Night Vale Unsolved

37

The three of them - Carlos, Ryan, and Shane - continued with their conversation. Carlos did his best to think about all the different things there were to consider, but science only went so far in cases like these.
Not, of course, that Carlos had ever been in a situation like this before.
This was new.
After a few minutes of conversation that could only really best be called "circular," the waitress came back to their table to take their meal orders. Carlos, without looking at the menu, ordered some toast and a fried egg. Shane, who didn't care as much, ordered toast as well, but with his eggs scrambled, and a side of bacon. Ryan scrambled to look through the menu, and settled on hash browns. He didn't have the biggest appetite at the moment.

A small bell rang at the front of the restaurant as Larry Leroy - from out in the edge of town - entered the diner. He looked around for an empty table, and in doing so spotted Carlos sitting with Ryan and Shane. Larry frowned, and choose a small table behind them.

"So," Shane asked Carlos, "Just out of curiosity, do you...know what you're doing?"
Carlos put down his pen.
"Not really." He admitted. "I mean, there has to be a logic to this, right? There are places where you look for clues, and details that could tell us...I don't know, something." Carlos sighed, and then chuckled. "Kind of ironic, huh?"
"What do you mean?" Ryan asked.
"Well, you guys are the ones who know about this kind of stuff. True crime - that's basically your job, right?"
Ryan shifted. "Well, yeah," He started, "But talking about cases that professionals have already looked into...that's different than doing our own investigation."
Shane shrugged. "Are you telling me you can't remember anything from your hours of research?"
"That's not-"

As the group continued - rather, as Shane kept prodding Ryan to remember things - a waitress came up to Larry Leroy to get his drink order.
"What'll you have?" She asked.
Larry gestured to the booth in front of him. "That your table, too?"
She turned to look at the table he was asking about. It was the table at which Ryan, Shane, and Carlos were seated.
"Yep," She answered, and turned back to Larry Leroy. "Friends of yours?
Larry shook his head. "The scientist is all right," He conceded, "But those two," He gestured once more, this time specifically at Shane and Ryan, whose backs were to him.
"They seem nice enough." The waitress commented, getting slightly put off by Larry's lack of ordering. "Maybe a little out of it."
"They're Interlopers." Larry told her, leaning in conspiratorially. "Not from here, no ma'am."
The waitress whipped her head around to look at Shane and Ryan. She racked her brain, and realized that she had never seen them around Night Vale.
"Why are they here?" She asked Larry, her job momentarily forgotten.
"They're making a video," He grumbled, "Showing our Night Vale to the rest of the world."
The waitress sucked in a long breath.
Night Vale wasn't exactly a secret to the outside world. There were people who knew about it, certainly - that's how Carlos came to study the place. But the few Night Vale residents who had left Night Vale all came back with stories of how the rest of the world, it seemed, simply did not act like Night Vale. There were no Secret Police, no Hooded Figures, no multi-bodied City Council, no Glow Cloud (ALL HAIL). Nothing, in fact, that was at all similar to the things that made Night Vale...Night Vale.
And so there had been a collective sort of agreement between all the citizens of Night Vale - or most of them, at least - that their city was their city. No one else's. Because other people just didn't seem to understand.
That was - in part - why they reacted so strongly to outsiders. Interlopers. And here these two men sat, intending on shining a spotlight on Night Vale for the rest of the world to see.
"Who do they think they are?" The waitress muttered.