HFTH - Episode 213 - Disconnects
Content warnings for this episode include: Body Horror, Static, Spiders
Intro - Rude Awakening
NIKIGNIK
You were born, like many, in the final hour of your era. It was too late to grow old. The age of economy and finance and travel barely noticed you on its way out. You were born, wide-eyed and wondering, into a corpse of a world. And when you were only six months old, you were carried by your mother, waiting in a days-long line, out of the pounding black rain and into a dream. You did not understand why they were taking you away from your mother when they separated you, promising that you would see each other again soon. You were placed in a small metal box, padded comfortably, and alive with wires, and you screamed as they put you alone in it, screamed as it all went dark, screamed as they turned the dials. And then you were silent. You were smiling. You were dreaming. And in your dream you dreamed that you and your mother had stepped into a beautiful new world, one that shone with a thousand colors. Cities, richly painted by the shared imagination of a loving community. Skies bluer than you had ever seen. A fairytale, interrupted frequently by messages from the gentle overseers at the Botulus Corporation. And in the Prime Dream, you grew up.
You quickly learned that the places that your mother liked to spend her time—memories of cafes and streets and parks that you had never seen—were boring. You, on the other hand, found your calling in Azuria. A realm of mystery, filled with forests of blooming mushrooms and enchanted weapons—but also, as you came to learn, full of level 44 Ogrekin and shrieking packs of Level 2 goblins, and from then your path was certain. You spent twenty years of your life not as Mandy Monroe, but as Mandellia Mistfoot, Walker of Cloud Realms and Dark Lands. You drank ale with feral dwarves, sheltered from the Wrakath Monsoons in a small cavern. You wandered the Labyrinth of Beralt and joined in a forty-warrior fight to defeat the minotaur lord Polyminos, with his one eye and many crowns. You met Marco T Guard, a human fighter who was vastly underlevelled compared to you, and you fell in love for two entire season passes, and you fought many battles side by side, and wandered in shrouded glades together.
But Marco T Guard talked about his real life. He said that he only dreamed sometimes; that he was a Botulus Corporation employee. That he worked outside of the dream as a security officer in Box Andromeda in a far-off place called California. And that was where it began, for you, when he talked about the world beyond the Prime Dream and you realized that it was a world you had never explored, and you never would. You had not thought about how your infant body had been shuttled from one Dreaming Pod to the next to accommodate your growth; how you were intubated so that the water flowed in and out of you, how you had eyes and hands and legs that were not at all like the powerful ones in your dream, because they were wasting away, unused. You thought about those things now. You thought about them all the time.
And then the power shut off one day.
It was very brief. Less than a minute, perhaps, was all the time that the power was off at Box Aries. And yet, for you, the dream died, and you were swallowed up by blackness.
You opened your eyes for what felt like the first time in years. Your Dreaming Pod’s emergency release activated, and you sat up, and removed the visor from your head. You felt nauseous. You could barely see. But in the dim red lights, serenaded by the blaring emergency alarms, you finally saw yourself, half-naked, dripping with wires and sensor pads.
And that your swollen legs were covered in odd, bumpy ridges. You stared at them, and they twitched. One opened, flashing tiny teeth within. And then they all opened, lips and teeth of a hundred tiny mouths chattering. You screamed, and pulled your visor back on as the power returned, and the wild woods of Azuria came flooding back to you. You collapsed against a stone, weeping, and checked your legs beneath your leather boots and your green tunic again and again. No mouths, no teeth to be seen. Your legs were perfectly normal.
But your brain was touched by a chill of terror. Because out there, you knew, your legs, your real legs, were not perfectly normal. Something was wrong. Had you been born that way? What could have gone wrong? You knew that only one person in your circles held any information about the outside world, and so you began a message to Marco T Guard, asking him about the phenomenon your mother had mentioned, that he had alluded to: the black water.
Your message was not delivered.
You were confused. You had never in your life seen the red text that appeared to float in your vision, hovering over your message. You tried to send your message again, and then again. Each time the message popped up. Could he have blocked you? Why?
You tried your mother, asking if she had time to talk, and you almost hoped that the same error would apply. Maybe disconnecting and rejoining the dream had caused some strange permissions issue with your account. But your message to her went through. And she said frantically that she had been about to message you, that the power had gone out, that she had woken up, that she had seen something horrific. And you responded in kind, and you talked more that day with her than you had in many years.
And in the day that followed, you began to realize three truths.
The first was that everyone in Box Aries had woken up, and many, many of them had something wrong. None had the particular flavor of leg-mouths that you had, but legs, gills, tentacles, fingers, eyes, arms and teeth in strange places seemed to be recurring themes. It was the water filtration system, they were saying. Something was wrong with it. It had been spoon-feeding you the black rains for twenty years, seeping quietly through your veins, changing the flesh you had before.
The second was that Box Aries had been cut off. You could only dream with or message those who were also in Box Aries. Anyone outside, like Marco T Guard, you could no longer contact. And this meant, of course, that Box Aries had been disconnected from the Prime Dream and put on an isolated mirror. You could feel the effects of this everywhere that you went. Azuria’s will itself bent around yours, because in the Prime Dream, there were thousands of gamers in your tier whose adventures and experience level the dream could respond to. Within Box Aries alone, you were a god among peasants, and an Azuria that could be tamed by you was one that lost its charm. More foreboding a question, though, was why? Why would the Botulus Corporation cut off Box Aries?
And then thirdly, of course, there was that you could not wake up. You tried to find any way to disconnect again, the way you had when the emergency alarm had gone off. But there was none. The ‘Would you like to wake up?’ menu option only led to a customer service line which put you into a chat with the AI Boxy, who remained cheerful and unhelpful and, if asked three times, would say it was going to connect you with a real human representative and then nothing would happen. And then it...
Ah. Dreamer, I believe I am about to get a visitor. Perhaps it can be delayed. I am still in the middle of th—
sound of a calamity, followed by long silence
Dreaming of America: The Mandy Monroe Story
MANDY MONROE
Welcome to the Mandy Monroe story. This program is made possible by Botulus Corporation Dreamcasting technology. I personally would like to thank Lady Ethel Mallory for being an inspiration in the world of Dreamcasting. After all, she was the one who sold us all the dream. But we’ll get to Lady Ethel Mallory. Gosh, I hardly know where to start.
MUFFLED INTERVIEWER
Let’s start with who you are.
MANDY
Right. Who I am. Well, my name is Mandy Monroe. I was born in Anthem, Arizona, just north of Phoenix. I just turned thirty-five years old. Sometimes I feel a lot younger than that. Sometimes I feel a lot older. Like many of us who spent our childhoods in the Prime Dream, I’ve lived two lives. In one of them, I lived in a wonderland where everything seemed like it was perfect. In another, I’ve had to confront nightmare after nightmare. Guess which one is which?
It’s true. I loved growing up in the Prime Dream. I got to be anything that I wanted. I was part of the new American dream. I had boundless freedom, or so I thought. I had no idea that my dream was actually a prison I wasn’t allowed to escape from. A prison that was poisoning me slowly while I slept.
I was one of almost a million people affected by a Prime Dream outage at Box Aries. I’ll be honest, up until then I had no idea anything was wrong. But when I woke up and saw what had happened to my body, I knew that the promises the Botulus Corporation had made were empty. That they couldn’t protect us. They were keeping us corralled in pens, but we were just as sick as the rest of the world. My eyes were opened to the corruption of the Botulus Corporation—and right when I was learning to open my eyes at all.
But after that I began to learn a whole lot. That the Botulus Corporation wouldn’t let us leave. That the Stonemaids had been fighting for that right for a long time and gone nowhere. And that we at Box Aries had been cut off from the Prime Dream for knowing what we knew about our bodies. They were afraid that the story would spread. And speaking of spreading the story, well, I’ve learned that a whole lot was happening while we were inside.
MUFFLED INTERVIEWER
Maybe speak a little more about that.
MANDY
The outage wasn’t caused naturally. Lady Ethel Mallory caused it on purpose. She wanted to frame the Stonemaids as something scary. She didn’t know that we were affected by the blackwater, I think. She didn’t know we would see something that would require cutting the whole box out of the Prime Dream. But she had no problem risking the lives of dozens of critically ill people in Box Aries just to create a marketing stir for herself. This is it. This is who she is. She’s someone who has never once, not ever, cared about someone beside herself. She can’t...
MUFFLED INTERVIEWER
Let’s not make this about Ethel. We need to know the real Mandy.
MANDY
You’re right. You’re right. If we make this about Ethel, she’ll just drink it up. That defeats the point. Besides, you all already know who Lady Ethel Mallory is. I guess we’re here to talk about Mandy.
Live From Truth or Consequences
MANDY
Sorry to cut into whatever you were dreaming about, folks, but I am live here from the Queen of America fight in Truth or Consequences. I’ve got truth for you here, and Lady Ethel’s got consequences. That flaming thing over there, moving and shaking like a house-sized chandelier? That is her body. Those are her legs.
LADY ETHEL
Aghhhhh...
MANDY
She’s still alive, Otis!
OTIS
One more should do it!
MANDY
I’ll be honest, Lady Ethel, I expected more of a fight! But here we are... hold off on the next one, Otis...
OTIS
I wouldn’t let her linger too long.
MANDY
I don’t know why I thought I would face you, woman to woman, and get answers, or an apology, or any little thing that might show me that you understand the harm you did to me and everyone who ever walked inside a Dreaming Box. You took my dream away. You took my dream away, you understand? You lied to me!
OTIS
Miss Monroe, I do insist you step back from the giant blasted spider as there is a missile I am itching to fire into her face.
MANDY
Do you have anything to say, Lady Ethel? Do you have anything to say to the people of America that you’ve let down?
LADY ETHEL
Y... you...
MANDY
Speak up, Ethel. Let the whole world hear you.
LADY ETHEL
You—should have listened to Otis.
sound of one of Lady Ethel’s legs reaching out, razor-tipped, to stab Mandy.
MANDY
Agh!
Dreaming of America: The Mandy Monroe Story, continued
MANDY
-but I couldn’t enjoy that beautiful sunlight for long. The world outside was beautiful, but I and everyone who chose to walk out with me were barely able to breathe the air outside, let alone learn how to walk, how to speak, how to hunt and find water and all of those things at once. It felt like we had just been born, and were setting out like some kind of caveman babies into the ruins the grown-ups of another age had left behind.
MUFFLED INTERVIEWER
And did your mother come with you?
MANDY
No, my mother did not come with me. She... I asked her to. But she said that she had gotten so used to the Prime Dream after 20 years. That seeing the ruins of all those cafes and parks she liked to go to would just make her sad. I realized that I was going into the world ready to love it exactly how it was, because I had no memory of what it had been like before. But—I’m sorry mom—that won’t work for us. Because my generation is the generation that’s leaving the Dreaming Boxes. We’re trying to make this a world worth living in. We’re not giving up on it. We’re not going to be slowed down by the idea that it used to be this much more beautiful place. It’s still beautiful.
The city that Box Aries stands in used to be called Phoenix, Arizona. We decided to keep the name when we began our new settlement. Because a phoenix rises from the ashes, over and over again. Just like us. Just like America.
But I’m not aiming to be Queen of America just for the people that are out of the Dreaming Boxes. The people like my mother, who have chosen to keep dreaming—I understand them. I understand how good the dream is. Why it seems pointless to wake up. They are still Americans too. And that’s why I can’t just sit by while Lady Ethel Mallory, a rampant self-absorbed capitalist, lords our futures over us. I can’t keep making things work on the world outside while she plays her games with millions of dreaming Americans.
America’s future is deeply tied to ownership of the Botulus Corporation.
And that is why Lady Ethel Mallory has to die.
Marketing - Already Queen
LADY ETHEL MALLORY
I am... doing just fine, members of my happy dreaming family. Ignore any propaganda that my opponents are showing you. It is true that I have become somewhat affected by the rain. I am a victim of this great environmental catastrophe too. Just like Mandy. Just like you.
I... who am I acting for right now?
I am Lady Ethel Mallory.
I have been a wretched little boy growing up in this nowhere town, hiding from my mother and my sisters and myself.
I have been a beauty influencer who took the internet by storm.
I have been a spokesperson for the Botulus Corporation, and the head of its marketing department, and a crutch for the withering old man to lean on.
I have executed marketing schemes that would make your head whirl. I have made the impossible possible. You remember that, Oswald? You remember that I made your dream happen? Your stupid space line would mean nothing without me.
I have walked across this wasteland of a country. I have seen its glory, glass and steel and chrome, and I have seen its ruin. I promised to you only what was promised to me, and all those empty promises have run dry, and there is nothing left.
The truth about the rain is that it’s just going to keep coming. Month by month, year by year, in you, out of you, until there is nothing left of us. You’re horrified by what I’ve become? You should be. My bones are on the outside, which makes me extremely bazooka-resistant, Otis Moloch. I have four arms, and more mysterious sharp little appendages than I know what to do with, such as the one I just used to rip open Mandy Monroe’s chest. My hair’s fallen out. My eyes are myriad. My smile is broken glass. And I can spin web as strong as titanium steel.
Why am I your queen? Because I own the Botulus Corporation, and millions of you dreaming idiots who have willingly decided to keep your heads in the sand. I keep the lights on. I keep the algorithm running. I keep you entertained so that your brainpower can generate value for me. And for all of you out there, running around in the wasteland, I am the last breath of familiarity that you have. Because when you dream, you only see classic Lady Ethel Mallory, with a slight twist of wardrobe and a small wrinkle on my right cheek to show that I’ve aged just like you. And I sound the same as I always have. Like good old fashioned big business America. Like an America you used to know.
I didn’t come here to actually fight this stupid thing. I came here to make a show out of ripping apart anyone who stands in my way, and show you that I will do the same to anyone who comes for my crown. I’m not competing for Queen of America. I’ve always worn the crown. And you’ll stay on your knees for me as long as I tell you to.
So, my happy dreaming family, wait for me while I finish this. I need to tear Mandy Monroe apart piece by piece, and then douse Otis Moloch in gasoline and light him, and run Dinah Dealey through the rotor blade of a Botco hover carrier. And you’re going to watch.
Dreaming of America: The Mandy Monroe Story, continued again
MUFFLED INTERVIEWER
Why should we support you as Queen of America?
MANDY MONROE
Why should you support me as Queen of America? Well, it’s simple.
I’m a real person. I’ve lived in and out of a Dreaming Box. I’ve been part of the local government of Phoenix, Arizona for almost fifteen years. We’ve learned how to live in this world. How to survive. It helps that we’re in the desert where the rainfall isn’t that bad, because it slows the pace of the evolution of everything around us. But we still deal with it, every day. America is changing. That old dream we had is never coming back. But there’s a new America around us, and we’re choosing to build it day after day.
When I say support me, I don’t want you to just think of me in a nice way from the comfort of your bed where you’re probably sleeping, hearing this. Obviously any system of voting is long gone. What I mean is, when I take the crown, I want you to have my back. I want you to go out into that world out there and fight back against the hopelessness. I want you to try and build a future for yourself, for your family, for your kids. And if you don’t know how, let me help you.
I and the council team in Phoenix have spent nearly half my life finding ways for our community to survive in the harshest of climates, and we’re ready to do it on a country-wide scale. The massive hangars in every Dreaming Box could be instant, insulated shelter for thousands of people. With Otis’ help, we can establish new public transit systems that would let us connect our major cities. We can set up a country-wide government that oversees each state’s population centers, like Liberty City in New York. We can begin programs to help people transition from the Prime Dream back to reality. We can decide what we want America to be. Together.
So when you ask, who is Mandy Monroe? The answer is everybody. The answer is you. So tune in soon as I begin to compete for Queen of America in a live, televised event in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. I’ll come face to face with Lady Ethel and talk with her, like two presidential candidates, about what she’s done.
And I will make her pay. I promise you that. As long as I live. I will tear her apart, shred by shred, and feed each scrap to my legs. God that would be delicious. After everything she’s done...
MUFFLED INTERVIEWER
Good. Good. Just, now...
MANDY
Right. I’m Mandy Monroe, and I’m going to be Queen of America.
The bonus story that goes with this episode is called 'Two Shots' and is available on the Hello From The Hallowoods Patreon. Consider joining for access to all the show's bonus stories, behind-the-scenes and more!