Random Back Issues #127 - Test #1

Looks more like Kansas to me. Maybe eastern Colorado.

Aleph's hitchhiking comes to an abrupt end after asking too many personal questions and gets dropped off somewhere in Iowa. Or Nebraska.

While Aleph converses with some sort of AI/Alexa thing, a bunch of guys in white SUVs show up. Aleph underwent a lot of experiments that involved modifications, and the companies that did those experiments want their proprietary technology back.

Judging by the flashback to Aleph's journey to the middle of nowhere, those aren't the first people they've killed trying to find Laurelwood. A town that was removed from all the maps. What's there? Aleph doesn't know, but they want to find out.

Their arrival is marked by immediately being stung by some mechanical mosquito, prompting Aleph to bolt for the nearest hotel to wait out whatever will happen. Takes a bunch of "brain pills" (use not detailed) and crawls inside the steamer trunk to sleep, while weird shadows watching through the mirror. You know, one of my coworkers briefly stayed in a hotel where she thought there was something weird about the mirror and promptly found a different hotel. But Aleph's in either no position or no mind to be choosy.

After another flashback detailing how Aleph escaped the research lab (having a fellow patient stab them bad enough to get moved to a less-secure place) Aleph's up and patching up the places where the seams are starting to show, it's time to investigate the town. Laurelwood looks a lot like a regular town, except for all the things that don't fit. Roombas cleaning the streets, VR helmets, grocery stores stocked with brands never seen before.

All of which seems to overload Aleph, who then somehow overloads the lights in the supermarket. Well, that'll get most anyone asked to leave, but the streets are full of more guys with white SUVs, so Aleph tries their luck in a bookstore, and gets a quartet of senior citizens wielding sabers for the effort.

{11th longbox, 75th comic, Test #1, by Christopher Sebela (writer), Jen Hickman (artist), Harry Saxon (colorist), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer}