An Entire Year of You

Chapter 1: New Arrivals

The man driving the car was bitter and grey and Carlos didn't care for him one bit. He kept tell himself this was mean. After all, very few people genuinely like their bosses, it didn't mean their bosses were bad people. The man driving the car was probably a really nice person if he got to know him in a social context. Carlos had no desire to get to know his boss in a social context. He didn't have much of a desire to get to know many people in a social context. That wasn't his job. His job was to do science. That was about all the details he had on the subject of his employment.

Six months previously he had been working as a professor at The University of What It is. The University of What It Is had one simple goal in mind, which was to get back to the basics of what a university should be. The administration body was overwhelmingly sick of supposed educational facilities claiming to be something more than they were. Everywhere they looked they saw pretentious ad campaigns with slogans like 'We're not a university. We're a community' Or 'We're not a university. Who told you that? We don't even know what a university is'. All that pretence seemed like a waste of time. Life was short and often better when people didn't dance around the point. The University of What It Is always got straight to the facts. It claimed to be exactly what it was, what it was was a university. Anyone who said any otherwise was a liar.

Carlos no longer worked for the University. He had been persuaded by an interesting, albeit it slightly threatening, stranger who had somehow found their way into his office, to up sticks and take a short research break completely off the grid to a small desert town. The premise, take a team and a ton of 'completely clean' money to the town of Night Vale USA and simply...research it for 12 months. The reward, a fully funded scientist's paradise. The catch, Night Vale had proven in the past to be rather dangerous, not to mention hostile to strangers. Carlos presumed that's why this stranger, Mr Markson, his employer and current driver, was sending him rather than going himself.

"Can't you just tell me one thing about why you hired me? What do you want me to find out? What's so special about Night Vale? Why me in particular?" Asked Carlos.

"What have I told you about questions, Mr Ciencia?" Mr. Markson hissed. Carlos virtually talked in questions, at least when Mr. Markson was involved. In fact, upon their first meeting Carlos had greeted him with a stringed mix of questions and expletives, though this was mostly because Mr. Markson had broken into his office. 

"Are you at the top of this operation or did someone hire you to hire me?" 

"Mr. Cienca." Mr. Markson growled.

 "You don't have to tell me who's at the top. Just whether there is someone else or not."

 "Stop it or I swear I will turn this car around." He shouted, whipping his glance to the backseat like a frustrated father. For a moment, he lost concentration on his driving and the car began to swerve. The silence in the car resumed as he took back control. Carlos sighed. It was a good job they hadn't seen another vehicle for several miles. Of course, Mr. Markson wouldn't turn the car around. They'd already come too far, having driven for multiple hours straight. It seemed that when he'd said Night Vale was in the middle of nowhere, he'd really meant it. The town showed up on no map and in no book. Even the internet couldn't turn up a single trace.

It was mid-day when the car finally pulled up on a dirt road just half a mile away from where the mystery town supposedly sat. The sun beat down as Carlos pulled his suitcase out of the trunk. 

"Pack light." Mr. Markson had told him during his briefing. "Makes it easier to run." He scanned his surroundings. There really was nothing around him. No buildings, no cars, barely even any vegetation. The only thing he could even consider to be alive was a single tree. It was old and rugged, and Carlos had an odd feeling that it was watching him. He chuckled softly. 

"Trees." He muttered. "They are us." And then immediately wondered why he had thought such a thing. 

"Just keep walking in a straight line and you should run right into it." Said Mr. Markson, seemingly not hearing, or perhaps simply ignoring, Carlos' previous statement. "Here's the address for your lab where your team will be meeting you and the address for the apartment where you'll be staying. Be back at this spot in exactly one year or I swear I'll leave your sorry ass right here in the dust." He handed Carlos two address slips, which Carlos glanced over quickly before shoving them in his pocket. He didn't argue with the threat of abandonment. He was already counting down the seconds before the year was up and he would never have to talk to or think about Mr. Markson again. 

"Don't you want to have a quick look around?" Asked Carlos. 

"Prrft, forget that." Replied Mr. Markson, already climbing back into his car. "Remember, you've got one year." He put his foot on the accelerator and sped off. With that, Carlos and Mr. Markson would never meet in person again. 

Carlos gazed at the dirt road that layout in front of him. Just a short walk in a vast desert, a short year in a never long enough life. He started his trek towards Night Vale. The most scientifically interesting town in the America, that's what Mr. Markson had called it, and for the first time in his life he would have nothing to distract him from his passion. He was completely isolated.