Chapter 14: Gardening at Night.

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, No, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with a class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

AKA Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Packages by Expedia.

You were made to occasionally take the hard route to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

We were made to easily bundle your trip.

Expedia.

Made to travel.

Flight-inclusive packages are at all protected.

Previously on Midnight Burger, Gloria is in charge.

Because Casper is...

somewhere.

If you're taking me somewhere to kill me, the void of space is right outside.

We could take care of this right now.

I'm not going to kill you.

Okay.

And it seems the diner is trapped in a terrifying place called

the present.

Our time-traveling, dimension-spanning diner is no longer traveling through time or

through dimensions.

And they're being hunted by the evil Ted Empire.

The trap's already been sprung on the diner, Casper.

It's only a matter of time before we catch it now.

And also,

space pirates, triple question mark.

You're in trouble with the Teds.

You come to us.

Who's us?

Loaf Trax.

The Space Pirates.

And just to spice it up, Leaf got his hands on a doomsday device triple exclamation point.

What does it do?

If I install it in the right system, it destroys the Teds.

Let's start the shift.

Interplanetary travel, enjoyed by so many across the triad and made possible only by the hard work and constant innovation of the TED Empire.

With our TED tubes, we are able to connect all citizens of the three galaxies for trade, tourism, or to start a new life somewhere out there among the stars.

But sometimes, with new innovations come new problems,

and with those problems,

new responsibilities.

One of those problems is piracy.

Did you know that over 1300 ships per TED cycle find themselves the victim of piracy?

Though the TED Empire works day and night to ensure the safety of the TED Tube network, that doesn't stop piracy from occurring.

In this broadcast, we're going to go over what you need to do if you hear of or are currently experiencing an act of of piracy.

Let's start at the beginning.

First,

what is piracy?

It's the gladiator of the galaxies, the sultan of the star ways, the invader Zen of the Outer Rim, the hullabaloo of NGC 6302 is

LoafTrax!

Hello, hello, hello everyone out there in the Great Beyond.

It's your old pal Loaftrax, breaking in yet again to talk in your ear about, well, whatever the hell I want.

Let's face it, you didn't want to listen to another damn message from the damn Teds, did you?

No!

You know why?

Boring!

Leave it to the Teds to have control of three galaxies and somehow make it into a

snooze best.

You know,

both tracks can remember a time when there were no Teds.

The galaxy was run by a bunch of kings and warlords, guys who really knew how to do galactic dominion, you know?

They did it with style.

Anybody, anybody remember Emperor Bugbug of the Iron Quadrant?

Damn!

He knew how to party.

That guy had a ship the size of a moon just to hold all of his other ships.

The guy had a ship for all his ships.

And guess what?

He never went anywhere.

You know why?

He was the damn emperor.

Everybody came to him.

Now look at us.

Three galaxies dominated by a bunch of bean counters.

It's a disgrace.

Where's the panache?

Where's the pageantry?

Somebody ought to do something.

Oh,

what's that?

What's that, you say?

Somebody is doing something?

Oh,

it's your old pal, Loafrax?

Well, thank the cosmos for me, am I right?

Folks, I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking, Love Tracks, we know the TEDs suck,

but what can we do about it?

They control everything.

Well, if that's the case, how am I breaking into their broadcast right now?

If they control everything,

how am I saving you from hearing another bullshit public service announcement about what to do when you

encounter a pirate?

I'll tell you what to do if you encounter a pirate.

Get out your thank you cards.

Start writing.

Write this.

Dear Mr.

Pirate, thank you for saving me from a galaxy that has lost all sense of style.

Before I met you, life was merely survival.

But now that I see you out there breaking laws and doing all sorts of violence, I'm reminded that the universe is a pageant, that we have but one life,

that control is an illusion, and we are all just clumps of stardust smashing into each other and then returning to oblivion.

Sincerely, and then write your name there.

That's what you do when you encounter a pirate.

Pirates are important, folks.

They're

With the rise of every empire, something always rises in its shadow.

The black market, the underworld, the pirates.

Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

It's the way of all things.

But Loaf Trax, you say, Loaf Trax, I can't thank you enough for what you do.

You too are cruel.

You steal, you lie, you wound, you kill.

I'm to thank you for the terror you bring to the great cosmic landscape.

Well, to that I say, look above your head, theoretical person.

Atoms disintegrating, meteors raining, suns collapsing, galaxies colliding, black holes obliterating, all without a care for you or your loved ones.

Look up!

Look up into the swirling gyre and ask yourself, should I not mimic that which bores me?

Or should I be a good citizen of the Ted Empire, attend some shitty job as a customer service rep or whatever, and wait for death to take me?

Only stardust colliding, folks.

Everything else is play acting.

They don't hate me for the violence.

They don't hate me for the looting.

They hate me

because of what I'm a reminder of.

A reminder that our lives are nothing but a sand castle on the beach with the tides fast approaching.

You know,

speaking of chaos and uncertainty, I'm...

I'm going to be honest, I can't remember why I broke into this broadcast now.

The spirits moved me!

Anybody, anybody remember?

Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes, I have it now.

Strange things are afoot in the triad, my friends.

Strange things.

The Teds are cracking down like never before, with midnight burgers zipping around our little corner of the universe.

I have it on very good authority that an old friend is back in town.

An old friend that I thought was gone.

For good.

And I'm desperate to speak with him, folks.

Desperate.

We have a lot of catching up to do.

He's an earthling.

His name is Leaf.

And if you can lead me to him, I can promise you a new world awaits.

A world where you are cruising through the starways guzzling freedom.

And it can all be brought to you by loaf tracks.

Friends, before I return you to your previously scheduled

boredom, let me reiterate my previous point.

If you see a pirate,

thank a pirate.

Embrace them.

Give them your valuables, perhaps a few of your children.

In the end, it's only the pirates who are doing it right.

Now, why don't you move along while we are maybe along?

My dear, Gloria appears to be pondering over that cube again.

She is, dear.

As if there were some sort of prize within its tiny frame.

What do we suppose is inside?

Ooh, a key, perhaps?

Perhaps little candies.

Let's ponder it with her.

Yes.

Guys, stop.

There's nothing inside it.

I'm just thinking.

Sorry to disturb.

Okay, I went up on the roof, tried to get a good look around.

I think the planet's uninhabited.

It's dead.

Not just dead.

It's like it's dying.

The trees and shrubs are brown.

The whole planet's brown.

Life, explain to me again how this thing works.

Gloria, we already talked about it.

Do I have to?

You didn't tell me you were an engineer.

You didn't tell me you were a criminal.

You hit a bomb in the diner and you put us all in danger so you could get this tiny bounce.

Okay.

You're kind of down on the polls right now, Laif.

You want to bring your numbers up?

Okay.

Again, the genius of the Ted Empire is that they have no leader.

Over the centuries, they've managed to evolve an entire society of middle management.

Everything is done by committee, and the one who's really in charge is the rules themselves.

Why is that genius?

Because you can't assassinate a rule book.

The only thing that gets assassinated is personal responsibility.

See, it all goes back to the end.

Okay?

If I plug this into any TED mainframe,

in a matter of days, everything stops.

Everything?

The entire TED Empire grinds to a halt.

How?

It creates a memo.

And that memo's job is just to create another memo.

And another.

And another.

And another.

Each memo erodes these things called linear classifiers.

A linear classifier is how a computer tells the difference between one set of data and another.

In a few days, this thing rips through the TED Empire Empire and the code that runs their empire turns into alphabet soup.

It's that easy?

In the end, every empire screws itself.

It's never an outside invader.

This code's really simple.

It's so simple, they don't even look for it anymore.

Imagine a master thief trying to break into your house.

They know how to hack your complicated security system, but would have no idea how to get past a moat full of alligators because nobody looks for those anymore.

Empire.

How big is this empire?

That's another genius thing.

The Teds don't control any territory other than their home planet, but

they control everything.

How?

It started about 250 years ago.

They started building these TED tubes, warp gates that could take you from one side of a galaxy to another instantly.

And they just kept building them.

They use that to leverage control control over everything else.

Fast forward 250 years,

and there's very few parts of your life that don't involve the Ted Empire.

That's all it took.

Remember when Amazon was a bookstore?

I don't understand.

If the TEDs are so bad, why didn't you just use this thing back when you made it?

I tried to explain this to you.

Explain it again.

Hi.

What are you guys talking about?

Nothing.

Okay.

Something weird is going on outside.

I need my pencil.

Why?

Because I'm gonna figure out what's going on.

With the pencil?

Do you know how many problems have been solved with pencils?

I'm taking the radio, too.

Come on, guys.

Well, all right.

Just remember what happened yesterday when we tagged along.

You'll be fine.

Leave, come out here.

I'll be right there.

Why are we not telling Ava about this?

Because Ava is a friggin' chaos wizard who'll want to use a doomsday device just to see what happens.

I just want to say, I kept it a secret, but now you're keeping it a secret, and that feels like a double-don't even start with that shit.

Let's go outside and see what she's talking about.

Okay.

Geez, look at this place.

Dead trees everywhere.

The plants are dead.

What happened?

What's going on?

I'm looking at the sun.

Okay.

I shouldn't be able to look at the sun, but I'm looking at the sun.

Weird.

I'm looking at it, too.

Is it an eclipse?

No, because watch this.

Oh, it's bright again.

And now we can't look at the sun, but then wait for another second.

It's dark again.

Not a cloud in the sky, so it's not the weather.

And there's no pattern to it.

It fluctuates randomly.

It's acting like some kind of light bulb that needs changing.

Oh, Ava, is it possible for the Sun to be like a light bulb?

For it to need changing?

Yes, but when they need changing, they explode and obliterate everything for billions of kilometers.

I see.

And then collapse into a black hole.

Yeah, I think a simple yes or no would do.

Ava, I know you are regarding this strange land as a simple curiosity, but I'm feeling a certain kind of way about it.

What's going on, FB?

There is a sadness here, here.

One that overwhelms.

As though we've caught the story at its end.

Well, the sun's acting weird and the planets dying.

I'm assuming the two are related.

They're definitely related, but this just isn't how planets die in the universe.

Something else is going on.

Oh, my.

Something approaches.

Oh, boy.

Weird shit alert.

There.

In the bushes.

I don't see it.

What is that?

Oh, it's not in the bushes.

It is the bushes.

Uh, bushes don't walk, you guys.

This one's walking.

It's a plant person?

Everybody, keep your distance.

Oh,

it's kind of adorable.

Yeah, it's real adorable, and then it spits poison at you.

Fear not, y'all.

This creature that smells vaguely of petunia means us no harm.

It appears frightened, as though a sheep that's lost its flock.

Who's on rotation for first contact?

It's me.

Hey.

Hey there.

Hi.

I'm Gloria.

You

look like a plant to me.

I want you to know

we're cool with that.

Ooh, maybe it's one of Leaf's illegitimate children.

Okay, the jokes are old now.

Oh, they're so young, Leaf.

As young as all your illegitimate children spread across the multi-ville.

Shut up, you two.

Oh, shit.

Are you happy?

You killed it with your jokes.

Wouldn't be the first time.

Damn it.

I knew I shouldn't have made first contact.

I always kill plants.

Take heart, Gloria.

This creature has not expired.

Though they do seem to be in great distress.

Doesn't surprise me.

It's a plant.

Look at the sun on this planet.

I'm surprised it's not dead, just like everything else here.

But it's not dead.

It's alive, which means

we have a customer.

And our customer is dying shit.

Okay, it's a plant.

Plants need dirt and sunlight.

It's got plenty of dirt around here, so it needs sun.

How do we make a sun?

Well, it's a very complicated process.

The heat lamps.

Seriously?

Sure, why not?

The heat lamps keep food warm.

They're going to bring an alien back to life.

I think so.

Ava?

Sure.

I mean, you'd need a fuller spectrum for long-term growth, but if you want cheap and dirty light energy, that could be the way to go.

Okay, Leif, bring it inside and put it under the heat lamps.

Ava, what do you need to figure out what's wrong with the sun?

I've got a pencil, paper, and a radio.

That's all a girl needs.

Okay, I've got it.

This thing is so weird.

Get it inside.

Okay, clear off the counter for me.

Okay.

Do you really think this is going to work?

Well, like most things we do,

there's not much of a choice.

Let's give it some time under these lamps and hope for the best.

What are you doing?

Spraying it with water.

Why?

I don't know.

I see people doing this to their plants sometimes.

Sure, why not?

So if everything on this planet is dead, how is this thing still alive?

I guess I got lucky.

Though that's a weird word to use.

It would definitely be dead if it weren't for us.

You ever been to Carlsbad?

What?

No.

When you take the tour of the caverns, they bring you to this fern.

It's deep in the caverns, away from any sunlight.

And they say a seed may have hitched a ride on one of the bats that lived there.

Somehow, it managed to grow hundreds of meters from where it's supposed to.

And maybe our friend here is a cavern fern.

Oh, shit!

What?

Of course, Leif, you idiot.

Hang on.

What's happening now?

It's a Dyson sphere.

What?

The sun.

It's a Dyson sphere.

No, it's not.

It is.

That's a nerd thing.

It's a real thing.

The Teds use though.

Shut up.

They do it all the time.

It's how they make their warp gates.

Seriously?

You want to make a wormhole?

What's your biggest hurdle?

A power power source?

Well then, why not harness the Sun?

Can you think of a bigger power source?

Well, shit.

How'd they solve the stability problem?

I need to keep each end of the wormhole constantly interacting and they stabilize themselves.

Huh.

That makes sense.

You know what, plant person?

I'm not even going to ask anymore.

I'm just going to sit here and spray you.

It's very calming.

I think I get plants now.

Teds are killing the planet.

By doing what?

Building a structure around the sun and capturing the energy.

But we can still see the sun.

I know.

They must not be done yet.

Oh shit.

Lafe, it moved.

Come here.

It did?

It's.

I don't know.

Leaves rustled.

Okay.

Give it some space.

It'll still be a while until it's up.

Platform, jail, mechanism, burn, museum, theorist.

Hold, please.

Well,

your plant care has improved.

How is it talking to us?

I don't know.

I'm Gloria.

What's your name?

Names don't translate.

Well, wait.

There were three of you.

Ava is the third one.

She's outside.

Outside?

Yeah.

I feel like when something bad is happening, I'm supposed to say this.

Shit.

True.

Where are you going?

The third one's gone.

Where'd Ava go?

Ava!

The radio's gone, too.

Ava!

What's it doing?

Ava!

Listen, I apologize about this in advance.

Everything is going to be okay, I promise.

Where's our friend?

It can't be helped.

Things just follow their biological imperative, right?

Imperative.

That's a fun word.

Get out here and tell us what's happening.

Can I borrow this?

Five pounds of hamburger meat?

Sorry, it doesn't smell me anymore, so I need something that smells.

And this...

This will do it.

Tell us what's happening right now.

Look, I don't know who you people are, but I feel like you being here is a good thing.

Something's moving.

I could really use a good thing right now, so let's not read into this too much.

Read into what?

What the fuck is that?

Let's try and stay positive.

Look up behind you.

Yeah, I know.

Proper nouns are translating really well, so all I can call this huge creature behind me is a huge carnivorous plant.

We'll work on names later.

I have to go get your friend.

They'll be fine.

Go get her.

This thing is really sweet when it's not trying to eat you.

It's going to be fine.

The big plant ate the little plant.

Did the little plant just say that the big plant ate Ava?

Laif,

go make something that can kill a big fucking plant.

On it.

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More than

my men

In the end, the story of Jonah is one of God's unwavering love.

Jonah, though he ran from God and that path led him into darkness, God continued to love him through his trials and crises, and God's love became a beacon that guided him through his trials.

And we think of that story now

because Jonah's path led into the belly of a sea beast, and we now find ourselves

here

in the belly of whatever this thing is.

I know it's disturbing, strange box people, but please trust me, everything's going to be fine.

Well, we'll defer to you on such things, but I'm sure you understand our concern.

Just be patient.

It'll all work out.

That music sounds really nice?

Oh, yes, it's it's one of our favorites

So

let me go over this again there was a guy named Jesus

and he said hey be nice to people take care of sick people

in a very large nutshell yes

and then

there was a group of people called the romans who said we're not into that yes in an even bigger nutshell.

Oh,

dear.

Ava appears to be stirring.

Husband, we should warn our new friend that when Ava awakes, there will be language.

Honestly, I only understand you guys half the time, anyway, so I'm not too worried about it.

When she awakens,

it's best to be direct with her.

What?

The fuck?

Hi there!

Jesus!

Fuck shit!

Did she have to go throw that Jesus in there with everything else, Dears?

I've given up.

Where the fuck are we?

I've been told to be direct.

So, you're in the digestive chamber of a gigantic carnivorous plant.

I'm what?

But everything's going to be fine.

No, it's not.

For sure, it's going to be fine.

You've got to trust me.

But you're talking.

I am.

You weren't talking before.

Long story short, I'm very adaptable.

Yet lengthen your story.

I've been told to be direct.

Never mind.

How is being inside of a carnivorous thing something to not worry about?

Okay, so this particular creature is an apex predator.

Two reasons!

One, their digestive process is incredibly slow, and two, me.

You?

Yes.

What do you have to do with it?

We've coexisted with these creatures for centuries.

Over epochs of evolution, we've learned how to taste bad.

Taste bad?

Yes.

Eventually, it's going to realize it accidentally ate me and will...

void itself.

Void

itself?

Yes.

We're about to get puked up by a carnivorous plant?

Oh, that's what puke me.

When is this going to happen?

Anytime now.

You're sure?

Yes.

Ugh, fine.

It smells terrible in here.

It's a digestive chamber.

What were you expecting?

I was expecting to not get eaten by a giant plant and then told by a four-foot plant that everything's gonna be fine.

I think that's a realistic fucking expectation.

That's fair.

Sure.

Ava,

perhaps some introductions are in order before you roll out any more explosions of foul language.

I'm being digested.

You want me to make tea?

Ava, our new friend has just assured us that you're going to be just fine.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but our new friend did heroically leap into the innards of this behemoth to ensure you wouldn't be harmed.

What do you expect me to do?

We just said

introductions, dear.

I can't believe I have to explain these things to her.

Again, I have given up.

Fine.

I'm Ava.

What's your name?

I have have no idea.

Great.

That went well.

I mean, I know what it is, but when I absorbed your language lexicon, proper names don't transfer very well.

Give it a shot.

Okay.

My name is Sheleka Simeon Sulia Samiya Sulia.

I'm just gonna go with Shell.

Great!

Shell.

I like it.

So

you're a plant.

Um,

what's something small and dumb on your planet?

Most things on my planet are small and dumb.

Uh, squirrel?

Okay.

Isn't you saying to me, so you're a plant?

Like me saying to you, so you're a squirrel?

That's fair.

Photosynthetic?

Yes.

But you don't have a root system, obviously.

Not for several

thousand

years, is that the word?

Yes, years.

And how are you speaking to me?

Spores.

I'm constantly emitting them from my body.

Some of them interact with your brain's language center and report back.

You put spores

in my brain?

Yes, I'm realizing now that sounds alarming.

They're harmless.

It's just...

it's how we talk.

Okay.

Well,

you're lucky a lot of weird shit has happened to me, and I don't phase easily.

I'm noticing the word shit has many uses.

Yes.

That isn't confusing?

Huh.

No, it's really not.

Okay.

Speaking of weird shit, can you explain this talking box to me?

Not really, you kind of just have to go with it.

Well, we have no trouble explaining ourselves.

I'm Zebulon Mucklewain, here with my wife, Effie.

Hi, Shale.

Yes, at first.

So,

who are you guys?

We are traveling salesmen.

Can I interest you in a set of encyclopedias?

I didn't understand most of that.

Myself and my wife,

Ava, and our friends travel all of God's creation helping those in need.

Really?

Help is a strong word.

I I don't suppose you know how to fix the sun, do you?

No.

Your sun doesn't need fixing.

It may seem that way to you.

Someone's blocking it.

Someone's blocking the sun.

We call it a Dyson sphere.

For us, it's just in science fiction novels, but someone went and made a real one.

It's a massive construct that wraps around an entire star and harnesses its energy.

The downside is that anyone who depends on that star for warmth gets screwed.

Especially if it's a planet of people who get their energy directly from the sun, like you.

Why would someone do that?

Because if you want to do anything big, you need massive amounts of energy.

And in any universe, the biggest source of energy will always be a star.

Especially your star.

Your star is very special.

There's only a few like it.

Someone

killed us?

I'm sorry, yes.

Ava, this land appears to us as a field that's been left to fallow, waiting for a new wave of life.

Do you mean to say that because the sky has been so darkened, that new life will never come?

Yeah, there will probably always be residual microbes, but life can't exist on this planet anymore.

Sorry.

You will have to forgive Ava, Shell.

She has a tendency to discard the emotional content of the moment.

Oh, Zebulon, you say the nicest things.

Wait, stop.

Who did this?

Why would they do this?

Shell, I'm sorry.

It's hard for me to talk to you because I don't know anything about you.

Do you know that there are other civilizations on other planets?

We did.

Every once in a while, we we'd get visitors from the sky.

They said they came here to study us.

They said there weren't a lot of people like us out there.

They were nice, for the most part.

They would tell us about where they came from.

They would tell us about the things they built and the places they had been.

It all sounded interesting, but

my people don't

my people didn't build things.

But you seem very intelligent.

We are very intelligent.

But we don't need things.

From the second I split from my seed, I had everything I needed, sunlight and soil.

We're born perfect.

Why would we build things?

Why would we want to?

So,

when you tell me that someone built something so big that it covered up our sun,

I don't understand it.

Do they know what they're doing?

Do they know what they're destroying?

I don't know, Shell, but

probably.

If you have the ability to create something so massive, you definitely have the ability to check the nearby planets for life.

Tell me

why they would do this.

Shell, I can't tell you why.

It's a race called the Teds, and

well, they're dicks.

I can tell you why, Shell.

Please.

My wife and I have spent our lives studying a book called The Bible.

Now, I won't speak on it too much, since I know that it won't mean much to you.

But I can tell you what it has taught me.

There is one sin above all others that poisons humanity.

Now, do you understand this word, sin?

Yes.

Arrogance, Shell.

It's a word that's been ground down over time to mean foolishness or overconfidence.

But the arrogance we speak of is the sin of putting yourself before another.

To decide that another is outside of God's blessing.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others before you count yourself.

Now that is the way.

And these beings who have darkened your landscapes have strayed far from that path.

They don't even care.

They

do not.

How'd you manage to survive all this time?

We don't move around a lot.

We may have abandoned our root systems a long time ago, but we still don't travel very far from where we're born.

But I figured out that the patches of sunlight moved, so I moved with them.

It's unlike us to do that, but I kind of liked it.

It suited me, I guess.

So I just walked and walked, trying to keep up with the sun.

I don't even know how far I traveled, but the patches of sun got smaller and smaller.

I got more and more tired all the time.

Today I could hardly move, but then I saw you all outside and ran to warn you about the big plant that was about to eat you.

Hmm.

You failed.

Sorry.

It really is going to be fine.

Just give it time.

If it's any condolence, I'm still having a worse day than you.

That's true.

You have two languages.

Like Gloria.

I do.

Quare duas linguas loqueris?

Oh, geez.

Um

notus sum loquae anglicus.

Didici latine cum señore essum.

Come again, y'all.

Shell sucked the Latin out of my head.

I'm glad to know it's still in there.

Latin's a dead language, so of course a bunch of scientists speak it.

And I'm a scientist, so I speak it.

That's another one.

Scientist.

What does that mean?

You don't know what scientist means?

No.

How is that possible?

I don't know.

You don't have scientists on your planet?

If I don't know what a scientist is, how am I going to know?

Someone who looks at the world and tries to figure out how it works.

Oh, I do that all the time.

Does that make me a scientist?

Well, you do know Latin.

I feel like that's all I've thought about lately.

I don't know why I've been walking across my planet, wondering how I got here.

I would walk past all these dying trees and grasses and bushes and wonder why I am the one who wonders.

Why not the other living things on this planet?

Why do they get to be so blissfully unaware of everything that's happening?

You've been thinking about how you got here?

Well, I think that's fairly natural, Shell.

Oftentimes, when reaching the end of the road, we think about its beginnings.

You said that a scientist thinks about the way things work.

Have you ever thought about this?

About how we all got here?

How it all began?

Zebulon, you want to tell Shell about the Garden of Eden?

I believe Shell is taking in quite a lot right now, Ava.

Best to not confuse things.

I am trying to be accommodating over here.

You're not at all trying to do that, Ava.

But we do appreciate you pretending to.

So far, I've had a very good attitude for someone being slowly digested.

Listen to me, though.

I'm dying.

My planet is already dead.

And I'm trying to create some meaning before I turn to dust like everything else.

Can you tell me how I got here, please?

Okay.

Yes, I can.

Too much energy.

What do you mean?

Complicated life, conscious life, comes from too much energy.

You have an abundance of energy and a bunch of atoms lying around.

Eventually, a couple of those atoms say to themselves, hey, let's take this energy and do something with it.

Let's use this energy to become more complex, bigger, stronger, smarter.

There's so much energy around, why the hell not?

All of that led to you.

Where did the energy come from?

From your great big star.

Your star is very special.

We call it a Wolf-Rayette star.

Its energy output is off the charts.

There's only a few like it in the known universe.

So...

Life like me comes from stars?

Not all the time.

For us, the excess energy was probably volcanic jets at the bottom of the ocean.

You came from the sun.

We came from the sea.

Anyway, that's why you're here.

Okay?

Okay.

Thank you.

Now what?

That is a very disturbing sound.

Get ready, you guys.

Oh, God, this is gonna suck so hard.

Give me the radio.

Here.

Okay, guys, I've got you.

From inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord his God, and the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

A little on the nose there, Zeb.

You hang on tight, Ava.

You don't want to have to come back forward.

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Leif, hurry up!

Don't get close to it.

I'm not much of a chemist, but honestly, you don't have to be to kill something.

It's not going to hurt them, is it?

Gloria, they just got eaten.

Let's roll the dice on the chemicals, giving them a rash, okay?

Stand back.

I'm going to dump this bucket on it and hope for the best.

Um,

the fuck was that?

It's moving.

Stand back.

See?

What did I tell you?

Everything's fine.

Is it wrong that I found that enjoyable?

I too am guilty of thinking it a hoot.

I am now ready to die.

Is everyone okay?

Read the room, Gloria.

Sorry.

What happened?

Can someone not covered in goo do the updates, please?

Of course.

Gloria, Laif.

This is Shell.

Shell was on the brink of expiring when they saw us in the path of that big old plant.

When Shell was too late to warn us, they leapt into the mouth of the beast to save us.

Truly, a day of heroism from our new friend.

Also, our vegetable compatriot appears to have many strange skills.

They were able to cause that enormous beast to expel us from its bowels, and also appears to magically bridge gaps of the vernacular variety.

They learned to speak the language of Rome simply by sitting near Ava.

Shell, it's nice to meet you.

Thank you so much.

It's the least I could do.

When I collapsed, I thought I was done for.

I don't know what you guys did to me, but you saved me.

Kind of what we do.

Okay, two things need to happen.

Number one, someone needs to get me a towel and a cigarette.

Number two, Shell is going to die on this planet.

We need to figure something out.

Okay.

Leif, get a towel and a cigarette, okay?

Thanks for saving our friends, Shell.

I've been wandering so long trying to stay in the Sun, I couldn't even remember why I was doing it.

Everyone was gone.

I knew eventually I was going to end up like them.

Why endure?

Why not just lie down and die?

Then I saw you guys, and I realized I had been staying alive for this.

Thanks for giving it meaning.

We're probably going to jump soon, guys.

I'm so sorry about your planet, Shell.

You know,

I've traveled more than any other member of my race.

I may have walked across my entire planet trying to stay in the sun.

I may have met every member of my race.

It's not like there was a lot of us to begin with.

I would try and convince them to walk with me, but they were old.

set in their ways.

The thing is, when I meet someone like me, we exchange spores.

I carry the genetic information of everyone I've met inside of me.

My entire race may be inside of me.

So

it doesn't feel like I'm dying alone.

At least there's that.

Maybe it's because I look like I'm covered in peri-perisots right now.

But I have no interest in joining the plant pity party.

Ava.

Shell,

they're all dead.

You are the last dinosaur.

What's this?

It's a fucking tragedy, it really is.

But you, my little leaf-covered friend, are alive.

So, more than all you want,

but we're moving forward.

Move forward where?

I've got nowhere to move to.

Yes, you do, because of what Gloria's about to say.

You're coming with us.

Oh, yeah?

Cool.

Coming

like in your ship.

It's a diner.

I don't know what that means.

We travel all over the place, Shell.

Tomorrow we'll be a billion miles from here.

The same thing the day after that.

You mean like

up there?

Yes, Shell.

Up there.

Oh,

no, no, no, no, no.

That's not okay.

I'm not okay with that.

People aren't supposed to be up there.

Not okay.

It does feel that way sometimes.

It's going to be okay, Shell.

You might like it.

Nope!

No!

This is where I belong.

Up there?

No.

Nope.

I can't do that.

Shell, you said it yourself.

You liked moving.

Yes, laterally.

Up?

No.

Look.

We'll put you in a pot.

We'll make sure you're by a sunny window.

Ava.

What does that mean?

Shell, you're going to die.

Everybody else is dead.

Why do I live?

Who am I?

You're the only one left, and that changes things.

It means your life doesn't belong to you anymore.

It belongs to the ones that didn't get to live.

You have to live for them now.

Shell, I declined before to speak of the Garden of Eden, but that story parallels your own now.

My people, like you, began in a garden, and then there was a great tragedy, and then a great journey.

And you are on that journey now.

Shell,

this big thing in the sky, we call it a Dyson sphere because the guy who used to talk about it was named Freeman Dyson.

He had some pretty crazy ideas.

Another idea of his was called a Dyson tree.

He imagined a tree that could live on a comet, cruising through the universe, surviving on whatever nutrients the comet provided until it finally crashed down on a planet and was able to take root in a new home.

You be the tree, tree, we'll be the comet.

Okay, here we go.

What's going to happen?

It's going to be really fucking weird, but you'll get used to it.

Used to what?

What?

What happened?

Where's my planet?

Where's my home?

It's going to be okay, Shell.

Those are stars going by.

They're moving too fast.

Shell, try and look at the pavement for a while.

Subspace really does a number on you.

Ground is too hard.

my home is gone it's not shell

sometimes home has to be inside you just for a little bit I don't feel good shit later I got you she can't stand off I know we're going to get you under the heat lamps again those were nice I'll get the door can you turn the lamps on yeah I've got it

okay

here we go Asik Sikia Sumia Sikia.

What's that?

I think it's a name.

That's a name?

Is that a friend of yours?

They were old.

Brown around the edges.

That's what happens when we get old.

We turn brown at the edges.

We like the same hill in the morning.

They were one of the first ones to go.

They're gone now.

But you spent time with them, so

they're inside you now, right?

They're inside me now.

Then you need to find them a home.

I need to find all of them a home.

You will Shell.

We're going to help you.

Rest now, okay?

Jeez.

That got heavy really fucking fast.

Outside, Lafe.

Am I going to get yelled at again?

I keep getting yelled at.

I know.

It's been really great for me.

Come on.

They killed everyone, Lafe.

I know.

The Teds killed everything on that planet.

I know that.

For what?

So they could build a warp gate?

A fucking warp gate.

There were things on that planet that had lives left.

You don't have to tell me.

So their spaceships could go a little faster?

They killed everyone?

It's the galactic equivalent of someone building a freeway through your backyard.

It wasn't through their backyard, Lafe.

It was through their plan.

None of this is my fault.

We're using the doomsday device, Lafe.

No, we're not.

What?

Yes, we are, Lafe.

We can't.

There was a doomsday device, and nobody told me?

Yes, we can.

Use it.

Use it.

You can't just burn everything down.

Like, hell, we can't.

Look at what they're doing.

If we use it, people are going to starve.

They're going to get sick.

What are you talking about?

There are a ton of planets in this system that are completely dependent on those gates.

They can't support themselves.

Entire planets with no agricultural base.

Nothing.

We shut down the Teds and everybody dies on those planets just like they did on shelves.

This is why the Teds are geniuses.

They fucking suck and they're fucking indispensable.

Well, let's say we go crazy and do it anyway.

Let's say we shut it all down and send three galaxies into total chaos.

Guess who makes their move when everything goes to shit?

Loaf Trax, the fucking space pirate.

You know, the guy whose goons tried to rip your arms off yesterday?

Congratulations.

You just went from three galaxies ruled by anal retentive fascists to three galaxies ruled by a chaotic psychopath.

You want to pick one?

Fuck!

Um, for the record, I still say use it.

We're not using it.

Fine.

You know, I'm at a plant today that's more interesting than you guys.

They got us trapped in their territory.

Looks like it.

So, odds are, any planet we show up on, the Teds are going to be running some kind of racket.

Oh, absolutely.

They're everywhere.

Fine.

Fine.

Okay.

Here's what we're going to do.

The next planet we go to, we find out whatever the Teds are up to on that planet.

We're going to find it, and we're going to fuck it up.

We are?

That's what we're doing.

I don't like these people, Laif.

I thought once I got away from Earth, people would stop sucking.

They still suck, Laif.

Whatever they're up to, we fuck it up.

Do you understand me?

Fuck it up.

How?

I don't know.

We've got a scientist, a guy who can make stuff, a magical radio, and a pissed-off Mexican.

That's going to have to be enough.

And I will exact great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes, and they shall know that I am the Lord.

Perhaps no Ezekiel at the moment.

I was carried away.

You're scaring me a little bit.

They think they have us trapped in their territory, but that's not what it is.

They're trapped in here with us.

What the fuck was that?

Gloria just declared war on an entire galactic empire.

Should go fine.

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And if time and tide roil you too harshly, or diurnal courses leave you with no safe havens, just remember we're out there somewhere looking for you.

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