#[AUTHOR'S NOTE: PLEASE DO NOT EAT SILICA GEL]

[pencil-inc]

#7

It’s not the reports, not yet, but it’s interesting enough to post a mile of text about.

This is a bottle of liquid silica. It’s not pure— hell, when is it ever pure— but it’s enough to turn someone toon twice over.

If you’ve handled any toon product, you’ll know silica does not expire. It’s plastic with a pun on the end, why the hell would it-- if anything, it gets stronger, like aging a really fucked up wine.

I choose to believe it was a pun-based reasoning for silica's tooning abilities, since nobody could ever figure it out. Silica? Silly-ca? Get it?

For a while, I wondered how the surge of toons happened as is. Some said it was just pure chance, some thought it was Area 51’s fault, some people thought it was a mass hallucination.

This was the thing: what started it? A kid? A pet? Alien life, a parasite gone rogue?

The first human to turn toon could know.

So I tracked her down. Easy enough, her records aren’t that well hidden on the internet, and those modern day phone books for people’s information are still legal. Not that you’ll find me that way.

The world was glued to their screens seeing the footage of her turning, so convinced it was AI until the testimonies sprouted into life from the sidewalk cracks, the witnesses overcome with shock, or denial, or that specific strain of ecstasy and dread that only comes when you're among the very first to witness or experience unfathomable history.

I wasn’t there at the time, but a colleague was. And, by following the paper trail back via them (and about seven different people), I found one Ms TX. (Look, I know this one's common knowledge, but I have to have consistency on the false names here. I'm not giving you everything.)

The last time I saw her, TX was peacefully living out her days in a newly established sketchbook; an older term for toon-friendly city districts, but she prefers it over 'gallery'. She had a good job, her social media was old school (one handwritten HTML website and one guestbook), and she liked to paint birds. They still sell for a pretty good price, given the economy right now.

Ms TX doesn’t like the press: that’s one thing we have in common. I am not the press; I am barely an authority. When I asked if I could come in, I saw her lips press together so they were pale, before she looked off to the side for half a second. I said something about being a new HOA governor for her street.

Then, she did. (We’ll get to the silica in a second.)

I hadn’t been out on an investigative crawl like this in a while when we first met, so I was still shaky when it comes to talking to the public. But, you need to connect with people on something if you want to get what you need out of them. I am always surprised by the variety of toon architecture. She practically lived in a greenhouse, all pencil sketch and watercolour. The sunlight filtered through the windows into a soft wash of yellow, the realistic clouds translucent through the skylight.

So, I started there. I asked her about the build, the furniture, the open plan living from the 2020s. It took some pressing sometimes; the stairlift, the triangle wedge of a closet under the stairs (and the mountain of clothes inside), the rough paint of the entrance hall to resemble realism unlike the rest of the house. I could see the difference between the coats of paint, some flecks of baby-blue just barely visible from behind the bookshelf.

By the end of the cup of coffee she’d handed me, I knew just enough about her to try for what I came here for. I took out the bottle of liquid silica, and placed it between us. (the rest of this is sourced from the interview transcript)

"Was this substance your making?"

She looked at me blankly. A forced freeze of expression, maybe.

"Don't get me wrong, you've done a good job of keeping your cards close. With the way you've decked out the place, you might as well have been a toon your whole life... but everyone has their preferences."

She shuffled a little.

"Just a simple yes or no: did you "

Nothing. I shrugged

"Ms TX, you lived the rest of your life in relative safety, haven't you? Sheltering from amateur paparazzi in this day and age is pretty impressive. But there's things here that speak of upturn. An era spent in panic, desperately shedding the things that made your human life what it was, years of normalcy lost in minutes when the solution hit your throat. Am I correct?"

She nodded slowly.

"And this upturn made you ruthlessly overanalyse every aspect of your life, even at your age. The paint, the stuffed closet, the hall stripped of all it's personality compared to everything else. Ms, why change everything so much if you were so happy living in safety on your own?"

She wasn't looking at me straight anymore. Her lips were pressed again, face taut with annoyance.

"I chose these things. I don't truly remember how this--" she tapped my bottle-- "ever found me, but it was never coercion. It was... like watching the world unfurl around me, before I decided to look closer. Like coloring outside the lines." She squinted at me. "For a Homeowners Agent, you're awful picky on your approval criteria. I will not apologise for my taste in decor."

I left not long after.

She doesn't live in that sketchbook anymore, not after that. I don't know where she is now. She probably still has a website.

I should have known better.

-- R