Chapter Text
“You’re tuned to Space Pirate Radio, 66.7 on your FM dial. From deep in the heart of the Dark Side, welcome to Night Vale, a friendly community where the twin suns often shine down, though none may know their purpose. And you were saying, Josie?”
“The angels, they appeared to me!”
Cecil grinned and swiveled around in his chair, reaching out a hand to scratch the head of the one-eyed cat that crouched on his mixing board, switching its tail. “And what message did they have for all of us?”
The old woman’s voice crackled through the void that was space, waves of electricity spinning in darkness. “Well, I don’t know about any messages. They helped me swap out a fuse on my electrical barrier fence!”
“Well, isn’t that nice!” Khoshekh, the cyclopean cat, stretched out the elastic vertebrae in its back and emitted a strange, off-key purr.
“I kept the old fuse, in case any of your listeners are interested. It’s been touched by an angel! Red wings, it had: red like a traffic accident.”
“Thank you, Josie!” said Cecil, hitting a button and swiveling again. “And there you have it, listeners! A burnt out fuse that’s been touched by an angel. Available from Josie, out by the standing stones.”
“And now an update on the afternoon meteor shower. Well, silly me! It’s not a meteor shower at all, but rather another attack by StrexCorp Synernist Inc., aimed at this very station. Looks like we’ll have to sign off a little early today. I sure hope the carnage will be minor this time, but do try to find something to hide behind in order to avoid flying shrapnel. And also, an update on our community calendar: the PTA meeting will begin fifteen minutes later than usual, in order to allow parents who are Eternal Scout leaders time to shuttle over from the annual burning of the effigies. Good night, Dark Side, good night!”
And so saying, Cecil snapped a number of switches on his mixing board and then, heaving a contented sigh and doffing his headphones, stood up and cracked his back. He nudged up his glasses and gazed out the window. “Come, Khoshekh!” he urged, sticking out an arm. The being that somewhat resembled a feline launched itself onto his shoulder. Cecil picked up a folder of papers and, humming softly to himself, ambled out of his booth and down the hallway, passing by an assortment of posters advertising community happenings and local theatrical productions. He paused to poke around inside a Hamm’s beer ashtray full of marbles and rubber bands and paper clips that was sitting on a small table just inside the door. Khoshekh dropped down to the table, squinting at Cecil as he plucked a key from the dish. Cecil shouldered into the coat that was hanging on a hook by the door. He let himself out as the cat streaked through the door, and turned and carefully locked the station door after himself.
The sky was twilight-lit, as it always was in these parts. Cecil gazed upwards, at the ringed planet that tilted in the sky like an out of control gyroscope, and into the rich blue-black void beyond. There were several new stars up in the darkness. But, as he knew, they weren’t stars at all.
There was a hoverbike standing in the parking lot. Cecil mounted it and gave a low whistle. Khoshekh streaked out of the darkness, perching on the seat behind him. “Ready to go?” he asked the cat as he snapped on his helmet. Khoshekh emitted a lonely, hollow echo of a meow. Cecil revved the bike, and it answered with a low purr of its engine. Somewhere in the distance, sirens screamed.
Almost as an afterthought, he pulled a small remote control from his jacket pocket. Aiming it at the station, he clicked a button, and the ground began to rumble. He revved the bike once again and then streaked off.
He had barely reached the edge of the parking lot when the station began to blow, and soon it was utterly consumed in a bright orange fireball. Cecil felt the heat on his back, and heard the familiar scream of the approaching guided missiles as they re-entered the atmosphere. The explosion was certain to interfere with their tracking systems, so it was best to get clear.
The bike ascended a hill, and Cecil paused at an overlook to watch the sleek, shiny transports labeled StrexCorp Synernist Inc. glide up to the charred remains of the makeshift radio station. They would try calling off the missiles now, although they would be nearing the fail-safe point, so it was always possible that one or two would get through. As they were small, tactical devices, the damage would not be catastrophic, but it would be potentially amusing. Indeed, as Cecil hovered up on the hill there was a sharp scream accompanied by a small explosion. One of the transports, its compression device gone, quite suddenly puffed up like a container of Jiffy Pop popcorn, and then collapsed in a heap, causing rather a lot of frantic shouting and running around by the StrexCorp workers, fat like doughboys, stumbling around the area in their isolation suits.
“Popcorn! Are you up for a movie?” asked Cecil. Khoshekh mewled, and Cecil turned, piloting his bike over the hill and out of sight and sound of the chaos below.
Carlos plucked out his earpods. “Do you suppose the radio station was actually destroyed?” he asked.
Trurl and Klapaucius glanced at each other, grinning wide. “Carlos, the first rule is, don’t mix with the locals,” drawled Trurl, because that’s what they always said.
“You don’t listen to Cecil’s radio broadcast?” asked Carlos. “He lives on the Dark Side, and it’s quite engaging.”
“He claims he lives on the Dark Side,” chuckled Klapaucius, as the two brawny workmen strolled along with Carlos towards the edge of the dome that enclosed this part of the Light Side StrexCorp base. “Who can tell? Those guys are insane.”
Trurl grunted and began opening the sack that contained Carlos’s isolation suit. Carlos grumbled under his breath. He was generally an optimistic sort of person, but he hated donning the suit. However, rules were rules. “Is this where you sighted it?” he asked as he kicked off his shoes and stood barefooted on the slick tarp that lined the bottom of the enclosure. He really didn’t want to try walking too far in the suit. When you tripped and fell over in one of those things it was like being a turtle on its back. Nothing to do but wait for a rescue, which could be hours. He really had no idea how workmen like Trurl and Klapaucius performed their duties swaddled up in the thing.
“Somewhere around there,” said Klapaucius, waving a hand over towards a hillside. “Wasn’t in the logs, so I expected you’d want to nab one, doc.”
Carlos nodded grimly, his hand on Trurl’s shoulder as the StrexCorp worker helped him slip into the bottom half of the suit. Then he wrestled on the sleeves, extending his hands into the clumsy gloves. Trurl zipped up the back as Klapaucius fixed on the helmet. Carlos checked that the respirator was functioning, and then, giving Trurl and Klapaucius a clumsy high sign, grabbed his pack and waddled to the air lock. They shut the door after him, and he hit the button, and the door to the outside world slipped open.
His respirator humming in his ear, and being careful of the slippery soles of his boots, Carlos stepped outside. He saw from the ripples in the grass and flickering of the tree leaves that there was a soft breeze today, and he immediately regretted that the face mask prevented him from feeling the wind brushing his face.
Hecate was a moon circling a gas giant (a planet so nondescript that no one had bothered to come up with a name, it just had a catalog number) which in turn circled a binary star system out towards one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy. The moon was grasped in a tidal lock by the great, farting planet’s field of gravity, and thus had only ever showed one side, the Light Side, to inquiring astronomers. The other side, forever facing the parent planet, had been dubbed the Dark Side, though it was exposed to light in a somewhat irregular pattern in its rotation around the twin suns.
How such an eccentric configuration of celestial bodies had ever led to the genesis of life was one of the questions Carlos, as the scientist on this expedition, was now tasked to answer. He worked in haste now that the planet was in the middle of StrexCorp’s newest terraforming project. It seemed that many of the native flora and fauna were potentially vulnerable to the newly formed, human-friendly environment, so it was now a race against the clock to preserve and catalog any potentially scientifically interesting species. Truth be told, “scientifically interesting,” in StrexCorp’s somewhat twisted parlance, amounted to, “species that could potentially make money for Strex.” But Carlos tended to interpret the phrase in the broadest possible sense.
There wasn’t a lot of terraforming work to be done here, actually, at least according to what he’d gleaned from the gossip of Trurl and Klapaucius. The planet had a constitution that was nearly identical to that of earth: a nitrogen-rich atmosphere, untold gallons of water in its liquid state, and a planetary core that was seeped with metals. There were, however, some sort of unnamed contaminants present. Carlos wasn’t certain as to their exact identity, as that particular report was sealed and marked as proprietary information, but that was the reason for his confinement inside the ridiculous isolation suit.
He waddled down a dry wash, gazing wistfully at the beauty that surrounded him. He couldn’t feel the rocks beneath his feet through the heavy boots and the smells were occluded by the respirator, which also dampened his hearing.
Glimpsing a small flash out of the corner of his eye, he stood stock still, wondering if it was just an artifact of his visor. He slowly turned to glance at the low hillside beside him, and that’s when he saw them. They resembled bright butterflies, wings dappled with every color of the rainbow. They were larger than any earth species he had encountered, more the size of small bats. He turned slowly to the right. One had alit on his shoulder, and now studied him with bright, intelligent eyes. These weren’t insects, but he wasn’t precisely certain what they were. Then just as quickly, it flitted back to the hillside, and Carlos literally sighed with disappointment.
“Get a recording,” he told himself. Awkwardly he crouched down, dropping his pack to the ground and unzipping it with clumsy, gloved hands. He set down a small specimen case with some disappointment: there was not a chance he could catch one of these fleet little animals. Instead he picked up a meter and began to take readings of the environment. Fortunately, the flock remained where they were, picking among the flowering plants, so Carlos had time to calibrate his instruments – it was a slow task with the awkward gloves – and take many readings. He was so involved in his work that he at first didn’t see the shadow that passed over the ground.
There was a shriek, and then a flash of wings as a larger creature – it seemed some cross between a shrike and a vacuum cleaner – swooped down upon the little flittering creatures. The flock rose and as one soared away. Except for one: a purplish specimen that got separated from the rest. The vacuum cleaner bird turned and pursued the purple creature, which was hampered by an injured wing.
Carlos, who really should have been observing all of this with a scientist’s disinterest, found himself scrabbling for a stone, and then hurling it at the larger bird thing. “Get away!” he hollered. The bird of prey cawed at him, arched its wings, and flew off. He scanned up and down the hillside for the injured creature it had been pursuing, and finally glimpsed it, hidden up in a crevice between two rocks.
He hesitated. He really didn’t care for heights, and climbing was an even dodgier proposition, given the slippery-soled boots on his isolation suit. But he steeled himself and, slowly but surely, trudged upwards to where he had glimpsed a flash of wing. Yes, there it was, still hiding between the rocks. He glanced back over his shoulder. It was a long way down, but this was for science. Awkwardly, and hearing the suit squeak, he crouched down to be at eye level with the frightened being.
“Hey, are you all right?” he asked it, though well aware that not only was it incapable of speech, it was almost certainly not sentient. “Are you injured?” he asked. But he could see the answer. As the little creature cowered from him, shivering, he saw the ragged edge of one frail wing. “You’re hurt. Can I help you?” He stuck out a gloved hand, but the creature only retreated. Carlos withdrew, frowning. It was terrified of the bulky isolation suit.
Cursing in frustration, he looked at his gloved hand: it resembled less a human hand than some kind of ridiculous cartoon character. “Look, this isn’t me,” he told the creature. “Let me show you.” He tugged at the fasteners at his wrist and, in an instant, the glove was off, and he was extending a dark, long-fingered hand towards the creature. “You see? This is me.” And then, to Carlos’s surprise and delight, the creature ventured forward. It extended a pair of delicate antennae, lightly touching his hand. Carlos grinned: it tickled! But he was very careful to keep still.
And then the creature had hopped onto the back of his hand. It stared up at him, its eyes wide.
“Let me see your wing,” said Carlos, who slowly moved his head to get a better look. Almost as if it understood, the wings extended. Carlos leaned in closer. Yes, the poor thing had definitely injured its frail wing. He glanced around, but the rest of the flock was nowhere to be seen. He wasn't at all certain the poor thing could survive on its own.
“I have an idea!” he told it. Carefully, picking his way among the rocks, he carried the creature down the hillside, and then lowered his bare hand, allowing the creature to step off onto a rock. He picked up his pack and emptied it out. He brought the pack over and showed it to his new friend. “See? You’ll ride back with me, and you can make a recovery. And then I will bring you back out here, so you may rejoin your flock.”
The creature blinked as if uncertain, and then hopped into the pack. Carlos let it thoroughly explore the inside, feeling it with sensitive antennae. “All right in there?” he asked. “I’m going to put the top on now. We have to get back, the filter is probably running out in my respirator.” He fixed the top closed and then carefully hoisting the pack once again to his back while awkwardly carrying the rest of his equipment with his bare hand, made his way back to the airlock.
“What’s the deal?” asked Trurl as Carlos emerged from the inside door, and Klapaucius hoisted off his helmet.
“Oh, had a little problem with my glove,” said Carlos, flexing the fingers of his obviously bare hand. “Um, nothing major. We could probably give it a little scrub….” He trailed off. Trurl and Klapaucius were grinning at each other.
“Decontamination!” shouted Klapaucius, as each of them grabbed him under an arm and began to drag him away.
“Great news, listeners! We’ve already found a new home for our pirate radio program, thanks to the generosity of the Darkside Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. By the way, why not come down for the bowling league? Teddy Williams, the general manager, has just bred a whole new crop of snapping turtles and for a limited time, they’ll supply the electrified fences. Bowling has never been more fun!”
Cecil took a sip from the plastic cup of beer sitting at his side. Usually he confined himself to coffee during his broadcasts, but OId Woman Josie had offered it to him, and it seemed churlish to refuse. He watched another bowler run screaming from the army of snapping turtles after a 7-10 split, and gave Khoshekh a scratch behind the ears. The cat had tucked himself into one of the shoe nooks to take a nap.
“And now, the news. Strange happenings today over on the other side! It looks like that StrexCorp contingent, which has so far confined its activities to our cross-moon rivals, Light Side Bluffs-“ And here there were several drunken calls of “Boo!” from around the bowling alley, accompanied by the normal sounds of bowls rolling, pins falling, and snapping turtles on the rampage. “-but a little bird tells me that a contingent is headed our way. Let’s show them the usual Dark Side hospitality, though perhaps we could be a little less enthusiastic than last time, as the City Council is still cleaning up the remains.”
“And now traffic!” Cecil took another long sip of beer. “Imagine you’re traveling in another dimension, not of sight and sound, but mostly made of peanut butter and dandelions….”
Carlos huddled under a blanket in his quarters, shivering and sipping some hot tea.
His skin had been scrubbed raw in the decontamination shower. He suspected Trurl and Klapaucius actually enjoyed themselves with the ritual, as they never seemed more gleeful than when they were stripping him down or rubbing sterilizing soap over his body with the rough brushes. But now he was still dripping wet and chilled to the bone.
He heard a dull tapping sound and looked over to his pack, which had been dumped in the corner and forgotten. All at once, he remembered his small passenger. Wrapping the blanket around him, he leapt up and raced over to the pack, unzipping the top. There was a flash of purple, and the creature flop-flew out of the bag, alighting with no small effort on Carlos’s extended hand, where it stood, glaring at him.
“I’m really sorry!” said Carlos. “I had to go shower, and I forgot!” It occurred to him of course that he really shouldn’t have a native creature loose in his room, but he felt ashamed of confining it for such a long time. He decided, perhaps foolishly, that no one would need to find out.
Without ado, the creature crawled up his outstretched arm and peered at his face. “Oh!” he said. “This is the real me! I was wearing a face mask. It was a suit. But his is me!” He patted his face. He was subjected to a thorough examination by the antennae, and then it crawled through his hair, all the way over his head, which left Carlos giggling, as it tickled. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror: he looked like he was wearing a ridiculous purple bow in his hair! This just got him laughing more, which cause the creature to crawl down and stare again. “I’m just laughing,” he explained. To his surprise, it tilted its head, opened its mouth, and emitted a funny, high-pitched grunting sound.
“You're imitating me!” said Carlos, who was now tickled in a quite different way. “You must be something like a mocking bird! I’m going to call you Mimidae! Would you like that?” The creature fluttered its soft wings, which Carlos took as assent. Although he realized it was probably a bad idea to name a scientific specimen, he figured they were sharing close quarters, and he had already gotten into the habit of talking to it. Probably nothing more than the human tendency to anthropomorphize, he reflected. “All right, Mimidae it is. And I’m Carlos.” He gave a formal little bow, as he had never properly met an alien species before, so he supposed this was a special occasion.
“It’s a little stuffy in here. I’m sorry about that. But I have a place you might like!” He raised a finger to his lips for silence and, gathering the blanket around his shoulders, went to open the back door of his quarters, making certain that no one else was around. No one else ever visited, but he felt he should be careful.
Smiling, he threw open the door and proceeded out. Carlos’s quarters opened onto a large space he liked to call his garden. It was more properly the specimen room. Here all the plant samples he had so painstakingly collected were arrayed, after they had been decontaminated of course! There was actual soil on the floor, and although it was of course not open to the actual atmosphere, the dome overhead was transparent, so there was the real illusion of the suns beaming down.
“The animals are quartered separately,” Carlos told his new friend. “Of course, with the flora and fauna of this planet, it’s sometimes easy to get them confused. Look at this one!” he said. He grabbed a handful of animal feed from a sack and got down on his knees across from a small vine that was perched on three intertwined stems. He held out the feed. “Come on!” he urged. As Mimidae perched on his shoulder, the plant’s stems began to quiver, and then, slowly, it shuffled along the ground towards Carlos It tentatively extended out a tendril, scooping up the feed, right out of Carlos’s hand.
“Extraordinary, isn’t it?” asked Carlos. Mimidae didn’t seem to agree, as she was frowning disapprovingly at the plant that was now greedily digesting the feed.
“And I have an extensive collection of flowering plants over here,” said Carlos, leading the way. And so they passed some time in his garden, until the better part of an hour had gone by, and Carlos thought it would be a good idea to get back inside and get dressed.
Just as he entered his quarters and shut the doorway to the garden, there was a sharp rap on his outer door, and noises of someone outside his quarters making a rather large fuss. Mimidae snuggled herself into the folds of the blanket Carlos was wearing, out of sight. He tightened his wrap around him, and went to answer the door.
“Ah, Gasket, there you are!” thundered Colonel Mustard, the chief of his expedition.
“It’s Gasset, sir. Ortega y Gasset,” Carlos softly corrected for perhaps the hundredth time. “And my proper last name-“
“Gasset, Gasket!” huffed the Colonel. “You’re not fussy, are you? I can’t abide fussy soldiers in my company!”
“I’m not a soldier, sir: I’m a scientist,” Carlos reminded him.
“Yes, a scientist. Why aren’t you in your laboratory coat?”
“Well,” Carlos admitted, “I had a minor encounter with planetary, er, agents today.” He felt Mimidae wriggling under his blanket.
“I heard about that!” the Colonel told him. “Getting sloppy! I can’t abide sloppiness in the ranks.”
“Well, anyway, I went through the full decontamination procedure.” Trurl and Klapaucius had made certain of that!
“All right then. Time to stop messing about and stow your gear. We’ve got to get a move on!”
“A move on … to where?” asked Carlos as he felt a fluttering near his heart.
“The Dark Side. Where else?”
Carlos was speechless for a moment. “But…. Sir! We’ve barely begun cataloging the flora and fauna of this environment. Why, just today-“
“Less talk, more action, Gasket! Don’t let the moss grow.” And with that, the Colonel twirled around and marched off, double-time.
“It’s Gasset,” muttered Carlos, closing the door to his cubicle. “Ortega y Gasset.” He slumped down on his bed. It was hopeless teaching these people the traditions of New Hispaniola!
He felt a shift of his blanket, and Mimidae came fluttering out. “Well, this was unexpected,” he told her as she alit on his finger. “Have you ever been to the Dark Side?” He started to wonder about Cecil, and his erratic broadcasts. He squatted down and opened his trunk, and pulled out his ear pods.
“Great news, listeners! Teddy Williams has begun spiking the rum toddies with absinthe! I’m seeing things as never before.”
Khoshekh sniffed at Cecil’s beverage, which was carelessly sitting on the edge of the ball retrieval unit while Cecil, who was wearing a live mike clipped to his tie, fumbled for his bowling ball. After shooing the annoyed cat away from his rather potent cocktail, he managed to retrieve a ball that was finished in a kind of odd, orangey metallic sheen. “And now, here I go, off to make a strike!” Cecil announced, swinging the ball with such ferocious energy that he ended up spinning around a full 180 degrees, aiming not at the pins, but rather at the assembled gallery of Night Vale citizens. An ad hoc committee consisting of Teddy Williams, high school football coach Nazr al-Mujaheed and Roger Singh managed to get him turned around to more or less the appropriate direction, and the radio host let fly with the ball, which managed to evade the snapping turtles, bounced into the adjacent lane, and even knocked down several pins there.
As the crowd roared its approval an intern came down and handed a piece of paper to Cecil. Cecil scanned it. “Listeners, I’ve been handed a report that says they have just sighted several airships belonging to StrexCorp Synernist Inc. overhead. I think there’s really only one thing to do: we should go and greet them!”
Colonel Mustard was fuming. “There's another one!” he said, pointing out where an orange bowling ball was, oddly enough, embedded in the StrexCorp airship's fuselage. There were actually a number of the bowling balls lodged here and there along the ship's hull. The damage, fortunately, was merely cosmetic but it was driving the Colonel, who loathed untidiness, entirely up a tree. They had just landed at the Dark Side base. To Carlos's great displeasure, it was located high up in the air: high enough, supposedly, to be free of the planet's contamination. It connected to the ground below via a row of silent, glass-sided elevators, which floated up and town the column which supported the upper structure like dewdrops on a stem.
They had come under attack, of a sort, as they flew over the Dark Side town of Night Vale. The ship had come upon a mist, and then, all of a sudden, found itself bombarded by an array of small, hard projectiles. It hadn't caused any serious damage, but had definitely rattled the Strex Corp crew, which was not used to unforeseen events, nor resistance from any native peoples.
“See to this!” the colonel barked at Trurl and Klapaucius. Trurl was standing halfway at attention: he had apparently been birthed on a low-gravity moon somewhere, and thus stood an astounding seven foot tall, so he constantly slumped around, half curled over, as if to disguise his great height. Klapaucius stood straight as possible considering his broad back and ample belly: he by contrast was from a high-gravity world, and was nearly as broad shoulder to shoulder as he was tall.
Their feeble attempt at military discipline, however, was soon voided when the Colonel spun into a turn and revealed a snapping turtle, clamped to the back of his pants. “These Dark Siders,” he muttered as he marched off. “They mean to destroy our way of life!”
Trurl handed a chuckling Klapaucius a crowbar, but Carlos remained standing there for a moment, pondering the Colonel's words. “Why do the Dark Siders dislike us?” he asked them.
“Oh, them locals,” Klapaucius tutted. “We told you Carlos, you don't mix!”
“It means nothing but trouble!” warned Trurl.
“But why?” asked Carlos.
“Because they don't believe in the Smiling God!” offered a familiar voice.
Carlos looked down at the large hand on his shoulder and stifled a shudder. Kevin was standing beside him, genial smile on his face, as was always his mien. Carlos wasn't precisely certain why the man's presence made him cringe, but he always tried his best to avoid him.
“Er, they don't believe?” asked Carlos.
“No,” sighed Kevin, who to Carlos's dismay did not release his shoulder, but instead tugged him along the landing platform, away from where the working men were effecting repairs to the disfigured airship. “For some reason, they don't want to be their best selves. As you have no doubt heard us discuss many time on my radio program. You always listen to my broadcast, don't you?”
“Uh, of course,” muttered Carlos, who was reluctant to admit that he had actually been listening in secret to Cecil's pirate radio broadcasts from Night Vale. He felt a fluttering just over his heart: Mimidae was currently resting in his chest pocket. Oh, yes, that was another thing: he was carrying around a “contaminated” creature from the planet's surface!
He walked along the platform with Kevin. The structure stretched high above the moon's surface: so high a scattering of clouds could be seen below. The sides were smooth and silvery, and festooned everywhere with the StrexCorp logo, as was the custom. Carlos glanced over the low railing and shuddered openly this time. It was a long way down, and he had never been entirely comfortable with heights. No, he had to admit, up here he was utterly terrified of heights.
“But you want to be your best self, don't you, Carlos?” asked Kevin, his nails now digging slightly into Carlos's shoulder, his teeth gritted as his genial smile intensified. “You wouldn't settle for anything less, would you?”
“I always aspire to be myself,” Carlos retorted. He felt Mimidae flap against his chest once more, as if in agreement. “Now, I really should get to my quarters.”
“Yes, you have much work to do,” said Kevin. “Much labor before we get to the good work of cleaning up this planet. As do I. My broadcasts have never been so important, spreading the good news.”
“You realize that Night Vale has its own radio show?” Carlos blurted, immediately regretting his boldness.
Kevin's smiled tightened, and just for a very brief instant, something very dark flashed through his eyes. But then it was gone, like a sudden summer storm. “We have plans for that. We are broadcasting on every frequency. Every frequency! We will jam the signal, and only the one true voice – the voice of Strex – will get through.”
“Uh, yes,” said Carlos, who was very relieved when Kevin, at long last, released his grip. Carlos immediately turned and fled into the building, trying to keep himself from trembling. He didn't slow down until he'd reached his brand new quarters. He shut the door behind him and opened his coat so Mimidae could stretch her wings.
He had decided at some point that the creature was female. He wasn't entirely certain why, as he was still unfamiliar with her physiology.
“Well, this is the new digs, Mimi,” he said as she awkwardly propelled herself over to the window. Her healing wing was gradually growing stronger. “It's still small, but the view has improved at least!” The little animal – somewhere in that nether region between a bat and a butterfly – looked somewhat longingly, Carlos thought, out the window.
He stretched out on his bunk and glanced at the wall opposite. It contained, as did all residences throughout StrexCorp’s network, a wall-sized mural of the Smiling God. Usually, once he had occupied a space for a time, the mural would somehow find itself covered over with bits and bobs, but now it was fresh and unsullied. Carlos looked away. There was something that disturbed him about those reflective, metallic teeth. They were perfect, as he was supposed to aspire to be, but sometimes at night, he would dream of those teeth, opening wide, and a wet, pink tongue poking through.
Carlos didn’t recall much of his life before StrexCorp. His memories of his home world were dim. He knew there hadn't been much to eat, and his clothes were patched many times, but he also remembered the rich smells of his mother’s cooking, the breeze on his face, the soft voices of the women as they gathered to wash clothes in the clear, running stream. And then he remembered his mother’s tears as the men in their stiff sterile uniforms whisked him away, to a place where there was always plenty of food, and all the corners were sharp, and all the surfaces were smooth and shiny.
Carlos, despite his homesickness, had flourished in the StrexCorp academy, first under the tutelage of Master Sagan, and then, when the old master had achieved perfection (though the rumor was he had died), Master Tyson. Until the latter had suddenly disappeared one bright, sharp afternoon. The masters had taught him to be skeptical of everything, including (though no one ever mentioned it, Carlos had induced it) the Smiling God.
He grunted, and flung a towel against the beaming mural, where it bounced against the rows of teeth and sunk to form a kind of grey goatee on the Smiling God’s chin. “Shall I take you along when I go to collect specimens?” he asked Mimidae. There was a swift flash of wings, and Mimidae was on his shoulder, nudging his cheek. “It might be dangerous!” he confided, even though he knew the poor beast couldn't possibly understand. “I have no idea what could be out there on the Dark Side. I've never ventured outside over here: I've only heard that radio program. And it all seems so terribly strange.”
Feeling suddenly quite lonely, Carlos went over to his trunk, which had already been situated in his room, opened it up, and scrounged around for his earpods. And then he tuned in to a very familiar voice.
“...Once again, listeners, the City Council is urging that citizens remain calm for our upcoming street cleaning day. Who knows what may befall our fair city? As veterans can tell you, take canned goods and your least clumsy children and retreat to your basements and fallout shelters, or if you did not have the foresight to dig a fallout shelter, then you may try hiding in the closet. They will find you there, oh yes! But the darkness within may lend you a degree of comfort in your last, terrible hours.”
“In the meantime, let's see if Steve Carlsberg really can throw that spare, as he's been bragging all night. We know your game, Steve,” Cecil sneered. Across the alley, his annoying brother-in-law lined up a shot. Cecil meanwhile set up a pre-recorded message from Arby's. He poured some water into his beer glass and dropped in a couple of tabs of Alka Seltzer. He pondered what he might do for street cleaning day. It might be a nice time to get out of town and take in some fresh air. And he was curious as to what the Strex team was up to.
Carlos was overwhelmed.
The Dark Side was nothing like he had imagined.
To be brief, it was the most scientifically interesting location he had ever visited. He could barely turn around without bumping into a new species. It was sometimes legitimately bumping, as he was unfortunately swaddled in the clumsy isolation suit. But for once, he almost didn't mind. He felt like Darwin must have felt, when first the brilliant naturalist visited the Galapagos and beheld the wonders of life.
There was grass that whistled, trees that hummed, birds that swum, and fish that flew. There were snakes with jointed legs, giraffes with forked tongues, and some kind of beasts that looked like corkscrews on spider legs.
He had experienced a moment of fright when he came upon a towering lizard of some kind, with sharp claws and piercing teeth. But it had merely hooted and run away, shy as a baby rabbit. Most animals, however, seemed rather oblivious to his presence, much as Mimidae's flock had ignored him. It was ideal for taking readings, and Carlos soon lost track of time, so absorbed was he in his work.
The scuttling sound must have started before he was aware of it: the noises of the forest were muffled by the wheezing of his respirator. But he definitely heard the screams of the giant lizard he had encountered. It was loud enough to make him set down his meter and venture up the hillside to see what was going on. It was a truly amazing, if horrifying sight: the giant lizard was stuck in a marsh, and was being attacked by a pack of what looked for all the world like a bunch of crabs. While the poor beast screamed, the scuttling creatures swarmed it, pinching and biting and generally tearing it limb from limb.
Carlos watched in mute wonder for a while as the lizard was overcome by the attacking mass of arthropods and finally fell. Choking back his sorrow (for the lizard was a magnificent creature), he turned to go back and get his meter, so he could record this phenomenon, when he heard the scuttling. He looked back over his shoulder, and gasped. There were more of the crab-creatures now emerging from the woods beyond the bog, and then still more of them. His emotions changed from sadness to a sort of creeping terror. By this time, the crabs had already stripped the giant lizard to bare, bloody bones.
Carlos started back down the hill, but in his haste, his slick shoes betrayed him. He slipped and tumbled downwards. Breathing hard, he quickly picked himself back up to find he was bruised and scraped up, but did not seem to have anything broken. He was annoyed to see his suit had torn along one of the seams: this meant another decontamination shower!
He sensed a clicking sound overhead: a couple of the carnivorous crabs had just crested the hill directly above him. He needed to get away from here! He tried to stand, but found to his annoyance that the suit was now snagged on a rock. He tried to disentangle it, but only seemed to get further ensnared.
He felt a nip at his ankle: one of the crabs had ventured down and was now probing at him, putting pincers on the fabric of his suit. And there were more of them, scuttling downwards towards him. Panicking now, Carlos grabbed the fabric where it had begun to rip and pulled with all his might. He tore open the suit and wriggled out of it, leaving only his helmet in place.
As the crabs began to swarm over the hill, he fled, barefooted, over the rocky terrain, the sound of his respirator panting in his ears. There was a scuttling and scraping in back of him, but he didn't even dare turn to look back. They were getting closer.
An engine roared. There was a man on a hoverbike beside him, holding out a hand.
“Come with me if you want to live!” the man told him.
Carlos didn't hesitate, despite the cliched expression: he grabbed onto the man's hand, hopping up into the seat behind him, and they roared off, just ahead of the oncoming tide of little monsters. Carlos held tight to the man's waist as they zipped at breakneck speed over the rough terrain, and finally skimmed over a river, coming to a stop on the far side.
“We're safe now,” the stranger assured Carlos, shutting off the bike. “They can't cross running water. They're like vampires! Only maybe more like sponges?”
Carlos dismounted, his legs still shaking. His feet throbbed with pain: he had injured them when he was running. The stranger dismounted his bike, pulling off his helmet and smiling. He was blond, and very, very fair. Carlos could see traces of blue ink markings underneath his shirt collar.
A mass of crabs came crawling towards the opposite shore, and Carlos cringed. But, as the man had said, they broke like a wave at the edge of the water, instead filing up and down the bank.
“Hydrophobic crabs?” asked Carlos.
“They can't swim,” laughed the man, who was squatting down by the river now. One or two of the crabs had fallen into the water, where they kicked for a while, and then fell silent. The man plucked one out of the river as it drifted by. “See? Drowned!” He tossed it into a saddlebag on the back of his bike. “But they make great crab cakes! I'm Cecil, by the way.”
“Cecil?” said Carlos dumbly. “On the radio?” That was why his voice had sounded so familiar.
“Why, yes, I have a community radio show. Are you one of my listeners?”
“Yes! Every time you're on.” The man was peering at him now, and Carlos suddenly realized he was still wearing his helmet. With the suit off, it didn't really make much sense to keep wearing it, so he pulled it off, shaking out his dark hair in the light of the twin suns.
“Well, hellllooo, gorgeous!” said Cecil, who was now looking him up and down, his light eyes gone wide.
“Um, Carlos,” said Carlos, awkwardly stowing his helmet under an arm and reaching out his hand to shake.
“Carlos,” said Cecil. “And have you always been perfect, Carlos?”
“What?” asked Carlos, who was suddenly blushing. “I'm not perfect.”
“Then you're perfectly imperfect,” said Cecil, who still appeared dreamy-eyed. He stepped back when Mimidae came flying out of a pocket in Carlos's shirt.
“Oh, Mimi! I'm sorry, I forgot all about you!” said Carlos, as the little creature flew up to his shoulder and then stood, regarding Cecil.
“You have a nymph?” asked Cecil, who leaned forward and stared.
“Is that what she is?” asked Carlos. “She was separated from her flock. And this thing – it was like a hawk, or maybe a vacuum cleaner – was attacking her and damaged her wing.”
“Mmm, yes, the hewvurs will prey on them sometimes. Really extraordinary creatures. Aren't you?” he asked her. He extended a pale hand, and to Carlos's surprise, Mimi curiously leapt over to him. “Aren't you a pretty girl? You know you are!” he cooed, and she extended her wings. “They adore praise,” he whispered to Carlos. “As we all do, I suppose!” He put out his hand again, and she hopped back onto Carlos's shoulder. “Oh, you're injured,” said Cecil, pointing down at Carlos's aching and bloody feet.
“I had to take off my isolation suit. To run away from the crabs.”
“Are you with StrexCorp?”
Carlos was confused. “Well, yes.”
“You've got the logo all over your helmet.”
“Oh!” Carlos had become inured to the StrexCorp logo, as it was blazed on just about everything he encountered nowadays. “Yes,” he said, holding up the helmet. “I'm a scientist. I've come here to study Hecate: it's scientifically interesting, and actually, downright weird.” He hesitated. “I mean, no offense.”
“None taken! I for one find it a compliment to be found scientifically interesting. I mean, we have all been scientists, at one time or another, haven't we?”
“Um, not really,” said Carlos.
“You two hop on, and we'll get you into town to get fixed up!”
Carlos hesitated: he really ought to get back to base. But he had to ask, “You mean, go to Night Vale?”
“Where else?” asked Cecil, who hopped back on his hoverbike and kickstarted it. “Come on!” He raised a pale eyebrow. “Who knows, there might be some crabs on this side of the river!”
Carlos looked at Mimidae, who slipped back into his pocket. Well, that seemed like encouragement. He considered putting his helmet back on.
“I wouldn't do that!” Cecil cautioned. “Strex isn't too popular in Night Vale. No offense!”
“None taken,” laughed Carlos, who gladly set the awkward helmet on a rock. And then he mounted in back of Cecil.
“Be sure to hold on tight,” said Cecil, who was donning his own helmet. “Very tight! I don't want to lose you back there.”
Carlos cautiously twined his arms around Cecil's waist. He was surprised when Cecil gripped his hands and pulled them tighter, lingering for a long moment, their fingers entwined. Carlos edged closer, feeling a sudden fluttering that was definitely not Mimi. And then Cecil grabbed the handlebars and they shot off, and there was that giddy feeling of acceleration and this strange and wonderful and surprising new land speeding by him.