Day One
Mood:  quizzical
Weird. . .I don't know how to explain this. I feel kind of silly even starting this or saying any of this.

Here it is: I think I'm being followed. I decided to start this journal because, well, because I'm worried and I think something might happen to me. In case it does, at least this will be here as a record of it, and maybe someone will see it. Maybe the SSF will even investigate and this might help them. Would the Pigs investigate if something happened to someone like me? I'm nobody. They usually don't bother with nobodies.

So, I figure this journal might at least attract someone's attention, right?

Anyway here's why I'm starting this: It's the Monks. You know, the Tin Men, standing on the corners, preaching all day long. Creepy with their fake skin and their mirrored glasses, but cheerful, always cheerful. Reading from the Mulquer Codex, telling you that your lifetime isn't long enough to attain salvation--the usual. A bunch of them set up down the block from where I am every day--place calle Louies, might have heard of it? Good liquor, there, and sometimes an odd job or two. I hang around with a bunch of other citizens, hoping for work, or a spot of luck.

Anyway, the Monks are always down the block, three of them, standing there all day long without a break, preaching. They have a trick of scanning your face--they're cyborgs, you know, hooked up to the home office--and then calling out to you by name. Like, one day you walk by and they're preaching, you ignore them, then the next day you walk by and one of them sez "Good morning, Kitlar! Kitlar Muan, come here and let me save you." And from then on it's always your name. And you know they know more than just your name.

A couple of days ago, one of them got my name. I always tried to sort of turn away when I walked by, but trying not to look scared or anything, but I must have been sloppy. So then it was "Kitlar, come talk to me" all day long.

That was bad enough, but then one of them started hanging out near Louies. Louies ain't legal, of course, just a gin joint cranking out gasoline for the masses, but the Pigs don't have the energy to worry over it. But still, they don't need attention being drawn, and then I had this Monk, smiling, set up right next to us, calling out to me by name.

This for a few days. Now I think the damned thing is following me. I've shaken it a few times--if it is following me--because I know what I'm doing. I've been picking pockets since I was eight, I know how to run in this city. I know where the Safe Rooms are and where a lowlife such as myself is welcome and where he isn't.

I think the Monk is following me. And it's making me nervous.

Anyway, now that I wrote it all out I feel stupid. I guess I'll end here, and probably remove this soon, before someone sees it. My connection is hacked and I'd hate to have it clamped by the SSF just because I got spooked.