This is Lucy, Lot 41, can you hear me? Oh my god, hello! Hello! I know I heard somebody today. It was faint, just a high voice through the static, but I know I head something. I have to believe you can hear me too. Say something, please! Make some noise, anything.

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.

I can't blame the heat this time. Either I've lost my mind or this blue ghost-boy has been visiting me every night for a week now. He never speaks, but when he stares at me like he does, it feels like he can read my mind. It'll be real quiet, and suddenly he'll be there. If I shine a light on him he's gone. If I try to talk to him, he's gone. If I look away, he's gone, just like that. I don't know what he wants, but I've started looking forward to his appearances. I spend my day here in the cave thinking of tests or things I can try to find out what he is. Just stupid stuff. It never seems to work out. Who is he? Can anybody else see him?

This message just came in last night. Uggh.

"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.

You know my birthday came and went while I was heading into the desert, running from what I'd done, running from what I didn't do, running from Scare City, running from the Potato King and his bangers. For a while there, I lost track of the days, but by the time I got this transmitter up and working again, I had turned seventeen.

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.

The heat feels like it's never going to let up. I think I'm losing it. Last night I saw this thing, and it really freaked me out. I was out listening to the transmitter, I can't get good signal in the cave. I get so lonely sometimes I just listen to the static. When it makes a little more noise than usual, that's like, a big event in my night, you know?

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.

Still hot. I think I'm hallucinating. I hear things at night that sound so real. Voices. I don't know. Songs. You know how sometimes a song just won't stop repeating and repeating in your head? Happens all the time up here. Every little scrap you can remember of even a really dumb song is like, precious, because it's from home. On the other hand, the songs go around in your head for days and you can't stop the motherfuckers.

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.

Did I tell you about the suns up here? That's right, SUNS motherfucker. There's two of them, no lie. They're stuck together and they make one big ball of hell, I'm telling you. They say the little one orbits around the big one, but it takes like, two years or something. All I know is, when I got here, the little one was to the right, now it's on the left, but either way it's never been less than extremelyfuckinghot 20 hours out of every 28.

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.

Greatly exaggerated. Ok? This is Lucy, Lot 41. I’m not dead. Not yet anyway. I’m in the desert, south of Scare City. I’ve been out here for a long long time. I stole this transmitter thing from the Potato King, (and by the way, he’s not dead either, I’ll get to that) but I only just figured out how to use it. If you can hear my voice, if you come across this signal, please.. Please I don't know what. Remember me, I guess. Shit, just remember me.

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).

My name is Lucy, Lot 41. Nobody knows me, but they will. I'm like a future superstar. Tomorrow night, at exactly twenty-seven thirty, I’m going to paradise, or maybe to hell, I don't know, but I'm taking this fat freak across town with me. Then watch how I blow up.

"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.

My name is Lucy, Lot 41. Can anyone hear me? I don't have much time so I have to write fast. Yesterday they searched my bed and they almost found this t-pad. I was so scared. They'd've probably killed me right then and there for that. That sounds crazy when I think that in less that two days, I'm scheduled to die anyway.

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.

Who are any of us? No one, that's who. You're nobody. You've got nothing. If I die, or if you die, or if I kill you or if you kill me, who cares? Unless you kill someone famous. Then everybody knows your name. Airbody.

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."