A Brief Recap of Books 1-3
DATE: April 27, 9:22pm
FROM: cyrus m <cy@devilandcyborg.com>
TO: Andi L. <teartheclock@gmail.com>
SUBJECT: As you wish
Hey, A.
Are you sure about this? Really really sure? I mean, if I was the one having memory issues I would jump at the chance to NOT remember all this shit. But I get it, with Dr. S**der’s trial coming up, everybody’s gonna be talking about it and maybe it’s better to have this all written out in the order it happened so things don’t get all jumbled up in your head? But it’s all still pretty awful. So take care of yourself before, after, and while reading this ok?
A DEPRESSING TIMELINE OF THE EVENTS BEFALLING ANDI LIN & CYRUS, NAVEED AND ROYA MIRZAPOUR
June 15:
The Nutrexo protest. We were looking for your dad bc he was participating in a Nutrexo clinical trial but I kinda got carried away and was trying to hack into their computers when Dr. S caught us. She took us to SILO where we all ate a ton of experimental Blazin Bitz and I got totally sucked into NutrexoWorld while you and Roya did useful stuff like figure out how to escape, and Naveed… I’m sure you remember what happened to Naveed. The sight of him in that little room in her lab where she tested that weedkiller on him and left behind a very bloody and disgusting “present” will be burned into my memory forever so I’m not going to say anything more about that.
June 20:
We escaped in the middle of the night. Dr. S and her goons came after us and we had to hide in the EcoCow barn that was apparently a cesspool of disease bc that’s where we all caught the antibiotic-resistant infection MRK. But it took a few days for that to kick in. We managed to leave SILO but her goons came after us in the forest the next day. Naveed, in characteristic hero mode, distracted them so we could get away. We wandered in the forest for a while but couldn’t find him.
June 21:
You, me and Roya made it to safety at Gretchen and Frida’s farm! Do you remember the dinner we had on their back deck??? It was LEGENDARY and I’ve never eaten a better meal. That frittata… mmmmm….
Oh sorry, got distracted there. *wiping drool from keyboard* Now where were we? Ah yes, so at their place we were able to look at the slide deck I stole from SILO that explained what Dr. S was really doing, how she had genetically engineered the EcoCow milk to be super-addictive so people would buy more Bitz, and then they would eat so much that their blood pressure and cholesterol would go up and they would need to take a new cholesterol-lowering drug from Genbiotix, one of Nutrexo’s subsidiaries. Diabolical, right? We thought so.
June 22:
We headed to Harborview, thinking that if they tested our blood and found our cholesterol out of whack from eating the Bitz, we’d be able to back up our insane-sounding story. But Roya jumped out of the car at a stoplight and caused a car wreck and we were horrified and afraid of being caught so we ended up on our own. You decided to call your Nutrexo contact, your friend’s dad Mark, but that kinda backfired and we ended up in Richard Caring’s CEO office. I created a distraction by bringing down a chandelier and then you ran up to the roof, where Dr. S was waiting with an almost-dead Naveed, she thought a helicopter was gonna rescue her but the goon piloting it was actually gonna kill her and then us at Richard Caring’s request, but anyway that didn’t happen because she got attacked by crows (?? still not sure if that actually happened) and you convinced the goon to take you and Naveed to Harborview instead. Back down in Richard Caring’s office, he got abandoned by his police dept allies and Dr. Snyder was arrested. Everything ended up in our favor (once we recovered from MRK, that is, which took a really long time for Naveed).
I’ll include a quick round-up of the stuff that’s happened since then too, because you asked, though probably none of this will come up in the trial. Caution, more dark and traumatizing stuff ahead…
August 11:
You and I flew to LA to be on Lillian Page’s show. Naveed overdosed on painkillers that night, and I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t tell you. I knew he would be safe while we were gone and that he’d be okay eventually, and I was extra ashamed because I kind of blew up at him that night which is why it went as far as it did. Like a selfish idiot, I hid the truth from you. I’m still so, so sorry about that.
August 12:
We stayed with Brennan Walsh, CEO of Bountiful Earth Markets. He was surprisingly friendly and cool and fed us amazing food. Over dinner, he brought up that his mom had died recently and he suspected it was due to this supplement she was taking called Metafolia… a supplement you had ended up in the ER after taking. You wanted to investigate and I said I would help after we got home.
August 17:
We flew back to Seattle but Naveed had run away from home after being released from the psych ward where they had diagnosed him with PTSD, and then my lies blew up in my face so everything else kind of got shoved to the back burner. It turned out that he ran away to the Yakima Valley where he got embroiled in some drama with farmworkers, and all of that ended up being included in the documentary you wrote music for, so I’m sure you don’t need any more details about that…
Sept 18:
Brennan Walsh was murdered. In the Yakima Valley. After having dinner with Naveed. At the time, the police were sure that Naveed did it, but eventually they found out that it was this other guy named Alastor Yarrow. Alastor led a “spiritual retreat center” called Orcinia where they grew this psychedelic plant called peritassa. But, turned out he led a double life where he was also the founder of the supplement brand Metafolia. (dun dun DUN!!!!) Apparently the formulation usually included small amounts of peritassa, but one batch was faulty and ended up with way more than it should have, which caused your ER visit and possibly Walsh’s mom’s death (bc it’s toxic in large amounts). Before he died, Brennan and I had been making the PR rounds spreading the word about the dangers of Metafolia, which apparently had put a target on both of our backs.
Sept 19:
We went to a fundraising gala for the Walsh Foundation. It was a very eventful night. Naveed showed up out of nowhere and saved me from eating a lethal spoonful of poisoned porcini mushroom soup. Then he caught Alastor as he was about to escape by boat, and there was a dramatic showdown where Alastor ended up getting killed by his wife (plot twist!) who then downed the super-concentrated peritassa extract she’d put in my soup, and also died. Thank god someone was filming the scene so there was video evidence that Naveed didn’t kill them both, because you know he would’ve been the fall guy otherwise. He still got booked for stealing Walsh’s rental car but ended up getting a year of probation and 100 hours of community service. So, not bad considering. Naveed ended up going to Englewood after that to work on his PTSD. Which brings me to our next set of events…
February 13:
Things had been bad for you for a while. Your grandma had cancer (hope she’s still doing well btw!), school was super stressful, someone broke into your car and later left dead crows at both of our houses… we were pretty on edge, and then your dad started getting drunk and popping pills after being sober for hella long, and your parents broke up and you felt like you couldn’t talk to anyone about it (I still wish I’d been there for you more! I was super distracted with Bugpocalypse 3K and our GameCodeX presentation). Anyway, you took off on a therapeutic long drive. That same day, Naveed and Roya had gone back up to Englewood because they’d told Naveed he could adopt Koffka. But Roya and her friend Kass, who was an Englewood patient, snuck off and Kass set the barn on fire “with her mind” (??!!) and Roya was trapped inside with horses who crushed her leg. The cast’s finally off but she still has to do lots of physical therapy, poor kid.
Meanwhile, you ended up getting carjacked by a crazy dude named Jed who you had met at a show, and he was working with someone connected to Nutrexo who called himself Tim Schmidt. We still don’t know who that guy really was. Your theory’s that ol’ Timmy was doing Richard Caring’s dirty work while he’s behind bars, which seems as good a guess as any at this point. He retreated into the shadows when the detectives turned up the heat, and with all the attention around the trial I don’t think he’ll be bothering us again.
Anyway, back to the story, you crashed the car and tried to escape and thankfully we found you in the forest before things got really bad, and you shot Jed (you badass) and he’s still in a vegetative state in some hospital which is sad I suppose, but I have a hard time feeling too bad when evil people get turned into vegetables. In the end, you moved back to Berkeley with your mom and we still miss you soooooooo much, especially Naveed, but now that it’s spring it feels like a fresh start and as soon as this trial is over we’ll finally be able to put this mess behind us for good.
Dang, A. We’ve been through a lot. They should make movies about us!
Yours,
Cy