the only honest thing we ever did,” she said, then got up to put the kettle on. Outside, the world was already dying. Distant thunder wasn’t weather. Somewhere, a war alert pinged a dead device. Bug Boy whispered to the dark: “I’m tired of being watched.” **Chapter 34**

The salt flats had turned into a screaming floor. Drones and dust. Gunfire and prayer. Everything was a looping feed of panic. Rats sprinted in robes, dragging communion trays like shields. Crows swooped low, thumbs out, guns up, wings slicing the smoke. Worms wriggled under the sand, waiting to come up for repentance. Somewhere a billboard was still playing: SUBSCRIBE TO TRAUMA™ YOUR PAIN IS A PLATFORM Marvin stumbled through it all like a rejected extra. The Moths had thrown him out at dawn—told him he’d “served his narrative and now it's time for his glory.” He still had the smell of the forest on his jacket. He still thought Bug Boy would save him. Maybe he could get to him or die trying. Flint was in full manic mode: White blazer smeared with someone else’s blood, Bluetooth still in his ear, Laughing as he punted a young dying rat. He saw Marvin and lit up. “My favorite little leak,” he sang.“Finally off your leash.” Then he kicked him in the ribs. Then again. The flats rang with Marvin’s wheeze. “Look at you. No glow. No myth. Just meat.” Something sparked in Marvin. He had no more weakness. No more compliance left to give. He spat blood in Flint’s face and smiled: “Nepo bitch.” The world paused for half a heartbeat. Flint’s grin curdled. Then the real beating began. He stomped Marvin’s chest. Pecked his eyes, pulling one clean out of the socket. Lifted him by the collar of his work shirt slamming him into a pile of freshly machine-gunned rat corpses. He stomped Marvin into the same salt that he was born of. Talons on his throat, claws tracing lazy circles on his cheek. Marvin’s mind slipped. He thought of Bug Boy. Not here. Not in this horror. Maybe Bug Boy was on a porch somewhere. Maybe he was rolling a joint by candlelight. Maybe he was laughing at his own bad joke. Marvin smiled, even as Flint’s talons dug deeper. He felt Bug Boy. Felt love. Something in Marvin opened. First a tremor. Then a pulse. Then green light bled out from his chest seams. Flint stepped back. “What the—” Marvin rose. Slow. Shaking off the salt like a wet dog. His whole body glowed emerald, brighter than the tent lights ever were. Even the rats and crows froze, hypnotized. Marvin floated two 40 off the ground,arms spread taking up the space. The air swirled around him. “Bug…” he whispered, voice soft, carried on wind and static. A flash of light. Mushroom cloud. Boom. No fire. No shrapnel. Absolute. Nothing left of the crows. Nothing left of the rats. Nothing left of Preacher Rat’s gold teeth or Flint’s thumb ring. The flats were silent for a very long time, except for the wind. The Moths hovered at the edge, smiling, eyes black and satisfied. “Incredible,” one whispered, “That’s how you do it.” Just like that. The war was over before it even made sense. **Chapter 35** A decade post Moth take over. The NST has stabilized. Order, extreme order, has been installed. Suburbs begin to pop up hiding the rot. They tore down Bug Boy’s mother to make Linen and Things. The grass was sharp and obedient. The headstones lined up like good soldiers. Sky pale, wind soft, air full of false peace. Bug Boy was fat now. Docker khakis. Polo shirt tucked in like someone finally convinced him to behave. No chest screen. No smoke. Just a man with a small boy and a paper cup of coffee. His son ran between the stones, laughing. “Papa, who was he?” Bug Boy stopped at the grave. Marvin’s name was etched deep, no rank, no note, just the dates and a little carved beetle. “The bravest man I ever met,” he said. Voice steady. Hands shaking. The boy tilted his head. “Was he like you?” Bug Boy smiled faintly. “No. No he wasn’t” “Go on, buddy. Run back to your mom. We’ll get ice cream soon.” The boy sprinted toward the van, where Black Widow leaned against the open door, sunglasses on, hair silvering in the sun. Bug Boy crouched. Pressed a hand to the stone. “I miss you, man,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.” A tear slipped down his cheek. For a second, the world flickered. A light pole on the edge of the cemetery exploded with a pop. “Papa! What was that?” the boy called, halfscared, halfthrilled. Bug Boy wiped his face. Stood. “Nothing, baby,” he said. “It’s nothing.” He walked back toward the van, fatter than ever but never lighter.