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Dec 23: The Lymphanthrope

The wedding was going great, but just as they were about to entangle flagella, something strange happened. The groom and his best men started to shudder, then convulse violently. As the church bells rang midnight, they started turning white and frothy. The door burst open and everyone not writhing unnaturally turned to look. The groundskeeper, an old parasite, stood in the opening. "UNCLEAN!" he screamed, "Take your curse an' be gone with ye'!"

Then came the gargling howl we had been hearing at night. We turned back to see a hulking foamy monster where the groom had been and several smaller foam beasts in place of the best men.

Interstitial Horror: Lymphanthrope. He wasn't really dressed for a wedding, was he?

The foam was most likely lymph, an interstitial fluid that transports certain types of cells. The big one pointed, and his minions leapt into the pews. The bacteria scattered like sheep from wolves. The foamy creatures snatched up a couple bacteria a piece and dove out the windows. If they were indeed lymph, they would enter the bloodstream and carry the bacteria to the nearest lymph node to be destroyed. A couple of them bit a bacteria or two on their way out, and those bit began to shudder and change.

We sprung into action, tackling the leader. Our blows had no effect, and its foam clung to us. The lymphanthrope hauled us off and we soon found ourselves in the bloodstream. Lymph nodes destroy bacteria, but would they attack us? We weren't bacteria, but we were tiny organisms brought to it by lymph. I wasn't sure what would happen, but the lymphanthrope obviously thought this would kill us...

We came into the lymph node to the sound of a loud buzzer and the echos of commotion and machinery. I could barely see through the foam, but it was like a dark, cavernous warehouse, lit by harsh fluorescents and red warning lights. I could make out a checkpoint gate lifting as we entered the node. We passed some empty chambers that were completely bare save for some piping and nozzles around the walls and lingering whisps of smoke. Then we came to another that was sealed by a mesh grate. A lymph blob passed through it, scraping a couple bacteria out of itself and leaving them in the room with several others. There was another buzz and a solid door slid down in front of the grate. Through its thick glass we could see the bacteria quivering, and then a bright light, accompanied by a screeching hiss. The light died down and revealed a now empty room. The door slid open again.

Now the lymphanthrope carried us inside. The smell of vaporized bacteria washed over us. I struggled to reach my comlink in my pocket. One of the others had apparently hooked his foot on the edge of the entrance as we came in, but the lymphanthrope quickly wrenched it off. It threw me out against the back wall, then the rest of us by turns. The grate was already shut; there was no point trying to run. I was already twisting the comlink on and dialing in the frequency of the one person I thought could help us. The lymphanthrope passed through the grate, leaving behind his inexplicably Canadian garb.

Tracy was running to the napalm nozzles, looking for some way to disable them, or plug them, or something. Kevin was climbing the walls, trying to reach a vent in the ceiling. Cody had already given up and was banging his head on the wall and weeping...while texting. I held down the comlink's call button and shouted into it, "ARTIE! COME IN!"

There was a second of static, then a voice, "What is it, old buddy? Forget to study for Mr. Wilkin's Engineering exam?" It was Artie O'Dactyl, one of the students at the Hippo Campus. We had created all of them with fabricated memories. O'Dactyl was a Scottsman and we had attended freshman year at the Hippo Campus together. We apparently also preprogrammed him with a tendency to shoot off trite, attemptedly endearing banter during tense situations, that also established his relationship with the other party for those who may not have met or heard of him until that point.

There was no time for ribbing, however. The second door was already coming down. "Artie! I need you to shut down all lymph nodes on the pelvic level!"

"What? Why? Where are you?"

"There's no time! Shut down all lymph nodes on the pelvic level!" The second door sealed shut.

Cody had turned around. "Who is this guy? Can we really trust him?"

"'This guy,'" I said, "Is a genius hacker, and he happens to be, like, my best friend, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk crap about him. ...Unfortunately, he's working with extremely outdated equipment in the Hippo Campus' computation machine labs, but don't worry: He can swap the plugs in those switchboards like there's no tomorrow."

There was a long pause. We could hear the extermination system priming. "Come on, you magnanimous hippo," I breathed.

There was the harsh tone of the buzzer, and we all cringed, thinking it was the end. The sound died out in the middle, however, dropping in pitch. The lights turned from sickly green-white to pure red as the backup power came on. The doors opened automatically. We skipped in a ring, hand in hand for a moment, then marched out to settle the score.

The lymphanthrope was looking confused in the middle of the room. Tracy whistled. Bacteria started coming into the lymph node, hopping the gate and encircling the lymphanthrope. Kevin picked one up and threw it at the lymphanthrope's face. It stuck there and the creature reeled back and stumbled about. "Only cover one side," he said, "I have an idea."

I knew exactly what he was going for, and as Tracy and Cody joined in slapping the bastard with bacteria, I called Artie again. "Thanks for the save, old friend. Now turn the power back on and close the grate on the #3 chamber."

Now the lymphanthrope was covered on the front with bacteria and we could maneuver him toward the cell. He put up a struggle, but with all of us pushing, we pressed him against the grate and squeezed him inside. I gave the command to Artie, and the second door closed. It sealed the lymphanthrope in, while also crushing some of those brave bacteria who coated it. "Now!" I said.

There was again the squealing sneeze of the napalm hoses, this time accompanied by the howl of the lymphanthrope. When the door opened, there was nothing left but a piece of stone like those the previous evils had possessed. We picked it up, had a moment of silence for the bacteria who gave their lives to defeat the penultimate evil in John Malkovich, and left for the Sphinxter.

1. Spleen Command
2. The Liver Spot
3. The Gullet Train
4. Nostril Dumbass
5. The Bronchus
6. The Heart
7. The Hippo Campus
8. De Gaulle Bladder
9. The Black Smith
10. The Sphinxter
11. Appendix B
12. RUSH (Adrenal gland club)
13. Evil #1: Count Scapula
14. Carpool Tunnel
15. The Omentum
16. Uvu Larry's
17. Evil #2: The Medusa Oblong Gato
18. The Sacrum Cathedral
19. Maximum Security Lymph Node (Evil #3: The Lymphanthrope)

Dec 19–22: The Sacrum Cathedral

Taking a break from the battling of ancient evils and such, we decided to attend the wedding of two of our bacteria soldiers, Gerbert Kruger and Squidgy Sue. In order to facilitate this, we renovated the sacrum into a cathedral.

Here's the concept sketch. You can't really see any of this from the outside for all the intestines.

Between travel, building the cathedral, the rehearsal wedding, the rehearsal reception, the rehearsal dinner, and the rehearsal rehearsals, we spent several days on this. That's why we kind of fell behind in recording the events of this year's Remodel-a-Thon.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Any resemblance between the wedding the QuipTracks crew attended in the tailbone of John Malkovich and the wedding Tristan, Tracy and Kevin allegedly were sighted at in Sterling, KS is purely coincidental.]

There were some suspicious events during this time, though, that are worth mentioning. Mainly the disappearance of some of our bacteria, a few at a time. Some would go missing at night, then return the next day somewhat dazed. (It's difficult to tell a dazed bacterium from a fully functioning one, but we've spent enough time with them to notice these things.) Even more disconcerting was the gutteral howling we would hear on such nights...

Hopefully tonight's wedding (it's going to take place around midnight) will go off without a hitch and we can get out of here; the groundskeeper keeps muttering that this place is cursed and it's putting everyone on edge....

1. Spleen Command
2. The Liver Spot
3. The Gullet Train
4. Nostril Dumbass
5. The Bronchus
6. The Heart
7. The Hippo Campus
8. De Gaulle Bladder
9. The Black Smith
10. The Sphinxter
11. Appendix B
12. RUSH (Adrenal gland club)
13. Evil #1: Count Scapula
14. Carpool Tunnel
15. The Omentum
16. Uvu Larry's
17. Evil #2: The Medusa Oblong Gato
18. The Sacrum Cathedral

Dec 18: The Medusa Oblong Gato

We entered the cranial cavity and began to poke around at the back. The crumpled rest stop map we had said there were supposed to be two piramids and two olives. The piramids sounded way more ominous, so we decided to check there. We found an entrance and descended into the left piramid. Unlike a pyramid, this was squishy and not very pointy, but it did have a labyrinthine series of corridors and secret chambers. As we made our way downward, the structure became more luminescent, and its components less connected. This progressed until we were walking along narrow bridges between synapses with light pulsing under our feet. We seemed to become lighter as well, and after some experimentation, found that we could move in space by thinking it—without using our legs as an intermediary.

We soared deeper until we heard a loud electric snap to one side, and, in a flash of light, our foe appeared among the electric bramble of the brain: An extremely long kitteh hovered before us, with snakes for hair (just on its head, though) and a sombrero.

Mexican Mythical Meme Monster: Medusa Oblong Gato. Ceiling Cat help us.

It reached its arms out to us and telepathically projected a low, annoyed growl. Tracy immediately floated toward it, but as soon as he looked it in the eyes, he was frozen in space, immobilized by the cuteness. I called on our bacteria to help, but they, being simple of mind, were having great difficulty functioning in brainspace™. The rest of us went for the Oblong Gato's belly, rubbing it furiously. I joined in and soon we had it crackling with static electricity.

"All right!" shouted Cody, "Now get back!"

We repelled from the belly a brief moment before a spark cracked between the Oblong Gato and the nearest synapse. Aside from the faint smell of singed fur, however, nothing changed. I began to feel light headed. That's when I noticed that I was breathing abnormally fast. The medulla oblongata regulates involuntary functions, and the Medusa Oblong Gato was controlling ours telepathically!

To defeat a Medusa-like monster, we needed a mirror, obviously, and there was one on the ship... We were finding it very difficult to move while keeping our breathing under control, however, and we had started having spasms as well...as if receiving sporadic knee-hammering. As I floundered about, I noticed that Cody was not only remaining steady, but was texting at the same time. Tracy called out to him, telling him to fetch the mirror, but processing sound waves and audio signals was one task too many for Cody. He continued tapping at his phone's keyboard. If we wanted to get his attention, I knew what we'd need to do. I took one last voluntary breath and concentrated all of my mental energy on an embarrassingly slow and clunky attempt to compose a short message using my flip phone's numpad.

"U need...."
My heart began to race.
"...2 get..."
My breathing sped up and I began to feel light-headed. My fingers twitched in a manner not at all conducive to typing.
"...a mirror, k?"
I managed to jab the "send" key with a shaky thumb before vomiting uncontrollably all over it. I quickly returned to focusing on slowing my heart rate and breathing. A few seconds later a received a text back from Cody, which read in full, "k".

He floated up farther and farther until he was no longer visible among the dense network of synapses. 483 breaths later, he returned with a full-length mirror from Raquel Welch's quarters and presented it to the Medusa Oblong Gato so as to immobilize it for good. The kitteh took one look at the mirror and froze as still as stone.

I let my body take over my breathing for me. My automatic functions were back to their proper rates and the Oblong Gato wasn't going to be doing any more damage.

Suddenly, the great cat lunged for the mirror and batted at it furiously before fleeing to the cover of a synapse, waiting a few seconds, and lunging at it again. The plan had not worked. The kitteh could not be destroyed.

But it would also be busy for a long time, and then it would be too tired to wreak any havok for a longer time. As it leaped and sped around the space, the Gato lost its sombrero, as well as the chunk of rock that was hidden underneath. It was similar in appearance to the rock we found after defeating Count Scapula. I shoved it in my pocket, took one last look at the wide-eyed kitteh flopping against the mirror, and led the way back out of the piramid.

1. Spleen Command
2. The Liver Spot
3. The Gullet Train
4. Nostril Dumbass
5. The Bronchus
6. The Heart
7. The Hippo Campus
8. De Gaulle Bladder
9. The Black Smith
10. The Sphinxter
11. Appendix B
12. RUSH (Adrenal gland club)
13. Evil #1: Count Scapula
14. Carpool Tunnel
15. The Omentum
16. Uvu Larry's
17. Evil #2: The Medusa Oblong Gato

Dec 17: Uvu Larry’s

The next evil is at the top of the neck, so we decided to stop by a place we'd heard some buff germs talking about—Uvu Larry's Gym. Located in John Malkovich's mouth, it's the best place to get in fighting shape, and if you can hit John Malkovich's uvula 100 times before he gags, you win $100.

It doesn't have a lot of equipment, but due to Larry's 'Hundred Hit Jackpot,' people are lined up back to the stomach to try to win the cash prize.

Larry made us a good deal—because we're good people—and gave a us a Platinum Membership for the price of a White Gold Membership. It gives us priority over everyone but the Diamond and Adamantium members. After a quick workout here, we should be fit to beat up whatever's waiting for us in the brain stem...

1. Spleen Command
2. The Liver Spot
3. The Gullet Train
4. Nostril Dumbass
5. The Bronchus
6. The Heart
7. The Hippo Campus
8. De Gaulle Bladder
9. The Black Smith
10. The Sphinxter
11. Appendix B
12. RUSH (Adrenal gland club)
13. Evil #1: Count Scapula
14. Carpool Tunnel
15. The Omentum
16. Uvu Larry's

Dec 15: The Carpool Tunnel

After the adrenaline wore off, we were kind of a mess. In our stupor, we got lost and ended up somewhere in the lower east side of John Malkovich's wrist in rush hour. It was total deadlock, and the worst part was there were all these people in SUVs and mini vans by themselves; it was shameful. So we got an idea for an express lane so people with a yacht full of comedians and bacteria could skip the traffic.

The carpool tunnel: when the repetition of wrist traffic becomes too much.

So here's John Malkovich now:

1. Spleen Command
2. The Liver Spot
3. The Gullet Train
4. Nostril Dumbass
5. The Bronchus
6. The Heart
7. The Hippo Campus
8. De Gaulle Bladder
9. The Black Smith
10. The Sphinxter
11. Appendix B
12. RUSH (Adrenal gland club)
13. Evil #1: Count Scapula
14. Carpool Tunnel

Dec 14: Count Scapula

With techno still thumping in our skulls, we had the bacteria reproduce the QuipRunners we made during last remodel-a-thon and we burnt rubber up the inside of John Malkovich's spine like bats out of hells! The first evil was somewhere near the top of the ribcage. I put Dick Dale on the stereo, and there was a totally kick-ass montage for a while as our faces were intermittently illuminated by passing streetlights. Each of us got at least one chance to squint determinedly ahead as the wind swept our hair back... And there were doves! Oh such doves! They dramatically flew behind us in grand fashion. You know, now that I write this all out, it makes me wonder if we may have ingested something less-than-legal back in the club...

Anyway, it really wasn't that long a drive, but with all the slow-mo, it took us a good few minutes. As we neared the last of the thoracic vertebrae, we began to hear strains of ominous music, even over the energetic, possibly hallucinated surf rock riffs of The Wedge Paradiso. Up ahead we could see that there was a tunnel leading down into the spine like a street-level subway entrance. We got off our QuipRunners to investigate. It was surrounded on three sides by elaborate stone– er, bonework that was a jumbled, deep relief sculpture of demons, thorny flora, and wailing skeletons, seeming to bubble up and slope away like froth from the mouth of the entrance. The eerie music beckoned us inside.

We cautiously descended into the tomb-like orifice and found ourselves in a hollowed out vertebrae that was a tad cramped, but still fairly imposing. I mean, given the limitations of fitting a dastardly lair into a single vertebrae, he had done a commendable job. The candles on the walls created a spooky tone without seeming heavy handed or cliche, and the blood stains really did a lot with a little—even given our desensitization to innards in general. At the far side of the room sat a...thing, playing a baritone clavical passionately while an apparently enchanted acromion played backup on itself in the corner. This monster before us had a tight leather robe and a normal head (from what we could see), but instead of arms (or sleeves), he just had a pair of shoulderblades coming out the back of his robes that looked like a dinky set of wings such that a big dopey character in a cartoon might get upon going to heaven. Hanging from the ends of these were a pair of overly large, skeletal arms. After looping through a the same few measures about six times, he seemed to remember the ending, and rose as the last strains faded. He turned to face us...

Ancient Anatomical Evil: Count Scapula

With blank eyes leering at us, he snarled with a voice like wet concrete, "So these are the fools who oppose his liege. It's time I taught you your place. Kneel before me: Count Scapula!" Each of us drew our swords, but Count Scapula just smirked and spread his hands. I began to feel itchy all over, and a my skin began to crawl. I thought for a moment that that was the extent of his invocation's effect, but then I noticed that my skin was literally crawling off of me and across the floor—the top layer of it, anyway. This guy was using epidermal necromancy to resurrect our dead skin cells and turn them against us! We watched, transfixed, as the flakes and dust of our skin piled up and began to take shape into crude doppelgangers of ourselves, poised, as we were, for combat. On the plus side, mine took a large mole with it, and it was using it as a beady, malignant eye.

We all of us stood frozen for a moment, steeling ourselves, both sides sizing up their opponents, then everyone sprung into action. It was a brutal scene. Despite our dermal doubles being somewhat shorter for lack of matter, they turned out to be quite formidable. The swords went right through them, and they weren't afraid to throw handfuls of themselves in our eyes. After several minutes of struggling, we were getting nowhere—in fact, we were getting out clocks cleaned. My double feinted, then swung in with an especially fierce uppercut that sent me across the vertebrae and crashing through some sort of ornamental pillar made of bones. I landed in the corner and heard and "oof" that was not my own. Startled, I got up and turned to find an old man with round spectacles clutching a frayed moleskin journal. "Hey," I said, "What're you doing back here?"

"I've been researching this monstrosity," he half-groaned, then coughed and clutched the rib sticking out of his chest. I couldn't tell if it was his. "I don't have much time left, but there's one sure-fire way to beat the skin minions..." He drew a shuddering, shallow breath. "Use... Use...." And then he passed out. I waited the customary five seconds, though, and sure enough he sprung back up to clutch my shirt and utter one final breathy word: "PUMICE!"

Of course! But where would we get some? Just then, I heard a brash, jive voice come from the entrance. "Yo, lets take these skin heads bowling! WHOO!" It was old Willard the black Smith! He tossed a large ball of pumice hook style, and it hit one of the skin dudes in the face and ground itself halfway in. Cody picked it up and knocked the one he was fighting over and started exfoliating the hell out of him.

The fight turned around in an instant. Count Scapula tried to resurrect them again, but with an "aw, hell no!" Willard lept into action and wrestled him back. As we finished off the last of the...guys (there's only so many ways I can restate that they're minions made of skin), Scapula found his strength and it was Willard's turn to fly across the room onto an elderly monster hunter. I rushed forward and drove my sword through the spooky bastard. He merely chuckled. "You can't kill me, fool. I'm already dead."

Man! This guy was doing pretty well at avoiding cliches until then! He was going down hardcore—but how? Kevin spoke up, "Hey, guys. Remember in high school, when Bobby Krelsborne got his scapula broken? Somebody hit him with a baseball bat and the force of the blow broke his bones."

"Of course!" Cody chimed in, "We could hit Count Scapula with bats!"

And hit him with bats we did. All four of us wailed on the sap until he was a pile of bits, then we ground those bits into powder with the pumice. Willard got up as we were dissolving the powder in acid. "Alright, guys. I think he's dead."

When you kill an ancient evil, you get their stuff; everyone knows that. So we snagged the acromion and rooted through his various chests. All we found was a big chunk of rock that was chiseled on one side and rough on the other, like it was a broken piece of a statue of some kind. Maybe if the other evils had similar rocks, we could recreate it. That seemed like a quest-y thing to do, so we held onto it. As for the spine, I believe we'll be leaving it behind.

You're welcome, John Malkovich. We just vanquished roughly a quarter of the evil within you... We're seriously sorry about the jaundice, though. It looks like it's getting worse...

1. Spleen Command
2. The Liver Spot
3. The Gullet Train
4. Nostril Dumbass
5. The Bronchus
6. The Heart
7. The Hippo Campus
8. De Gaulle Bladder
9. The Black Smith
10. The Sphinxter
11. Appendix B
12. RUSH (Adrenal gland club)
13. Evil #1: Count Scapula

Dec 12: Appendix B

Well the Sphinxter was no help whatsoever, so we tried to sneak around him and get into the duodenum through the bloodstream, but no dice: There was a checkpoint set up in the artery, with strange looking bacteria who were certainly not loyal to Cytosillius checking all who tried to pass. If we were going to sneak past them, we'd need to have disguises, or at least know more about them, but every bacteria scouting party we sent their way was swiftly dispatched. We had to fall back and rethink our strategy.

We remembered seeing an article about the appendix not long ago that revealed the purpose of the seemingly useless organ. It is apparently a resevoir--a library--of the bacteria of the intestines. In the event of a cataclysmic evacuation, in which all the bacteria was wiped out, the reserves in the appendix could repopulate and restore order. It was a stretch, but if we could find examples of the strain of mercenary bacteria guarding the duodenum, we could research them, finding their weaknesses...or disennucleus them and wear their cells as a disguise.

We set off for the appendix. When we got there, we rooted through the thousands of drawers of bacteria for hours, but didn't find any that looked remotely like the guards. That's when we noticed a sign on the wall. It said, "Appendix A: Index of Bacteria. Appendix B: Glossary of Terms." This piqued our interest. Sure enough, on popping our heads out into the intestine, we could see the entrance to another appendix a little ways down. We entered, and this is what we found:

In here was everything we could ever want to know about the insides of John Malkovich, and it was shockingly up to date, with a whole chapter on the newly renovated Hippo Campus. Unfortunately, due to some sort of curse, certain words relating to the evil forces that had taken up residence in Malkovich had been burned out of the books--mostly just their names, but also the answer to the Sphinxters riddle...the evil in John Malkovich's duodenum is working some major mojo, man.

Still, from careful examination of the texts, we were able to determine that there were three enemies we would have to defeat before we would be able to get past the Sphinxter. We also got their locations, but the information about how they get the mayo out of jars was burned out. I guess there's a lot we don't understand about the workings of evil hexes...

1. Spleen Command
2. The Liver Spot
3. The Gullet Train
4. Nostril Dumbass
5. The Bronchus
6. The Heart
7. The Hippo Campus
8. De Gaulle Bladder
9. The Black Smith
10. The Sphinxter
11. Appendix B