Chapter 8 Internet Culture
"Lemmy? Lemmy, wake up!"
Lemmy felt someone shaking his side. He slowly opened his eyes, forcing the lids to slide open. When he turned his head, he saw Morton by his side. Morton breathed a sigh of relief and opted to put on a smile when he saw his brother's gaze directed at him.
"Oh thank the developer; you're awake."
Lemmy groaned and slowly rose to a sitting position. His head was pounding viciously; his legs felt like they were made of concrete. What's worse, he had no memory of where he was. He examined the surrounding area and saw that the sky was a very dark blue. Except...was it the sky, or was it the ceiling? Lemmy could not tell to save his life.
"Morton. Wha...what happened?"
"Iggy's device worked. We're in the internet!"
Suddenly it all came rushing back to the littlest Koopaling. This allowed him to see the artificiality of the sky, down to the very last micro pixel. He let out a breath and tried to stand, but pains like nails rushed through his bare feet. Morton had to support him so he didn't completely tip over.
"Why do I hurt?" Lemmy asked. Once he said it, he noticed how slurred his speech pattern was.
"I don't know; I didn't hurt when I woke up," said Morton. "Maybe it was a malfunction in Iggy's machine?"
Lemmy's legs wobbled, almost as if he was an infant learning how to walk. Morton held onto his hand as he started to move. The steps were painful, agonizing even. Fortunately, the more steps he took, the more the pain was mitigated, and the more Lemmy's head cleared up.
"What part of the internet do you think we're in right now?" Lemmy asked his dark skinned brother. Lemmy noticed that Morton's face adopted a sour expression.
"Oh," he said. "You just had to ask."
Lemmy noticed a picture floating past. On it was a picture of a Koopa man with headgear, a pair of thick rimmed glasses, and horrible acne doing the thumbs up sign. The caption read "Really, when you think about it, it should be called an in-tra-net."
"We are in that very special part of the internet, Lems," Morton said. "The part that personally makes me want to pluck out the very little hair that I actually have."
Suddenly, Lemmy understood.
"You mean…"
"Mmhm," Morton said with a nod. "We're right in the middle of meme city."
Lemmy gawked at Morton.
"What's wrong with memes?" he asked. "Memes can be fun and witty!"
"I'm not denying that," Morton replied. "They can be very witty. That is, if you come across the right one. But more often than not, you get memes like that one over there."
Lemmy looked at the picture floating past. The caption read "You can take the emotion out of the girl, but you can't take the girl out of the Shrek." Lemmy gave it a weird look as he watched it flit past.
"Okay," he said. "That one is a little weird. But there are also memes like that!"
Lemmy pointed to a picture of a raptor contemplating something. The caption read "If Fe is iron, does that mean that female is Iron Man?" When he saw it, Lemmy let out a giggle.
"Come on, Morton," he said. "You've gotta admit that one is funny!"
While Lemmy giggled away, Morton just gave a shrug of indifference.
"Meh," he said.
"Meh?" Lemmy asked in shock. "How is that a meh? That was a pretty clever chemistry joke combined with a neat little reference! How could you not like it?"
"I just don't like memes," Morton replied.
Lemmy felt angry. Seriously, how could his brother not like memes?
"Would you like memes if they had fish?"
"No."
"Goats?"
"No!"
"How about a meme about green eggs and ham?"
Morton threw up his hands and turned toward Lemmy.
"No! Not with fish, not with goats, not with green eggs and ham! No, I don't like memes, Sam I Am!"
Lemmy fell to the ground laughing.
"You did that on purpose!"
Morton just shook his head, putting his stoic face in place.
"Look, can we please stop this?" he asked with a monotone voice. Then he immediately removed his impassive mask and looked at Lemmy in concern. "We need to find the others before something bad happens to them!"
In that instant, Lemmy knew that Morton was right. He got up to his feet, worry and anxiety starting to take over.
"You're absolutely right. Let's go find them!"
