July 12:

Runt quit his new job! Me and Gratch get angry at each other and there is lots of shouting. Runt thinks Delta Platoon needing a Boss-man who can get things done. Gratch disagrees, and thinks Boss-men be no good for nothing, that Delta Platoon will be the first platoon ever to work without a Boss-man.

Runt is starting to think new things about Gratch. Gratch be mega-mean, but he be super cool at the same time. He is mean because he wants Delta to be the coolest, he wants all the Boss-men to look at Delta Platoon and go “whoa, they be the coolest warboys who ever been born!” And that means Delta Platoon gotta do things that no Platoon has ever done before.

This is a neat idea, and Runt has never thought of this before. But Boss-Men run everything! In order to get things done, Delta needs a Boss-man who can figure out all the weird things that Boss-men do!

But Gratch still disagrees. He says Boss-men never be caring about Warboys, and having a Boss-man run the platoon is a bad idea because he will send warboys to fight and die for no reason at all! I tell him this is not true. Raspy come and save me, and Raspy be a Boss-man. Not all Boss-men be the same. We gotta find us a Boss-man who cares, like Raspy does.

July 14:

Runt was reading his super cool book he got from the Liberry Man, and found out something mega-neat-super-special-awesome. So, like, the Dark Knight, he be trying to cross this bridge, right? But somebody won't let him cross. This somebody, he be a Warboy! But not like a normal warboy, it was way, way back when ever'body called Warboys “Trolls”.

So, Dark Knight says “Gotta cross the bridge, Troll.” And troll says “Nope, my bridge, you can't use it.” And Runt understands this because nobody likes other people using their stuff. But Dark Knight says “I really really need to use your bridge.” Dark Knight is mega pushy. Runt knows exactly how this is, Boss Men can be super mean and pushy sometimes. But troll is all like “Nope. Go 'way. Find another bridge, this one's mine.” This is the first time Runt has ever heard of a Warboy telling a Boss Man he can't do something.

So the Dark Knight and the Troll get into a super nasty fight. Dark Knight does all sorts of hurt to the troll. First he pokes him with a spear, which is kinda like a long pointy stick I guess. But the spear breaks while it is inside the troll, so Dark Knight gotta pull out his sword, which is like one of our knives, only bigger and meaner. But the Troll got's a heavy stick and a shield. No matter how many times Dark Knight hits this troll, he does not give up. And this fight goes on so long that the Dark Knight can't even lift his sword no more. He is all super tired, and the troll is covered in red lines where the Knight hit him with his sword.

But the Dark Knight has seen how hard this troll fights, and he don't want to fight no more. Dark Knight thinks this troll is so cool, he wants to give him money and patch him up so he gets better soon. And so Dark Knight says “I surrender” and wraps the troll in bandages. So Dark Knight gives food and bandages to the troll.

This book has taught Runt a lesson: always fight, and never give up. Sometimes the fight is long and hard, but if you fight long enough you can make anything happen. You can even make mega-pushy Boss Man give up.

The Troll's name is Steelface Rockfist, and I think all warboys oughtta know his name. Boss Men have always said that if a Warboy is cool enough, ever'body should know who he is and what he did. And Runt thinks that Steelface Rockfist is the coolest warboy I know.

July 15:

So much stuff has happened today that it is gonna take mega-long to write it all down. But stuff is so important, I gotta write it. Is my job as “Record keeper”.

Runt went to the factory to see Rotface again. Rotface says he cannot see me while he is working, so I gotta wait till later. Rotface promises to take me to the temple, where all the zombies get together and sing about this super-great guy named The Lich King.

And on the way back to the barracks, I hear this mega-cool sound. It be all like bibbity-boppidy-bash-crash-bang-slam! Only it be a whole lot cooler than Runt makes it sound. And the noise be coming from this boss-man who is hitting buckets with sticks. And I be like be all like “Super cool sound ya makin' Boss man. Make Runt feel like dancin!” 'Cuz it does. And he looks at me with a big smile and says thanks, says it be called Drummin. And I say “Your platoon gotta love the sound you make with your buckets” And he looks down and says “Well, I don't have a platoon.” And I say “Whatcha got then, Boss man?” And he says “Parents.” And I say “Well, parents gotta be dancing all the time then.”

But he says his parents don't like his bucket sounds. And I ax why not. And he says “Cuz it's not a real job.” And I says “They want you to get money?” And he says yes. And I say “Can't ya make money by hitting buckets and makin' neat sounds? Is super neat sounds you can make.” And he says “Naw, I only got buckets. I don't even have real drums.” And Runt thinks about this and ax's what drums are, which are kinda like special buckets that make even cooler sounds. And he says “Would you like to get money for your drums, Boss man?” And Boss man says yes. And I says “You ever think about going to Megacorp to get yourself the super neat clothes and the super cool guns and a whole platoon of Warboys to make money?”

And he says “Oh no. Ain't no way I could ever do that.” And I ax why not, 'cuz you can make mega lotsa money buy doing the search work and fighting Good Boys and shootin' Good Guys and blowin' up buildings that need to get blow'd up. And he says “But what if I took a bunch of warboys like you into a fight and one of you died? Is that not super sad?”

At first Runt is so surprised about this, he doesn't know what to say.

And Runt looks to his 9 o'clock. Nobody there. And Runt looks to his 3 o'clock. Nobody there. And Runt checks his 6. Nobody there either. Nobody here but me and this boss man. And I lean in close, and I say real quiet “You don't like it when Warboys get shot?” And he says “No! 'Course I don't like it when Warboys get shot!” And I look around to make absolutely sure no other boss men be listening. And I say “But Warboys be made to go into the super dangerous, mega scary places so Boss men don't have to get shot. Is it not better that a Warboy gets shot instead of a boss man? Aren't boss men supposed to be more important than us warboys?” And he says he does not think this is true. Or that he is not sure it is true. And I ax him what makes him not-sure. And he says “Megacorp always be telling ever'body that warboys is stupid. Megacorp keep telling us that you warboys no smarter than dogs and cats. But no dog or cat I ever met can talk to me like you can. No dog or cat I ever met wears clothes or uses guns, either.”

And Runt thinks about this, because the Big Screen says this: Says Warboys and their simpleness means they are not as cool as boss-men, so it is not so important that we warboys die. But then I think about something else: Warboys made to die. Boss-men make warboys to fight. So isn't it wrong if we don't fight? We warboys be made for a special reason. And that reason is to protect our boss-men. To not-fight seems kinda mean. Like, dumb little Runt would not even be here if Boss-men did not use their super special awesome Glass Boxes to make him.

Seems like what we do is cool, and to not fight means that lotsa boss-men would die. Now, some boss men seem super mean and mega not-cool. But Runt would never want to kill a boss-man. That just seems too mean. And not-fighting means boss men would die. So if I didn't fight when I could have, and some boss men died, would it mean that I helped kill those boss men? It kinda feels like it does.

And so I ask the drummin' boss man about all these things. And he keeps saying the same thing: I dunno. Ever'thing I ax, he be all like “I dunno.” Runt is gonna have to think about this more.

The drumming boss man says that I am really smart to think about all these things. And Runt feels super proud. But then boss man tries to tell me his name, and Runt has to cover his ears mega-quick like to make sure he don't hear this. I also yell. Helps me make sure I cannot hear his name.

This is one of the first things that the Big Screen tells us, is that Warboys is never ever EVER supposed to know their boss-men's names! Is super not-cool. 'Cuz if the Good Boys catch you, they have ways of making you talk about the things you know. This is why we warboys is NEVER supposed to have names, why Runt is not Runt, he is Unit 147 of Delta platoon!

And I gotta explain all this stuff to the boss man. If a Good Guy ever caught Runt, Runt would never ever want to tell the Good Guys this cool boss man's name. Means they would track him down and kill him dead. I cannot know a boss man's name, where he lives, who he knows. I can't ever know NOTHING about boss men. And it would be super super sad if a really cool boss man like this died 'cuz Runt was caught and made to talk.

And Boss Man ax's me about all this stuff. He says “Warboys have no names?” And I says “Nope. No names. We got numbers. I am 147 of Delta Platoon.” And he says that it is super cool to know me. And I tell him that it is super cool to know him, and that I wish he was running Delta Platoon. And he ax if the Boss man running my platoon is as cool as he is. And I tell him that Unit 263 is running our platoon, and that no boss man is in our platoon. I tell him how our platoon will be the coolest ever because it is not run by a boss man. He says that it is super cool, and that he hopes our platoon does mega good in the fight.

And I remember that we have such a hard time getting to the fight. And so I pull out ma little slip of paper and say “Boss man, we aint been able to get to the fight 'cuz no whoosh birds will take us there. I cannot figure out why. Can you read this and tell me what we did wrong?” and he says sure. And he looks at the little slip a paper. And he says “I know what's wrong.” And I says “You do?” And he says “This little slip of paper says you supposed to board a flight next year. Not July 10 this year. July 10 next year.” And I shout and I stamp my feet and I about to start crying.

A whole year!?! We cannot wait that long! We are gonna not get paid, we gonna run outta food, we gonna get thin and bony and we gonna starve!

And Boss man ax whats wrong. And I tell him all this. And he says he can prolly fix it if he really tries. And so he comes with me to the Airfield, which is the place all Whoosh birds and the Whoppa Choppas be flying. it took so long to get to the airfield and back again. We was walking and walking and walking more! And we get there. And he goes to talk to some other boss men, and he hands me a little slip of paper that is for this year on July 30. So we got fifteen days to get ready for our whoosh bird. This was a super-cool-mega-awesome-special thing that this boss man has done for me! Like, Gratch and them won't even let me have a little bit of food if I ax all nicety-nice. But this boss man has walked aaaall the way from his house to the airfield and help Runt without Runt even really askin! So now I know what I needs to do. This boss man has GOT to become our boss man. Boss man super nicety-nice even to warboys he don't even know. So we gotta make him our boss man. Runt gotta find a way to make it happen.

Gratch says that we cannot have a boss man. But I gotta make him see how different this boss man is. This boss man is like Raspy, always caring and making sure Warboys get what they need. I found this Boss-man drummin at a place on Ghost Street, outside a little shop that sells chow for boss-men, and I am writing it down here so I can find him again.

Later:

So I go to the temple with Rotface. Rotface says it is really nice that I go to the temple with him, because most people ain't wanna learn about the Lich King or what he says. Runt feels a little bad about this, and says he only going because their ain't nothing to be doing at the barracks except drink booze, smoke smokes, and play cards. And since Runt doesn't like doing nothing like that, he just coming with Rotface 'cuz Rotface is cool.

Rotface tells me this is fine and A-ok. So we go to the temple, where all the zombies are. And this boss man all in black gets up in front of all of us and starts talkin. And he says lotsa stuff about the Lich King. Too much stuff for Runt to write down here in his little book. The whole talk be really complicated, but Rotface let me know the really simple Warboy version, which I will write here.

Most of it is about how people once built a big old building for the Lich to live in. This big building was super fancy with shiny metal and statues and cool stuff. But the Lich said this be a huge, ginormous waste of money because the Lich doesn't really need a place to live. And so the Lich King said that maybe the money could have been used to buy food for the super skinny thin people. Or maybe it could have been used buy clothes for those people out there who are really cold at night. Or it could have been used for people who ain't got no houses, and used to build a bunch of smaller, simpler buildings for people to live in. But instead they had wasted it on a mega fancy building that wouldn't do nothing for nobody because the Lich wouldn't be able to live in it anyways.

Then the Boss man in black stop talking, and all the zombies get up and start singing. And then we get in Rotface's four-wheel and we go to his little house, and I get to meet his family. He got another zombie he calls his “Wife”, and the wife's name is Pusgut. He also got a little zombie he calls his “Son” who is named Plaguefoot. Plaguefoot was super excited to show me a project he been working on. He wants to make his own big-track to use in Megacorp's big game to fix it's problem of getting stuff from one place to another. Runt sees this, and he remembers his ideas with the pacas. So I ax Plaguefoot where to go to get into this big game that megacorp be havin'. He says he can take me, but he does not think that pacas will work.

If pacas do work or don't work, Runt now needs to find some pacas. 'Cuz pacas be great for carryin' stuff. And even our big-tracks cannot get up those mountains. I will show Plaguefoot he is wrong, that big-tracks is not cool for carryin' things up mountains. And I gotta do it before we go to the fight.

Log of Giles Consus #2:

When the first one came out of the vats, he fell face first onto the floor, and I ran forward to check vital signs. I turned him over. At some point I was kind of cradling his head in my hands as I was trying to check pulse on his wrist. And that's when his gills first opened up and he breathed his first breath.

Up until this point, it was all just kind of this project. A project like any other project. I was told to make a product to fit a need. I was to make the product on commission and I would be paid and that was the end of it.

That....hold on...I-I... just...I need a minute to myself.

{Pause log}

{Log Resume}

That moment when he took his first breath....he stopped being just a product. He was no longer just Fifth Batch, Tank 13, Test Subject Alpha 72. He was...he was alive. And at no point during this whole procedure had I really thought through the consequences of my actions. I was bringing a life into this world. Suddenly a number on a bottle of some protein solution became a person with a face.

And we had kind of planned for this. Sort of. We had planned that they would keep a number instead of a name to keep us from becoming too attached. And let me tell you that that plan didn't work at all. I couldn't pretend he was a number. I couldn't pretend he was just a product. He was a person. And that was the end of it.

Suddenly these huge moral questions came into play. This was how he was born, but how was he going to die? I would be handing this...person....this child....my child....a weapon. And he was going to have to kill people. And he was going to have to watch them die. And he was going to have to watch others of his kind die. And for what? For some money in my pocket book?

What reasons would he be sent to fight? After all, the entire premise of the project was an affordable, disposable army. He could be bought and used to fight for any number of purposes. He could be the future instrument of genocide, for all I knew.

And at that moment, I knew I couldn't let that happen. The project and my pocket book and my job and the rest of it could all burn, for all I cared.