In the darkness of night, the vulture perched upon a low hill which had a large bowl in it. In that bowl was a pool of rainwater, filled with bits of thin plastic pieces which trapped just enough air under them to keep itself afloat accompanied by more unfortunate pieces of plastic which had sunk to the bottom, only to be stirred in a frenzy by the slightest of movements in the water.

Besides it was an weathered side of a house, where its overlapping sidings had worn away to only leave a smooth surface behind. But its surface was not unblemished. Painted onto the siding were the arms and legs of the moles which had suffered a high velocity collision with the wall.

The vulture flapped its wings and perched at the bottom of the wall, which was tilted slightly as it was slid into place, skidding over the trash and finally resting upon a gentle slope. The gentle rolling hills of trash dipped up and down, and as if following a ball, just tipped over, rolling over the hills, the vulture dipped down as well.

It opened its beak to clasp onto the spine of a mole and jerked up to follow the ball as it faced a steep cliff consisting of a broken skyscraper, now all warped and with its superstructure exposed and rusting.

And up the ball went and along with it the body. What was there to catch the ball was an opening that led it crashing and sending pieces of trash flying around as if it had exploded. But what happened to the body of the mole was the exact opposite; it had fallen into an endless abyss, to be swallowed up and never seen again.

--Laboratory loading dock--

Two men leaned against a pole, spectating as the soon to be empty truck was relieved of its final contents. One had

“Hey guys! Last one out of the seven! Enjoy your packages from the Husao Foundation!”

“Sure thing! We’ll put your name up top on the contributions report if you guys give us something good!”

“Hah! You know we’ll give you something good! Might as well just give us that spot right now!”

“Yeah, well, the government doesn’t like that you see, we have to do everything by their standards, not ours. If we were in charge, you guys would be invited into our lab already!”

“Hah! Darn bureaucrats! They don’t want anything of theirs near what we do!”

“They have no choice though! We’ve brought them so many valuable research results like drastically lowering the detectable body temperature on their soldiers! We’re simply too valuable!”

“Hah I guess they need us both either way or else they wouldn’t have that slight edge!”

“A small leg up on them can go a long way! That’s our motto!”

“You mean the only rope you’re hanging onto for survival? Hah!”

“We’re going to do big things! Just you wait!”

--The front of the path--

As the sun was overthrown by the moon from the sky, the scorching rays from the sun faded along with it. A freezing wave washed over the surface of the junkyard and the moles. Their tense muscles which seemed to almost be at the breaking point relaxed. And as if the door to their prison was just released and their chains dropped, every worker scurried to find the slightest bit of shelter which would shield them from the cold.

The guards spread back, encircling the scavengers and the queen. And facing outwards, they lay down, followed by scavengers, who like a row of dominos, fell down until they reached the queen, who at last lay down for the night. Above them all was a thick dark smog, which barely concealed the light that refracted its way out from the city that never slept. A single dot of light, like a diamond in the sky, shone down upon them all with a twinkle.

--Sample Cage 505035 + 506000--

“Alejandros! You’re not a dog! Stop walking in circles!”

“What’s a dog! I just like walking in circles!”

“Well I uh, I don’t really know. It’s a sorta quadrupedal animal and it just does dumb stuff! Oh yeah! It has small thread-like things called furs! They’re extra short though…I don’t really know what they can use it for…”

“Yeah sure, describes just about every mammal in the world… Presenting, the smartest mushroom in the world! Can’t describe what a dog is!”

“Hey! At least I know what a dog is!”

“Do you? What color is it?”

“Well… How do I say this… They don’t have a single color!”

“They can change their color? Hah! A mammal changing their color? What a joke! Never heard of before!”

“Well…That’s not exactly it… I mean, they got subsections of their species which have different colors!”

“Ah so it’s like how type 0054 and 0055 plastics are different colors but they’re basically the same thing am I right?”

“Yeah I suppose that it could be put that way.”

“So what else?”

“What?”

“What else about this famed dog! You know, How big is it?”

“Well…It also varies…”

“What! What is this species! How powerful is it!”

“I don’t know but the humans have depended on it for a long time!”

“Wow! And what else!”

“What do you mean what else! Everything about them is weird! Nothing is constant! They follow some abstract rule about how much they can grow or what color they’re going to be! It just drives me insane!”

--Laboratory--

Leonard walked up and leaned against the doorway leading into John’s laboratory

“Hey John! You about to wrap up for the night?”

“Nah, I feel like I’m pretty close to decrypting the small ball next to the nucleus! I think I’ll stay just a bit longer!”

“Really! Wanna show me?”

“Sure! As you can see, I’ve gotten most of the code using our normal methods, but there are just some missing parts in it! I’m running some of the more unorthodox tests to get it to show me its secrets!”

“Wow John, looks like it’ll take quite a while to finish doesn’t it?”

“I mean, yeah sure. It’ll be done at sometime in the morning and it’ll be pretty stable there!”

“I’m pretty sure you can automate the process too right?”

“What are you getting at Leonard?”

“Y’know, I was thinking about getting a drink to celebrate our future success! Let’s go!”

“Isn’t it bad leaving the lab unsupervised though?”

“Don’t worry! We’ve got all the other technicians to do that and more researchers around!”

“But they don’t exactly do everything we do!”

“Don’t worry! It’ll be fine! Look at what time it is! This is the time for partying!”

--Sample Cage 455-464211--

Jonathan, who had just piped all the liquids that fell from the hole in the wall into the hole in his head, fell down, was quickly surrounded by the other 8 moles.”

“Johnathan! Are you ok!”

“Johnathan? You’re growing so… Big!”

“What’s happened to you! Are you ok?”

“Johnathan! I don’t think you were supposed to eat that all at once! Should’ve taken it slower!”

“Guys! What do we do now that he’s comatose?”

“Is he comatose?”

“Well, he’s just lying there on the ground! What do you think!”

“He seems pretty fine to me, I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“He’s just lying there!”

“Do you think he’s in pain?”

“I don’t know! He’s breathing properly!”

“Should we kill him and try again?”

“Sure yeah, and then will that person eat us right after?”

“Well, I mean… The situation is different right?”

“Sure, if you look at it so closely, but look! He’s defenseless, we’re defenseless, How is that not the same situation! No! He cannot be eaten!”

“But he has the energy we need to survive!”

“And we’ll get just as much energy tomorrow! Believe in him to make it through!”

“I wonder what the other moles are doing though…”

“Who knows? Who cares…”

--Foxhole--

The ex-prisoner occasionally shook and opened his eyes which frantically darted around without him making a single movement. Was there something out there? It was eerily still, just like always, without anything or anyone to tell him otherwise.

A breeze blew past, stripping the heat from whatever surface it could touch and leaving a single shard of frost as it condensed from what little water there was in the air in front of the mole.

He lay flat, as his eyes followed the skyline which formed from each heap and each dump the dropships had placed, as they all blended into the horizon out in the distance.

--Sample Cage 458421--

“Ahhh! What is this thing at the back of my mind itching me! I want release from it!”

“Why am I caged! What is this!”

“I’ve gotten stronger huh. I can feel it! I can break out of this wall! Nobody can stop me now!”