Night Vale Unsolved

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Carlos stared at the text message for a while. It just didn't make any sense. Cones? Poles? Angry kids?
He must have voices these thoughts out loud, because Gail said "Maybe he just typed it wrong? Like, autocorrect, or something."
"A-hah!" Carlos exclaimed. Of course that was possible, arguably even probable. In the few days he'd known Ryan, he didn't seem one to send such cryptic messages.
And if the pair were in some kind of danger, he probably had more important things to focus on than his phone's keyboard.
And so Carlos began doing his best to figure out what the original message may have been. He closed his eyes and did his best to type in the one he'd received, thinking that the autocorrect may reverse-engineer itself, but only came up with more gibberish. He tried a few more times, before Gail suggested,
"Why not just go to the hotel and see?"
Carlos stared at Gail for a moment, his cheeks flushing with growing embarrassment as he processed the suggestion.
"Ah, yes." He cleared his throat. "I'll...do that. Right." And with that, Carlos ducked out of the lab and onto the street as quickly as he could manage.

Back at the hotel, Shane and Ryan were becoming far less afraid of the crowd. They were all still there, of course, but it seemed that they weren't going to do more than shout things, and poke and prod at them - which wasn't pleasant, but wasn't the "burn at the stake" frenzy it could have been. The two of them had even started trying to explain that they were trying to leave town, but the mob either didn't hear them or didn't care.
"Is he coming or not?" Shane asked, doing his best to push someone away without actually hurting them (mostly because there's no way that would go over well).
Ryan glanced at his phone. "Shit."
"What?"
"The text I sent, I must have typed it wrong. It autocorrected and..."
"Well what does it say?"
Ryan read the jumbled words off of the screen.
"Just send it again?" Shane offered.
Ryan went to do so, but just then a wayward elbow knocked his phone out of his hand. It fell to the floor, where it was kicked away by someone's foot. It skidded across the floor and stopped beneath on of the lobby's plush armchairs.
Shane and Ryan started after it.
"Well," Shane said after a moment, "At least no one stepped on it, right?"
Ryan glared at Shane. "Seriously?"
Shane shrugged.

Carlos turned the last corner on his way to the hotel. He stopped to observe the hotel from the outside, but saw nothing. Crossing the street, he heard shouting coming from inside. Carlos pushed open the doors and found the mob of people surrounding Shane and Ruany.
"Interloper! Interloper! Interloper!"
"Ryan?" Carlos called. "Shane?"
"Here!" Came Shane's reply. Carlos pushed his way through the crowd to reach them. He was relieved to find they were unharmed, but frowned upon seeing their packed bags.
"Are you leaving?" He asked.
The others exchanged a glance. "We were going to say goodbye," Ryan offered, "We just..."
"Yeah." Carlos shook himself. "Sorry. First things first."
He turned to face the crowd, who payed him no heed. He waved his arms and shouted back at them, but nothing made any change. Sighing, he took out his phone and dialed Cecil.

At the radio station, Cecil got his second call of the day - how exciting! To make things even better, this one was from Carlos. Making a quick decision, he answered.
"This has been traffic." He concluded the segment. "And now, listeners, I have just received a call from my Carlos. Hello, Carlos!"
"Hello, Cecil," Carlos replied. "Listen, don't - are you live right now?"
"Is that shouting in the background?" Cecil asked instead of answering.
"Yes, that's what I'm calling about. I'm at the hotel-"
"The hotel?"
"Y-yes, the hotel." Carlos sighed. "Listen! I'm at the hotel with Ryan and Shane. There's a mob here, trying to...I don't know what, exactly, but that's the shouting you hear."
"Oh." Cecil paused, unsure what to do. "Um...listeners, while I deal with this, let's go to the weather."
Cecil turned off his mic as the weather began playing and went back to the phonecall.
"So you were live."
"The hotel, you say?" Cecil asked, stepping out into the hallway.
Carlos rolled his eyes. "Yes."
"Ok, I'll be right there."
Cecil ended the call and began the walk to the hotel.

It was a longer walk from the radio station than it was from Carlos' lab, but Cecil made good time. He wasn't too worried about the broadcast - there hadn't been that much to report anyway. When he finally got to the hotel, he went inside and saw the group. The mob was no less enthusiastic, and had he not been used to Night Vale Cecil might have wondered how none of their voices were growing horse from all of the shouting.
But this was Night Vale. That stuff doesn't matter.
What did matter, at the very least to Cecil, was the sight of Carlos squeezing his way out from the center of the mob.
"Cecil!"
"Carlos," Cecil greeted him, "What's going on?"
Carlos opened his mouth to reply, and instead just gestured behind him at the crowd.
Cecil frowned. He understood what Carlos meant, and that he should probably do something about it, but he also knew it was just how Night Vale was to outsiders.
As though he knew what he was thinking, Carlos said, "Cecil, do something."