This was my goodbye story on the LMBs. I kind of had to rush the ending, so I might extend it on here. Hope you enjoy!
The post rate monitor beeps.
The Ranger looks up from his digital notepad. With alarm he notices the flat red line, traveling endlessly across the gradient.
He pushes a button next to the monitor, and the line slows down, the beeping stops.
He doesn't want to see the time sequence on this user, but he has to. He needs to.
For the good of the Message Boards.
The Ranger flips a switch and rolls his chair over to another station, where the appropriate files pop up on a holographic screen. He opens them and scrolls through, scanning the lines of code.
I should have seen this coming, he thinks. But it's probably a good thing I didn't....
He finds the sequence he's looking for. It dates back two weeks.
Two weeks past, this user's activity dropped....
He sighs and rolls his chair back from the station, putting his face in his hands.
I can't take much more of this.
He closes his eyes and composes himself, shutting the Words of the Ranger out of his head.
After several moments, he rolls back over to his notepad and clears the draft he's been working on. It hadn't been any good anyway.
He pulls up a new holographic window, but its empty blue glow intimidates him, somehow.
He drums his fingers on the station's small desk space for several minutes.
He gazes at the silvery, paneled walls, and the reflections of all his screens.
Slowly, he leans back in his chair, pulling the wide brim of his hat over his eyes.
Slowly, he nods off, and the Words of the Ranger return to the front of his mind:
You must roam the Boards alone, always observing, rarely interfering.
Ensure the happiness of the Community, even at the cost of your own happiness.
The haunting, distant wail of a siren wakes the Ranger.
He grips the arms of his chair to steady himself, heart starting to pound. The glow of his monitors and screens flickers, then fades with the sound of failing machinery.
He is left sitting in complete blackness.
After a moment of that awful, dark nothingness, he frantically fiddles with the wires on the left side of his head. The built-in light in his eye clicks on, and all at once he can see again.
He looks around the box, the sound of his breathing too loud in his ear. Nothing appears to be working.
What the...what the brick just happened?
Even the walls seem to have faded, turning from silver to dull grey. Actually, now that he really looks, the walls have changed...and are changing still....
A whirring sound comes from the center of the box, and the Ranger jumps out of his chair.
A red light flashes on the center station. Cautiously, the Ranger walks over to it.
The dot of light continues to flash, once every second.
The Ranger takes a deep breath, then puts a finger over the light.
Immediately, a fuzzy, dull red holographic screen rises from the center station. Pixels and lines appear in staccato bursts across it, as if something is interfering with its connections.
In the center of the screen is a dark window with two lines of red text.
The LEGO Message Boards are being shut down.
Please type your name to terminate your services.
The Ranger blinks and reads the lines again.
And again.
And again.
"What?" he whispers at last, leaning closer to the screen. Can they really do that? How?
The Ranger looks around his box, panicked, helpless.
All his post rate monitors, his activity monitors, his digital library of posts, everything has gone dark.
"No," he mutters.
"No!"
He glares at the red screen. Terminate my services . . . what the brick does that mean?
For as long as he can remember, he's worked in this box. There are no doors and no windows, but he's never had reason to leave.
Brick, to this day, he still doesn't know if there's anything to leave to.
Obviously, something has to be outside to power his stations, but for all that the MBers talk about IRL, he's never seen any evidence that it exists. The ongoing discussions, chatrooms, and stories, populated my MBers . . . they're all that is.
So why would it just . . . end?
He turns his back on the screen and walks over to another station.
He grips several of the wires and pipes running from the station down into the floor. They feel empty, inactive. No energy flows through them, not anymore.
The Ranger grits his teeth and holds down a button on the station's side.
"Voice override," he says, enunciating as clearly as he can. "Re--ahem!" There's a lump in his throat now. "Reboot the system. Please. Reboot the system!"
Of course, nothing happens.
The Ranger falls to a crouch and bows his head. He chokes back a sob.
The red screen casts its bleak, stuttering glow over everything, hiding more with shadow than it reveals with light.
The Ranger traces the path of a wire with his finger. This is all I have. This is it.
If it ends . . . if I type my name . . . what happens to me?
He looks over his shoulder at the only functional screen remaining.
Then he stands, turns, and walks back to it.
His hand hovers over the keypad. I'll just . . . I'll be given some new job...right?
Torn, he looks around his box--his home--one last time.
Only this time, something's different.
The walls have changed from metal to what looks like glass.
And through the glass of one wall, someone is watching him.
The Ranger stares, open-mouthed, keypad at his fingertips all but forgotten. The watcher behind the glass smiles and waves the Ranger over.
Cautiously, the Ranger steps away from the center station, toward the glass.
"Hello?" he says, once he's within arm's reach of the wall. "Can you hear me?"
The watcher shakes her head, mouth moving like she's talking, but the Ranger can't hear her, either. She tilts her head, seeming to consider something.
Then she pulls a giant, pink, fluffy hammer out of the shadows to her side and swings it into the glass, shattering the entire wall.
The Ranger stumbles back as the shards rain down, but they turn to mist and dissipate before they can hit anything.
He blinks. "Whoa. Um. You're not going to hit me with that hammer, are you?"
"Hm? Oh, no." Using both hands, the watcher compresses the hammer down to the size of a thumbnail.
And that's when it clicks in the Ranger's head. "You're a Mod," he says. "It's . . . it's Miakittymoon, isn't it?"
Miakittymoon shrugs. "In subconscious only. You can call me MKM."
MKM.
"Right," says the Ranger.
He stands there awkwardly as the Mod stows her now-tiny hammer in a silver scabbard at her belt.
"So," he says at last, "if you're not here to ban me, then . . . what?"
MKM takes a deep breath, her gaze flicking toward the red screen. "You need to go. Leave the LMB Hub. The Boards haven't been shut down yet, but if you're here when they are . . . you'll be shut down with them."
The Ranger glances back at the red screen himself, vaguely wondering if typing his name would've shut him down immediately.
"LMB. . .Hub?" he says distractedly. "You mean . . . IRL is out there?"
"I . . ." MKM shakes her head. "No. Just the Hub. The place where user subconscious goes while on the Boards.
"Beyond the Hub . . . well . . . no one's ever left before."
The Ranger blinks. "And you want me to go. Outside. Where no one's ever been." He throws up his hands. "What if there's nothing there? What if I'm not meant to. . . ?"
He trails off. His mind is buzzing with more information than he's ever had to process.
What am I saying? Do I. . .do I want to be shut down?
Without waiting for MKM's answer, he already knows what's beyond the Hub: nothing. Nothing for him, at least. Everything he's done, he's done for the Message Boards.
Isn't it fitting that he should end with them?
"We all want you to save yourself," says MKM softly, jolting him out of his thoughts. "All of us Mods, anyway. The users probably do, too, even if they can't know you exist."
She pulls a pack off her back and rummages through it. Eventually she pulls out a small black box.
"And this is why."
The Ranger takes a step toward it before he even knows what he's doing.
The Ranger pulls his eyes away from the box. "Um. . . ?"
She shakes her head and extends the hand holding the box. "See for yourself."
The Ranger reaches out and hinges the lid back, sensing some kind of approval from the box.
Inside, nestled in blue silk, are two USB flash drives: one is silver, with glowing orange patterns running across it, and the other is white, with purple and red accents.
"Wow," he breathes. "They're--"
"Not all there," mutters MKM, shoving the box into his hands and digging through her pack again. "Now that I think about it . . . that was probably for good reason. . . ."
The Ranger holds the box closer to his face, shining the light of his eye on the flash drives. Without having to be told, he knows what they're for.
Storing all of the posts on the Message Boards.
"Here's the other one," says MKM, dropping a tan-and-green drive into the box between the first two.
The Ranger looks up, eyes wide. "So . . . everything in the history of the Boards . . . it's all here?"
"Yes."
"Discontinued forums, too?"
"Yes. Everything."
"And you want me to leave, with this, and, and . . . what?"
"Keep the Message Boards alive," MKM says. "Even after the Hub is shut down and the Boards are gone, the posts will still be out there somewhere, with you. Who knows, maybe someday you'll find a safe place to make a new Hub." She smiles sadly. "Possible or not, it's a nice thought. . . ."
The Ranger feels a tear roll down his right cheek.
He looks down at the three flash drives.
They seem content, now that he carries them.
He flips the lid of the box shut. "You've convinced me," he says to MKM. "Thank you.
He steps forward to embrace her, but his arms fuzz and pass right through her.
He starts to panic as MKM takes a step back, into her own darkened box-room. "No, wait! Don't go! What's happening? Why can I touch the drives, but not you?"
MKM returns the pack to her back and makes calming motions with her hands. "I'm not going anywhere. It's just . . . I only exist here subconsciously, but you . . . you're here completely. And this place is . . . how do I put it. . . ."
She stands there thinking it over for quite some time before finally giving up. "OK, I don't know exactly how this works, but we're on different levels of . . . being here. Does that make sense?"
The Ranger swallows and dries his face on his sleeve. "You mean . . . I'm like a ghost?"
"No . . . well . . . yes. Kind of."
"The users . . . they won't even be able to see me, will they?"
"That's right." MKM pulls out a square of light from her pocket, then expands it into a holographic tablet, presumably for moderation.
She clears her throat. "You'll have to pass through the other Mod boxes on your way out. They all have doors, thankfully."
The Ranger manages to smile at that. "And . . . and how do I get to their boxes?"
MKM gestures to the dark behind her. "The first door's that way. If you get lost, just ask Merlok, Pixal, or Echo for help." She looks down at the box in the Ranger's hand. "You OK in there?"
Three voices call out affirmation from the box.
Of course, thinks the Ranger, amazed but hardly surprised. Of course they're alive. . . .
"Goodbye," he says, "and . . . and thank you again."
"Goodbye, Ranger." She smiles, her eyes reflecting the light of the tablet. "You're very welcome."
He turns back to look around his home again, smiling mockingly at the red screen.
He tries not to look at the station that holds his library. I have a new one anyway. . . .
As he passes MKM on the way out, she unsheathes her banhammer again in a salute. "Until next time."
Hey, I found it! Sorry, I haven't been rereading the parts..let me know when we're getting close to new parts.
Great! Did you read all the parts back on the LMBs? Because most of the "new" parts will be extended versions of those. I did manage to finish (kind of ) before the locking.
The first Mod box beyond MKM's belongs to koolkanin.
The Ranger says his thank yous and goodbyes, to which koolkanin responds with her own.
Then he moves on to the next box.
He has to keep moving, or he'll stop and never move again.
All of the boxes are dark, and all of them hold Mods working on tablets. He bids farewell to IrrationalSeagull, catwizard, Cicada646, stevensbike. . . .
Surprisingly, to him, at least, they all seem to know him personally. When he asks Wildbunchz about it, she says she knew all about him as soon as she entered the Hub.
As if the subconscious knowledge came with the job.
She doesn't, however, know about him IRL. Just in the Hub.
Whatever that means. The Ranger doesn't want the headache of knowing right now.
He's fairly certain that if he asks enough questions, eventually someone will tell him he doesn't exist.
In the next (and what feels like final) Mod box, WhiteAlligator is waiting for him.
She raises a hand and smiles wanly. "Ranger. I . . . can't tell you how much it means to me that . . . that you're taking the drives beyond."
The Ranger glances down at the black box. "How long do I have?" he says softly. "Before--you know--the Boards shut down completely?"
WhiteAlligator compresses her tablet and adjusts her hat. "Twenty-four days, IRL time. Which, unfortunately, translates to. . .twenty-four hours in Hub time."
"Oh."
"Don't worry, though--the Hub isn't that big. At least, not if you don't want it to be. You could be out of here in under an hour."
"That's. . .all right then. It's just . . . I . . ."
Sig by Sam
I had been planning to archive it myself but you did so... yay! 
Sorry, I haven't been rereading the parts..let me know when we're getting close to new parts. 