I don’t know why Psyhigh isn’t computerized more. The main office is full of computers, but the basement is full of paper files. Miles and miles of filing cabinets, dating back to god knows when. My work-study job is mucking around in here, pulling requests from upstairs.

Today, @Big Jim has me looking for all our contracts with the Fair Folk, going back to the earliest I can find. Something to do with the labor dispute in the garden. Pretty dusty, and it takes hours and hours. The upside lately is it keeps me out of all the Doll Flu trouble. Those dolls give me the creeps.

Even though it’s just a part-time work-study job, I take my Vow of Privacy very seriously, @Red Brown, and would never share information I have access to inappropriately with anyone. For instance, identity theft can be that much more damaging when it concerns multiple lifetimes.

That said, I’ll bet there are some other ways you could prove your identity that would be satisfactory, even if it’s not one of the three official methods?

I found the document that @Big Jim wanted. It was deep in the folios—the big leather-bound books filled with spidery text and illuminated manuscripts. Lots of dust and the bookmites bite your wrists and get in your pantlegs.

Under the section defining Breach of Contract it reads “Upon whiche tyme in thee Anthropocene Epoch, as foreseen by ye scryers of the Goode and Faire Peoples, that thee Springtide fails, due to thee upsetting disturbances of Man, an alternyte source of thee Energie of Lyfe shall be taken from thee Worlde of Man to power thee Vernal Engynes, and taken every yeare, until sayd balance be restored.”

@Big Jim didn’t look too thrilled, but it seemed to be what he was looking for. He mumbled some kind of thanks (I think) and took the folio with him.

The administration has access to the security cameras on all the food chains, Ann-Marie. For instance, right now I'm watching a movie of an acorn that falls from a tree, which is then eaten by a chipmunk, which then gets eaten by an owl, which is then eaten by a gigantic bear demon that lives in a cave. There are trunks and trunks full of video cassettes with stuff like that on them. I also ran into a bunch of tapes from their surveillance cameras in fairy land, which are pretty dated but still entertaining. One of my jobs is to go through and convert them all to digital.

Student @Hector Penman created a walking map for new students last summer, @KRMorben, but it was never certified for general use. It’s currently locked up in the Hall of Dangerous Inventions.

Down here in the File Cabinets of Mystery there’s a whole section for school maps, and no two of them are the alike. A pair of students—the Shengen Twins—have been scanning them for the archives. I’ve heard that overlaying them on top of each other has led to some interesting discoveries (the maps as well as the twins).

Along with metal file cabinets, there are stacks and stacks of files in cardboard boxes, piles of manila folders, and sagging shelves spilling over with binders and trays full of papers. I’ve discovered tunnels in the stacks, and they’re deep enough to get lost in.

I followed one tunnel way into the back and it opened up into a kind of cave or clearing. It had been lived in—maybe a kind of break room for work-study staff before me? There was a folding table and some broken office chairs and a thermos and a teapot and some pencils. I brushed away the pencil shavings and carved into the desk it said “PROPERTY OF THE COMPOST KIDS.”

Has anybody got an older brother or sister who might have heard of the Compost Kids? It looks like it’s been here undiscovered for quite awhile. Was it some kind of secret club with a forward-looking ecological agenda? I mean, we’ve barely started recycling here in the admin building.

Stashed in the Compost Kids’ secret room in the archives I found checkout records from the Tool Library. Things still weren’t computerized back then, so it’s all paper cards names and due dates. There’s a lot of activity for one particular tool—the Jiffy Whacker Hack ‘n Splice—which was a primitive version of CRISPR/Cas9 associated gene editing technology.

The Jiffy Whacker Hack ‘n Splice checkout cards are neatly paper-clipped in a manila folder with checkout cards from the Gene Library, and includes cards for marmot, tree snail, bumblebee, Monarch Butterfly, and frog.

There’s also an envelope of photographs...

A clipping in the folder from Psychic Phenotype Review, July 1986:

"We know now that Reality Accidents are cyclical, driven by the boom & bust cycle of the overproduction of hyperreality¹⁸. Every idea that emerges from the Reality Market substrate is immediately replicated, mass produced and remarketed, until hyperreality inflation becomes so great that the system collapses in on itself and resets.

"The Compost Kids deny the products generated by the Reality Market and turn inwards, towards resources generated by nature²⁷. These resources have no brand names, no serial numbers, no manufacturers. They believe that merging with DNA from the natural, unmanufactured, wild world provides the only way truly forward in time (in their view, the machinations of the Reality Market exist only in simulated time¹¹⁴). The Reality Market is doomed to destroy itself in an endless cycle, but through their praxis, the Compost Kids seek to create Refuge from it."

Cruz, Monica. Department of Patabiological Studies, Psychic High School (1986) The Compost Kids. Psychic Phenotype Review, Volume 37 (Issue 9), pp 188.

From Psytimes, the then student-run newspaper, September 13 1988:

PSYCHIC HIGH SCHOOL--The standoff between Psychic Security Force agents and the self-styled Compost Kids on the south end of campus continued into the early afternoon today, following more than two hours of a heavy barrage of Unhappiness Beams from PSF agents of the besieged forest area.

This reporter was allowed passage across the disputed Haraway Zone--the region of liminality that forms the border of the area currently occupied by the Compost Kids. The Unhappiness Beams seem to have had little effect on the members of the radical oddkin separatists, which they attribute to the fundamental difference in ontological frameworks. There's also a hyper-oxygenated, electric feeling in the air, which the Compost Kids explain as a result of their separation from the universal electro-grid (this region of woods is the largest area of campus not crisscrossed by electrical and telephone wires).

"We're fighting for the survival of the world," said @Zoe Missouri, a member of the group involved in the standoff. "We're not separatists--quite the opposite, in fact. A fundamental "coming-togetherness" is absolutely necessary to maintain viability of the ecosystem. It's terribly unfortunate that the administration deems this as a threat."

After the group's recommendations for pesticide cessation were respectfully declined by the school administration, the disappearance of the pesticides from campus storehouses was blamed on the group. Compost Kid spokesbeing @Justin Heathcliff said that the use of such pesticides "is causing the death of species on a wholesale level across the globe," but when asked directly about the disappearance they declined to comment.

"Asking us to leave the area shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the connection we've developed to this region, which exists at a chemical level for us now," continued @Zoe Missouri. "Though our hybridization with marginalized species is the most obvious change we've gone through, we're now directly connected with the entire web of species and processes of the Psyhigh biome. It's not really possible to leave at this point without facing extinction ourselves."

The disappearance of the Compost Kids was first reported in the September 27, 1988, edition of Psytimes:

PSYCHIC HIGH SCHOOL--After nearly a month, the standoff between Psychic Security Force agents and the radical campus fringe group calling themselves "The Compost Kids" ended peacefully today, with PSF agents taking full control of the disputed wooded area.

Following an unprecedented barrage of Unhappiness Beams, Discomfort Kittens, Guilt Rays and CHS (Cold Hard Stares), PSF agents stormed the encampment, only to find that the protestors had apparently already left the area.

"You can see the effect of the Unhappiness Beams right here," said Special Psychic Agent-in-Charge Lou Jaffrery, pointing out the drooping foliage surrounding the area. "Plants don't like it any better than people," he chuckled, "and that was more unhappiness than we've ever let loose on a single target over such a long time. We had to have extra unhappiness tanked in from a number of schools special, you know."

The Compost Kids themselves, however, were nowhere to be found. Their compound was completely abandoned, with no sign of garbage or personal items left behind, save for a banner bearing the words "MAKE KIN NOT BABIES" strung between two trees.

It is suspected that the protestors exited the camp through a large tunnel found dug into the earth in the center of the encampment, which did not appear on the PSF maps of the area prior to the siege. When asked if the PSF planned to pursue the protestors down the tunnel, Special Psychic Agent-in-Charge Lou Jaffery replied "No, on account of the spiders." The Agent-in-Charge did not elaborate.