I'm on a planet with like, twin suns, a big red one and a little yellow one. I don't know the Earth name for it or I'd tell you, but there can't be that many fucked-up solar systems like this around. There are thousands of us up here, do you hear me? Thousands. We were snatched from our families, from people who loved us. You must have heard about it. Somebody back home has to remember. Are you looking for us?

We're here, all of us, thousands and thousands of exiles. We can look up in the night sky and see Earth, or the sun, the real sun. That means you can see us too. Please, it's been an hour since I heard you. Please, say something. Please.

"Whoever you are, I want my talk-box back. I don't want to hurt you, I just want the box. There are four of those boxes on this whole stinking planet, and I used to have two. Okay, you got to me, whoever you are. Very funny, you know? I know it's still working cause I can see you when you use it. Huh? I can't hear you. Nothing clever to say now? Okay, now, bitch, just bring me back that box, I'll think about letting you keep your eyes. That's all from me, the Potato King."

If you think I'm scared asshole, or that I'm gonna bring back this box. you got another think coming. Good luck, fat boy. Why don't you come get me? I'll give you a little love bite. That's all from me, Lucy.

I feel.. what? Lonelier than a person should ever feel? Crazy? Way past crazy, actually. Past scared too. If I ever see Scare City again, watch out. I'm five feet six, I look like a hot mess and I've got enough explosives in my teeth to leave a good-sized crater in the ground. Shit, I'm the scariest thing out here, you know? Fuckin' bring it on.

So I'm listening, looking up at the sky. Suddenly the static went from bzzzzzzzz bzzzzzzzzz to this regular bup-bup-bup-bup kind of sound. It almlost had a beat. I got really excited, but scared too. I was holding my breath, trying to hear every part of the sound, when I saw the little boy.

I mean it looked just like a little boy, except he was blue. He was standing ten feet from me in the darkness just outside the light from the transmitter. We looked at each other for a minute. Then I spoke to him like an idiot and he vanished. Why'd I have to go and do that?

I looked around. It was just hot and quiet, and now the static was back to normal. I said Lucy you're fucking going crazy out here in this shit.

Today's insanity loop is this happy-sounding song they play on Radio Gigante. It only sounds happy though. It's called "Ue O Muite". "OO-ay oh MOO-oo-ee-tay." I saw it written. That's all I know cause it's in Japanese, another language I don't speak, but they put the words en ingles in the Gigante broadside, and they go like this:

I look up when I walk so the tears won't fall
Remembering those happy spring days
But tonight I'm all alone
Happiness lies beyond the clouds
Happiness lies above the sky

I look up when I walk so the tears won't fall
Though my heart is filled with sorrow
For tonight I'm all alone
Sadness hides in the shadow of the stars
Sadness lurks in the shadow of the moon

The singer even whistles for one verse, trying to sound like his heartbreak isn't going to get him down, but inside he knows better. To me it's just the saddest song. Here I am, looking up I see two suns, three moons, and millions of lonely stars.

So I've been out here in the deep desert for two weeks, and I thought I'd learned a trick or two for staying alive. I move at night, sleep days in this red rock cave I found. My stash of clean water (thanks, Potato King) has been holding up, and I've even gotten used to the powdered food, mostly. I was still alive and I hadn't gone crazy, yet.

So, you know, I thought I was slick.

Then it got really hot. Coño it got hot. The thermo on the zip-wagon broke when I crashed, so I don't have an exact number, but I know it's way past extremelyfuckinghot. I can tell you that.

Am I crazy? It's crazy to keep trying to live like this. The double sun thing is just kicking my ass and the water's gonna run out sometime, but I keep acting like this is a temporary setback rather than the scene of my death. I must be crazy.

I was going through with the plan. I want that on the record. I've had a lot of time to think about it, and maybe it was stupid, or maybe I was stupid, I admit it, but at the time, I believed in the plan and I was going through with it. I was going to kill the Potato King, kill him dead.

You should have seen me, all dressed up like a Christmas present in this red dress. I looked hot, crazy hot. The King's bangers couldn't keep their eyes off of me, but when one got too fresh, his jefe just beat him down. I was the King's play-toy, no touching allowed. When they brought me to him he actually licked his lips. It was gross, he was even bigger and fatter than they said he was. And from across the room he smelled like old grease. He had this shit in his hair, god it was nasty. I thought, just a few minutes more you fat fuck.

You know what? When I got close to him, you could see he had really pretty eyes, like this green and gold type of color. His eyes were actually beautiful. Then (TRANSMISSION ENDS HERE).

"Y antes de morir me quiero, hechar mis versos del alma." They sing that dreary shit all the time here at the Casa Combo. "Before the big bang, I want to tell what it's like to be me." I never really heard it before. Now it's my song. Is anybody listening? I'm talking about the real me, Lucy, not the paper hero they're going to make me on the posters. Like after it happens, they're going to put it out that my name was "Justicia." That's the name they picked, but that sounds so stupid. That's one of the things I wish I could change about this, the names they put out on you after always sound so stupid and fake. I want my real name to be known. I'm scared nobody's even gonna know my name. My real name is Lucy.

My teeth hurt like chinga from all the explosive caps they packed in there. I've been eating soup for three days. Have to be careful. I bite down on something, boom, I'm the king of pop. My face is still kind of swollen on one side. I hope it goes down in time. Gotta look pretty or the fat guy won't let me get next to him.

In a way, it’s like an honor to have been chosen to do it. Everybody’s telling me what an honor it is. I have to admit, it’s exciting, people paying attention to me, giving me stuff, putting like strings of paper flowers around my neck. Superstar. One of the bangers in Chavez’s inner group, the big guys who guard him? He keeps looking at me. I saw him, like three or four times, just looking at me. A couple days ago? Please. An important vato like that wouldn’t have looked twice. I have to say, I like it.

I keep thinking about dying. What it'll feel like at the moment I bite down on the caps. They say there's nothing left of you but your shoes. They say you don't feel anything, that it's instant. One thing I know, none of them have tried it. In all the excitement, I don’t know if it’s really sunk in yet, that I’m going to die. In two weeks I'd have turned seventeen.

The vatos who searched my rack came up with a razor. It wasn't mine (only a maricon would keep a razor under the bed) and I didn't put it there. It was a plant. I had to think fast and talk faster. I pointed out that since the racks were searched every morning, and I'd been up all night in the yard outside the Casa, doing my "dancing lessons," I wouldn't have had time to hide a razor there, but one of them might have.

That didn't make me too popular with the vatos, and they wanted to kick my ass, killer smile or not, and then maybe kill me, but then Chavez himself showed up, and said this had all been a test, and that I did real good.

Being nobody almost gives you like a free pass to kill somebody, or I should say a somebody. You kill a somebody? Then everybody knows you were sincere. You meant business.

This is how I see it, I'm sorry. People say you're crazy Lucy, you're talking mad shit. They say don't do it, you're young, you have your whole life ahead of you. They're the ones talking shit. A whole life of this? You must be high. Home is Earth, man, and this ain't home. I don't belong here and I don't want to be here. I keep thinking about this poem. One of the bangers taught it to me.

"Yo he visto cosas que vosotros no creeríais: atacar naves en llamas más allá de Orión. He visto Rayos-C brillar en la oscuridad cerca de la Puerta de Tannhäuser. Todos esos momentos se perderán en el tiempo como lágrimas en la lluvia. Es hora de morir."