Endtown by Aaron Neathery for September 16, 2015

Poor Holly. She woke up and saw the mutts and then freaked. I hope the dittos are still covering them.

Ah… the decoy. ;-)

After all, she awoke by being touched by a MUTT, face-to-face with a MUTT, amidst a horde of MUTTs. That would freak out anyone. The MUTTs seem to be unaware of her though.

One down, four to go?

funny how she said kirbee was going to trip them or put them in danger

at least she left the brain behind now well know if the mutts are looking for the brain or not

Full bore linear panic! Holly is heading in whatever direction that’ll put a great distance between her and those MUTTs.

Holly may have a thing for bugs. Trying to tell an arachnophobe to stay calm when they wake up and find a huge-hairy spider on their face is like trying to baptize cats. Ain’t gonna end well.

The MUTTs are looking in the wrong direction. Assume that the dittos are mimicking Holly as a mirror reflection. Wonder if any of them notice the sound isn’t following along with the visuals.

What did I say about girls in dangerous situations?I said it Monday.

No one (but Wally :) ) has caught her yet… ;-)

Possibility One: The dittoes are mimicking Holly (as they did Wally during the fight with Phil).Possibility Two: The return of the Jim thing.Possibility Three: Holly is now in schism mode!.Personally, my whole world lies waiting behind door number three! (with apologies to Steve Goodman)

So, uh, it’s hard to trip on a root or something on a featureless wasteland desert. Damn this Horror Film trope checklist! On the plus side, she left Clyde, huzzah!

I notice in the third panel it appears that Holly’s left hand brushes against the leg of a mutt. I dunno if that means anything, but I suspect that there’s a reason Aaron chose to show it that way.

And again I want to say how much I really enjoy both the artwork and the story. Wish I could do that.

Not that Kirbee woke Chik but that she slipped her hand over his mouth and calmed him that way.

ok plan b then…

Well, it looks like they left Clive and the supplies behind. This may solve the problem, as if the Mutts were seeking Clive’s signal, they’ll pick up the plasticized brain they were ordered to retrieve and scamper off.

I hope the dittos can keep up with her. Nothing faster than a panicked mouse

Maybe of some concern is that Holly, in her panic, ran FROM the others in her party. When she comes to her senses, she’ll realize that Wally, etc. are way behind her.

“…or we can run like hell…”In the boxing ring, the dittos showed they can make sound. And as someone said, they apparently masked the sound of the Opabinia Queen. They may be using active noise reduction to mask Wally’s whispering and Holly’s screaming.Holly may have had bad experiences with MUTTS or their prototypes between the time of her flashback and when we first saw her. If she’d lost her baby in that period, they might be responsible. Her baby might even be one of them.

Aaaannnnnd…. They’re OFF!!!It’s Holly breaking out in a wide lead. Wally in second place, struggling to close the gap. Kirbee is in the rear with Chic and Irving clinging on for dear life.And heading down the wasteland, Holly is still in the lead…

Here is a thought to toss around.It really comes down to this.Sarah was not responsible for the destruction of Unity.Jim was not responsible for the overall destruction of Unity. He did kill a bunch…..sort of thinning out the herd so to say for Sarah.Holly was………she insisted on bringing Clive.What was the trigger for finding Unity, searching for them with air scouts, and now the Mutts……it has to be Clive bringing them. If Holly had left Clive behind they would have found the PT abandoned, looked at that terrain and backed off. Too inhospitable so why look, let the terrain and exposure kill them.They probably did not know about Unity. It was well hidden and off most travel points with mutants due to their criminal behavior and bad manners.Now Sarah, Jim and such would have continued but maybe Unity would not have been found by the destroyers.Remember Sarah remarked the destroyers got there sooner than she anticipated. She knew they were coming and so prepared for it by getting topside while Jim rampaged about.Something is bringing these Topsiders towards our merry group of travelers.If it was Clive well then leaving him behind will work however can the dittos just expose Clive leaving the food and stuff behind? The Mutts are simply gatherers. Topsiders will notice Clive could only get there in the middle of nowhere by one way. Carried. If they locate the food…..that would confirm mutants on the ground. The company needs to get under ground quickly. The Topsiders do have a trick to use……line up those destroyers and just begin plowing the ground with their Zero guns. No gaps just plow. Even dittos could not stop that. Shoot several LARGE Zero warhead missiles in a carpet bomb event. Dittos cant stop that either.Could be the reason why everything is so flat……been done before back earlier hence why they have to live underground.Back at Albion West they were completely flattening the area with those monsters. Spread them out in a line and just start marching and blasting??Just like we would advance in Nam ending a firefight.Line up, all weapons firing and advance.My M60 barrel was glowing red in the daylight doing that one day. There was not a bush or tree left standing. Charlie was gone, of course he was always gone.Have fun folks.One last note…..Clive’s locator may not have worked below ground. Remember Sarah had it with her Topside just like our crew now. It does not have to be an active pinger….it can be passive like the Toll tag on your car. Simply reacts when scanned. The satellite could do that.

This would be funny if the situation was not so downright dangerous.Only thing to do is run keep the dittoes up with Holly or was it the other way around.?Not to touch the EarthNot to see the SunNothing left to do butRun, run, runLet’s run..

I wonder how high-pitched Holly’s scream actually is? You know what they say about mouse squeaks…

Veteran,If you are correct and the TS found Unity by tracking Clive, then Sarah and Jim might be at least as responsible for allowing Holly to bring Clive along. I have looked back at the part where they were discussing the point (April 2014) and Jim and Sarah treat the whole thing as a matter of carrying unnecessary weight. Neither mentioned that Clive might be able to be tracked. Given that they removed their radios and left without zero guns, they do know something about how Topsiders can be tracked. My guess is that either Clive doesn’t have a tracking signal, or that the TS leadership keeps it pretty hush hush.I’m guessing that the reason Sarah expected the TS to find Unity involved the heat signature from the fire.

As any cartoon cat should know…no plan ever survives contact with the mouse.

I like Kirby more and more, especially with no tail.

I had fully expected Holly and Kirbee to be good friends. So surprise when Holly was mad at her.Only thing that could explain it would be the kiss Most all women would be upset if some other female put moves on Her Man!