The Great Glowing Coils of the Universe (33 page)

CECIL:
What's your mission statement?

KEVIN:
This.

[
Sound cue: rumbling from episode 47
]

LAUREN:
We got so caught up in thinking about our business that we didn't think about the people. People matter at Strexcorp. They matter because of the business.

We're here to set things right. First things first, we will rebuild the Night Vale Harbor and Waterfront Recreation Area and divert thousands of gallons of necessary drinking water from other towns to provide it with its namesake. We will also fill in the giant hole out back of the Ralphs.

CECIL:
But where will the people who huddle there go to huddle?

LAUREN:
Oh, Cecil, you are simply resistant to change. Your revolution is cute. Community togetherness is adorable. But money, money is power. We will invest—

KEVIN:
Are currently investing.

LAUREN:
—to make Night Vale a better place to live.

KEVIN:
Thus increasing the resale value.

LAUREN:
Also, we know everyone fears libraries in Night Vale. Which is why Strexcorp will tear down the library, destroy the dangerous librarians, and replace it with StrexBooks purchase centers.

TAMIKA:
Don't you dare try to bring books into this.

CECIL:
Tamika, is that you?

TAMIKA:
Yes, I found their secret location using a radio triangulation technique I learned by reading an anthology of Emily Dickenson's poems.

KEVIN:
Lauren, be careful. She has a slingshot and a heavy-looking edition of John Osborne's successful play
Look Back in Anger
.

LAUREN:
Thank you, Kev. But I will happily deal with this myself. I just so happen to have my own slingshot and an extremely heavy edition of the Strex Employee Handbook.

KEVIN:
Well, Lauren, you have this situation under control, I'm just going to . . . oversee important . . . things elsewhere. Let me know if . . .
when
you take care of the child.

[
Exit KEVIN
]

TAMIKA:
I love books. Take that book you're holding. It looks ill-written and ill-conceived, full of bad ideas expressed poorly. I bet it lacks narrative arcs and an appreciation for the flow of language. It looks like the worst book in the history of books. But here's the thing. It's still a book. And I love books. So you do not deserve to even hold it.

LAUREN:
Then come and get it.

CECIL:
Tamika, stay alert.

LAUREN:
Let me throw some ideas at you.

TAMIKA:
Ugh!

LAUREN:
Ha! Yes.

CECIL:
Tamika? Are you hurt? Tamika?

LAUREN:
Cecil, Tamika won't be a problem for us any longer. Now what were we talking about? Right. Money. Success. It's . . .

TAMIKA:
[
Groans, waking up
]

CECIL:
Tamika! Tamika, can you hear me?

LAUREN:
Well drat. Hold on, Cecil. Seems she's still up and about. This'll just take a second.

TAMIKA:
Lady, I've trained for months. I've taken down your helicopters with only a slingshot. I've looked a librarian right in the area where most creatures would have eyes. You. Do. Not. Scare me.

LAUREN:
Oh no. Where did all these children come from?

TAMIKA:
Doesn't matter. What matters is that in a few moments you will start running as fast as you can in the direction of Desert Bluffs. All right, Book Club. Books as clubs. Go!

LAUREN:
May the smiling god show me mercy. I give up! I give up! I—Ow! Okay, I'm going!

[
Exit LAUREN
]

CECIL:
Well done, young Ms. Flynn.

TAMIKA:
I'm securing this frequency. We'll keep broadcasting instructions from here. Stay vigilant, Night Vale.

[
Exit TAMIKA
]

CECIL:
Thank you, Tamika.

Listeners, Night Vale is coming alive.

After weeks of the Company Picnic, the citizens are remembering who they are. They are members of a proud pseudo-democracy run by lizard kings through a byzantine maze of puppet governments and paperwork.

A crowd of those grinning Strexcorp drones surrounded one of the winged “not-angels” who was wearing a hand-tailored suit coat and was otherwise totally nude. But then Leann Hart, managing editor of the
Night Vale Daily Journal
, hacked her way through the crowd with a hatchet.

“I am imagining you are all news bloggers,” she screamed. “You are destroying years of journalistic tradition.”

At the urging of Sarah Sultan, the president of Night Vale Community College, Leann then threw Sarah at the few remaining Strex workers who were still intact. Sarah, who is a smooth, fist-size river rock, hit her target magnificently before bouncing off somewhere.

And so this Erika, who looked both wealthy and mostly nude, was saved.

Wait, I am seeing a flickering. The flickering is becoming a shape. The shape is becoming a woman.

DANA:
Hello, Cecil. It's me, Dana.

CECIL:
Dana, why haven't you returned to Night Vale?

DANA:
I will soon, I think. But there is something here that has me worried. That rumbling is getting louder. And the light on the horizon is quite close. I can feel heat, but I am not warm. The more the heat grows, the colder I feel. It is a terrible light, and it is so close now. I feel as though the universe itself is unraveling.

Plus, I found someone here in the desert.

CARLOS:
Hello, Cecil. I am manifesting myself in your radio station for both personal and not personal reasons.

CECIL:
Carlos! Oh, thank the imperfect heavens. I haven't seen you in weeks. I didn't know where you had gone.

CARLOS:
When I entered the house that does not exist, I found myself in this other desert world. But something had happened to my team of scientists, and there was no one to let me back out. Then I couldn't even find the door. Eventually your friend Dana found me.

CECIL:
Carlos, why didn't you call? Or Snapchat? Or reblog any of my woodcarvings of Khoshekh?

CARLOS:
Cecil, how would I do that? I'm in the middle of a desert that is not of this world. There's no cell towers or Wi-Fi or any kind of communication system. Plus, I want to save my battery until I can find my way back to—

DANA:
Oh no, your phone totally works here.

CARLOS:
Really?

DANA:
Yeah. Also l haven't charged my phone in like a year. Battery never ran down.

CARLOS:
Is that a Samsung?

DANA:
No no. Same as yours.

CARLOS:
Wow.

DANA:
And Wi-Fi is pretty decent out here too.

CARLOS:
Oh, look at that. Cecil, I'm on your Tumblr right now. That artwork is amazing.

DANA:
I mean, time is pretty messed up, so sometimes you reply to e-mails before they're even sent to you, but other than that . . .

CECIL:
Carlos, how do I get you home? Dana, how do we get Carlos home? I would like Carlos to come home.

CARLOS:
I'll be able to very soon. I'm working on inventing something right now.

DANA:
Every time the doors are opened, it lets that terrible light into Night Vale. And the light is so close now. We can't risk it.

CARLOS:
Right. You're very smart. You have very smart interns, Cecil. So I'm building a highly scientific device to keep the light away from the doors. Now the device looks a lot like a big umbrella, but it's way more complex and scientific than that for reasons I don't have time to explain right now. My Danger Meter is in the red, and, scientifically speaking, red is the most dangerous color.

CECIL:
Carlos, you're fading. Dana, where's Carlos?

DANA:
He's still here.

CARLOS:
Dana, I can't see Cecil anymore.

DANA:
He's still here. Carlos, thank you. I may get to see my mother and my brother again because of you. You are a hero.

CARLOS:
I'm not a hero. I'm a scientist.

DANA:
Then
scientist
will always be my word for
hero
.

CECIL:
What's he saying?

CARLOS:
We should go. Tell Cecil we won't be long at all. The doors should be safe to open now. I just need to finish stabilizing the device.

DANA:
Cecil, we have work to do, but we'll be home soon.

CECIL:
I can't wait to see you both.

CARLOS:
Like, an hour or two, max.

CECIL:
What? Did he say something? Was it cute?

DANA:
Good-bye, Cecil.

CECIL:
It's good to know we have such a talented former intern and brilliant scientist working together.

Once again, listeners, as several frantic phone calls have reminded me, it is also election day. Let's check in at the alley behind City Hall. Hiram? Faceless Old Woman?

HIRAM-GREEN:
YOUR REVOLUTION IS MEANINGLESS. I WILL BURN ALL DETRACTORS.

HIRAM-GOLD:
Yep, Cecil, all of us are in agreement. Me, my green head there, my other three heads.

HIRAM-GRAY:
Sure, just lump us together as “the other three.”

HIRAM-BLUE:
It's always just gold talking away like he's the important one and sometimes green yells something. Green and gold. Green and gold.

HIRAM-PURPLE:
Also, please call me Violet. You always say Purple, but I prefer Violet.

HIRAM-GOLD:
Right, yes, also my gray, blue, and, uh, violet heads there. Anyway, we all agree that once we become mayor, this whole revolution . . . well, it's sort of moot. If Strexcorp is still here and the people want them gone, we'll just, you know, throw some flames at the problem.

FACELESS OLD WOMAN:
The real issue now is getting these doors shut. There's a blinding light pouring from them and it's causing the world to become translucent. We can hear a deep rumbling sound, which I do not like. The helicopters seem unaffected. I think a terrible thing is trying to come through. Something whose secrets I do not know. The unraveling of all things. Fire-breathing will solve none of this.

HIRAM-GOLD:
Basically, the angels, or you know, “not-angels,” just need to shut the doors when they're done going through them.

HIRAM-PURPLE:
Yeah, were they born in a barn?

FACELESS OLD WOMAN:
According to religious texts, yes.

CECIL:
Did you not know that?

FACELESS OLD WOMAN:
Anyway, I agree with Hiram. A revolution and the unraveling of the universe is all fine, but it would be great if you could cover the election more comprehensively. We've worked really hard.

CECIL:
I'll do my best. Or, not my best, but some level of effort. Well, thanks for the updates, you two!

[
Exit HIRAM and FACELESS OLD WOMAN
]

Listeners, you heard the candidates. The doors are open. There's a powerful rumbling below the earth and a bright light turning everything translucent. Probably that's bad news, but weather is weird here, so who knows?

Oh, how fantastic. A couple of old friends just came by the studio, listeners.

JOHN:
Howdy, Cecil.

CECIL:
Listeners, it's John Peters, you know, the farmer? And Intern Maureen, is that you?

MAUREEN:
Yyyyep. Sure is.

JOHN:
Cecil, Dana and your science fellow helped us get out of that other desert place. I mean, I'm the one who found all those old oak doors, and Maureen here figured out that physically going back and forth between worlds was possible, but those two helped a bunch.

CECIL:
Great work, all of you. I'm so glad to get to see all of my lost friends again.

JOHN:
I stopped by to tell you that we have seen the rumbling in the desert. We have heard the bright light entering Night Vale. Cecil, that light. It is the great glowing coils of the universe unwinding. It is the unraveling of all things. It is a smiling god of terrible power.

CECIL:
How do you know all this, John?

JOHN:
Well, I was in 4-H club in high school. I'm a farmer you know. You learn all about this kind of stuff in 4-H. Seemed obvious.

CECIL:
No, of course. I'm sorry. Maureen, it really is so nice to see you again. It has been so lo—

MAUREEN:
Listen to me, you monster. I got you coffee and made mimeographs and sang sea shanties to the ants every single day. I even copyedited your Jaws slashfic even though that wasn't in the job description. Then one day, oh, get me some orange juice, Maureen. I mean I won't even tell you about how it's making people blink in and out of existence. And not only did it make me blink out of reality, you didn't even want it when I brought it.

Do you even know the mortality rate of your internship program?

CECIL:
I'm not sure what you mean.

MAUREEN:
Chad, Jerry, Leland, Rob, Brad, Stacey, Richard, Paolo, Dylan, Vithya, and Zvi. Do you know what they all have in common?

CECIL:
They got great training for a future career in radio?

MAUREEN:
No! That's not it at all. They're—