“Now flex... and relax.”

The doctors at Gimbutasville gave me a choice. It turns out my scales and barbs are from the DNA of a particularly endangered reptile from a struggling timeline. The transtemporal organ smugglers get a high price for it, but they’re decimating the population because it’s impossible to grow in a lab.

“Now flex again... and relax.”

The Earth in the timeline it’s from was laid waste from human ecological mismanagement (one of the most common reasons for civilizations deadending). But there are still humans there trying to repair it. They’re part of the cross-temporal network that Gimbutasville supports.

“And flex... and relax.”

The method they’re using to heal their world involves merging with the most endangered species. In each community, a few individuals edit the endangered species’ DNA into their own, actually absorbing and displaying traits from the endangered creatures. Then the community as a whole lives a life centered around repairing the environment from that particular animal’s place in it.

“And one more time flex...”

The doctors are teaching me to control the scales and spines—so I can call them up at will...

“...and relax.”

... or submerge them back under my original epidermis. You can’t even tell they’re there when I hide them.

The doctors had never seen anyone successfully accept the DNA graft from Morgenstern’s Monster—that’s the name for this lizard. “Monster” from how it looks when all its poisoned barbs are extended. And because the poison is deadly.

I can’t wait to stick some into a cross-time poacher. Because I’ve accepted the doctor’s invitation to leave schoool and become part of the group of agents they’ve deployed to utilize this technique in multiple timelines. They call them the Compost Kids.

The elders at Matriarchal Farms are trying to get in touch with our trip leaders at the Forever Corps, but apparently it's not that easy making a cross-timeline call. Everything's got to be lined up just so or it bounces out to infinity. And they don't quite trust the Time Police.

"So what am I gonna do about these tentacles and spines beneath my skin? And @Hectic Wilson going crazy with those eyeballs squirming in his arms!"

Luckily they're too nice to say things like "Well if you hadn't broken the rules and visited the most depraved parts of the future with a floating @Electric Mummy Head then you wouldn't feel so squirmy!"

Instead, the elders at Matriarchal Farms are sending us to their friends at Gimbutasville, which is another eco-utopia, but with more tech--and especially bio-tech. I guess all these eco-utopias are hooked up in some kind of network...

For a disembodied cybernetic entity, it turns out @Electric Mummy Head isn't that smart. Or maybe he just underestimated us.

After his high-tech transtemporal organ dealer buddies pumped me and @Hectic Wilson full of contraband and restricted GMO organs and tissue, we weren't feeling so hot. @Hectic Wilson's got the eyeballs in his arms, and selection of spleens and livers from a dozen endangered species from all up and down the timestream filling his chest cavity. I've got scales and poisoned barbs hiding just beneath the skin all over my body, not to mention what feels like wings and maybe tentacles in my back. In a word, we're squirmy, to say the least.

But also angry! And when @Electric Mummy Head floated down to take a better look at @Hectic Wilson's tongue, I grabbed him by his Nemes and shoved him into an old bowling bag that was laying around in that dirty makeshift clinic. Seems he's not so powerful when he's zipped up in vinyl. And you punch him a few times.

So we made him take us back to Matriarchal Farms--but the rest of the group has moved on! I guess we missed the bus, and have no idea how to find them. Maybe these utopians can call the Forever Corps for us. Or the Time Police. At this point I just want my body back to normal.

Oh no. This is horrific.

I knew we shouldn’t have trusted that @Electric Mummy Head. Turns out he’s sold us to some illegal trans-temporal organ smugglers! Does anybody know the number for the Time Police?

@Hectic Wilson is already on the table, and they’ve implanted a handful of hybrid Mantis Shrimp/Human eyes into his forearm. It is, to say the least, super creepy and very bad. They’ve got me in a hermetic holding cell, and will probably release the gas at any minut....

The Technoscientific Posthuman future certainly has an appeal, and I’m glad that @Electric Mummy Head brought us here, because I’m sure it wasn’t on Ms. Beaton’s itinerary. Too much technology. But it’s so awesome! Basically, you get to live forever and be in two places at once! Or as many places as you can handle. Everybody’s uploaded and so you just think about a place and you’re there.

Mostly people seem to hang out in virtual environments, but you can zap yourself to a femtosatellite off Mars or Saturn if you want. Though I don’t know what the difference would be from just looking at a live feed, since it’s all just simulated sensory input.

I did get to commandeer a rover on Earth and drive it around. Too bad what happened there, but I guess they couldn’t get this posthuman so fast without a ton of quick and dirty technoscience.

So it’s only been a week, and this is like our seventh straight feminist eco-utopia in a row. The communal farming, the singing and handholding, the puppet show guerrilla street theatre. Not that there’s anything wrong with that—they reversed global warming, ended terrorism and capitalism, saved the world, etc. It’s just all a bit... boring. Ms. Beaton laughs and says lots of people from our time sector have Conflict Addiction, and that taking what we learn back to our time will help bring these futures to fruition.

Meanwhile, it’s another slow night here at Matriarchal Farms. I’m headed over to @Hectic Wilson’s bungalow for a game of Spades. He says there’s somebody he’d like me to meet.

Forever Corps Plaza is sooooo swank. They put all the Psyhigh kids in one wing for our orientation, where we each get our own suite and a balcony overlooking the Time Hole. You can totally get lost staring down that hole—it’s like a spiral seashell on the inside, with everything that ever happened or will happen or is likely to happen spun around the edges like a billion dioramas, or frames of a film. It goes both backwards and forwards depending on how you look at it.

Totally embarrassing moment #1 (which I’m sure will be part of an ongoing series): @Hectic Wilson was standing on his balcony staring down at it and he puked! Right down the Time Hole. I was there and will admit it was educational watching the splotch of vomit navigate all the different temporal gravites as it tumbled.

OMG I just got accepted to Forever Corps! They offer “a life-changing experience in a future timeline where I will develop my psychic leadership skills.” It’s especially important these days because of the Reality Accident and all, so it’s not like just some vacation with zip lines and folkloric techno dancing. Plus, I’ll make friends with like-minded teens who share my passions for travel and volunteering! It starts next week, and I hear there are still spots open so you should totally apply.

Took the Glass Egg out for a spin today. The Psyhigh Pep Squad had a fundraiser, washing cars for $10 each, so I got the gyrocopter out of storage and flew it over. After knocking the spiderwebs off the rotors and a two-point safety check, it started up like a charm. Just needed the dust washed off the egg. The pep squad kids got it bright and shiny with their psionics and suds, and I enjoyed a delicious passion fruit shave ice while I waited.

First super-hot day. Tracking the heliotropism of our ideas in Subtle Weather. We hold one thought in our heads all day long and watch as it tracks the movement of the sun.

It needs to be a really sturdy thought. And you have to pay really close attention because there's graphs and graph paper involved.