Night Vale Unsolved

13

"I'm sorry," Shane leaned back in his chair, "A government agency that..that bugs you guys? And you know?"
Ryan sighed in his head as Shane spoke, fully aware of his thing with corrupt police. Now that he seemed to have gotten back to his old self, he was back in full force.
"We do know. Obviously I can't say I'm entirely hap-used to it. I'm not quite used to it," Carlos glanced at the phone plugged into the wall on a nearby table. It looked exactly like the one in Ryan and Shane's hotel room. "But none of the native residents seem to mind. They'll actually defend it, but there you go. And between that, the sheriff's secret police, and the city council that's never here..."
"What?" Shane whispered, shaking his head as a grin spread across his face.
"There's a lot you guys are going to have to watch out for. When I first started investigating stuff, I noticed a lot of attention. At first, I figured it was just the attention locals gave to an outsider. But then I got people in suits knocking at the lab door asking - and demanding - to know what I was doing. So if you guys are here to tell the world about Night Vale, you might want to watch out."
"Well, the world might be a bit of a stretch. The Unsolved Network,"
"BUN," Shane smiled.
Singing hotdogs flashed before Ryan's eyes. "Don't. Anyway, our channel isn't to reveal...whatever's going on here. To be honest, we usually don't even end up doing anything."
"It's called Unsolved for a reason."
Carlos blinked, apparently confused. "Um...sure. Yeah. But the cameras you guys tote around aren't going to go unnoticed. The officials here are pretty much the embodiment of 'act now ask questions later.' You need to be careful."
Ryan glanced at Shane, who was staring blankly at the wall with his thinking face. He seemed to be past the corruption, and Ryan was glad to see him acting normally.
"So how do you think we should do this?" Ryan asked Carlos.
The scientist considered. "Well, what kinds of things are you guys planning on investigating?"
"I have a list!" Shane declared, pulling out his phone. "We did some research before coming - well, Ryan does most of the pre-work - and we found a couple places that kept coming up." He pulled up the list and began reading off the contents.
"The Desert Flower," Carlos winced slightly, "Mission Grove Park, the dog park-"
"NO!" Carlos scrambled out of his seat, nearly knocking Khoshekh's file off of the table. Ryan and Shane stared at him.
"I'm sorry," the scientist said as he composed himself, "I just...you can't go to the dog park."
"Why not?"
"You just...you can't." Carlos sighed and sat back down. "Alright, I have an idea. Since you guys don't know how to navigate the city, I'll show you around. Here," he turned and called to a woman in a lab coat, scribbling furiously in a notebook as a breaker boiled in front of her. "Diane! Can you cover for me here?"
The woman, Diane, turned to face them, her eyes wide. She nodded, then turned back to the beaker.
Carlos grinned. "Great! Let's go talk to Cecil."
He stood up, and Shane and Ryan stood up with him.
"Why are we going to Cecil?" Shane asked.
"Well, he knows Night Vale better than me, so we'll get advice from him. Then I'll show you around, since he doesn't have much free time with his show."
Shane and Ryan looked at each other and shrugged.
"To Cecil it is."