An Entire Year of You

Chapter 14: Lights

For another two weeks Carlos managed to lie his way to safety. Sure, he was keeping an eye on the radio station, there was nothing wrong at all. Then the phoneline finally got fixed and his oh so wonderful team ratted him out. Four months in and he was already on his last warning. If he didn't step up his game funding would be cut, and he'd be stranded in Night Vale permanently. Night Vale didn't seem like a great place to be without money. He was going to have to face it. It was time to pay another visit to the radio station.

He suspected everything would be fine. It wasn't like he had to stay long. It would be a quick in and out, easy peasy. Maybe he wouldn't even have to talk to Cecil. He could talk to Casper or station management, though he would definitely prefer Casper. He took several deep breaths as he lingered outside the main entrance, a small black device in his hand. It was going to be easy. Just find Casper, take some readings, ask some questions, leave before Cecil even knew he was there. In and out. He placed his free hand on the door and took another breath. He'd be super quick. In and out.

Casper's gaze shot towards him as he let himself in. His hair shot in the all directions and his eyes were shadowed by black bags, but he still smiled as Carlos approached the front desk. At least the lights were on this time, so he could actually see where he was going.

"Carlos, long time no see." Said Casper.

"Hey, Casper." Carlos smiled.

"Cecil is upstairs. His show hasn't started yet, so he's got time to talk to you."

"Oh, I'm not here to talk to Cecil. I was actually just hoping-"

"Carlos." Carlos winced as he heard Cecil's voice behind him. Since he'd managed to avoid the radio after the drawbridge incident, he'd almost forgotten how soothing that sweet baritone was. Of course, he wasn't there to be soothed, he was there for science. Work came first. Work. Came. First. He spun around. Cecil stood there with an empty mug in his hand, just staring right at him. "I haven't seen you in, well since the hill. How long is that? A month?"

"Yeah...hi, Cecil." Carlos replied quietly. He tucked a loose strand of his rapidly recovering hair behind his ear, which seemed to help a little with his nerves.

"What are you doing here?"

"Oh...you know...science." He smiled awkwardly, pointing at the softly beeping machine.

"That's great. You know I've been reading up on some science lately."

"You've been reading?" Asked Casper.

"You didn't hear that." Cecil told him.

"Understood." Casper sighed. Carlos suspected that there was a lot of things Casper 'didn't hear'.

"I find the artificial intelligence stuff particularly interested. I mean, I've always been cautious around technology."

"As you should be." Carlos nodded.

"But...I don't know. I think it might be nice to make some new friends. Think of all the little robot buddies we could have." He continued.

"Yeah, we could have robot friends and robot pets and robot-" He was rambling again. He cleared his throat and calmed down. He knew he would never see Cecil make his computer friends. He'd be long gone by then. "I mean, that's probably quite a way of in the future."
"Well, the future is always getting closer to the present. There's no sense in ignoring it."

"True..." The stood in awkward silence. Carlos really hoped that Casper would step in, but of course, there was no such luck.

"What does the machine do?" Cecil asked, breaking the silence at last.

"It measures...materials." He actually had no idea what materials it was measuring. Marsha had just shoved it in his hand and told him to go poke around. He didn't know whether the gentle beeping meant, nor the display number of 3.1.

"Hmm, what are my material measurement?"

"I don't know. Let's have a look." Carlos smiled. He held the device forward towards Cecil's chest. The machine went wild, no longer beeping but letting out a near deafening buzz. There was no display number, just a large green 'ERROR' message scrawled across the screen. Carlos carefully lowered it again. Once away from Cecil, it quickly calmed down and went back to quietly displaying 3.1. "Huh, that's weird."

"Is weird good?"

"I have absolutely no idea."

"Oh...well, I should probably go get some coffee before the show starts. You'll be listening, right."

"Um, sure." Carlos cringed. "See you later." There, that was perfect. The conversation had naturally ended, only a few weird things happened, and now he could just leave. Nothing more had to be said, right? Right? "Oh hey, Cecil." No, idiot.

"Yes?"

"I...urr...I was just wondering...um..."

"What? What were you wondering?" Cecil asked, sounding much more eager than he had intended.

"Could you ask your listeners to contact me if they saw any lights coming from the canyon the other day?"

"Oh." Cecil responded disappointedly. "The one's in Radon Canyon."

"Yeah, I think that's what it's called. I don't know, I just feel like it could be something...sinister. It makes me worried for this town. I mean it's so small and you've got all this weird stuff happening I just...I don't know, maybe I'm overreacting."

"No, no it's good to be pre-emptively afraid of sinister forces. It saves time later on. I could interview you if you like, get the word out."

"No, thank you. I should really get going so..." Silence fell once again. This time there didn't seem to a convenient way out, so his brain went into full panic mode. "Bye." He suddenly blurted out and made a run for it. He sped off in his car before Cecil could fully react. He parked up a few blocks away and sat gently slamming his head into the wheel. Stupid. It was going so well and then he went and weirdly ran out? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. Apart from that odd ending everything had been pretty much fine, he certainly had something to tell Mr Markson about. His superiors would likely be very interested, they'd probably want to know more. Mixed feelings swirled around Carlos' head. He'd be back in contact with Cecil very soon.