21/05/2016 10:05:31 ¶ ●

## Bonus Episode 6 - The Investigators (Preview)

[A note from cecilspeaks: This is the bonus episode that is a preview of The Investigators. The full show is posted at http://cecilspeaks.tumblr.com/post/144699979076/the-investigators].

Joseph Fink: Hi, I’m Joseph Fink. What you’re about to hear are two clips from our last touring live show, The Investigators, which is now available, right now, for sale at nightvale.bandcamp.com, and will be available on iTunes soon (or it might be already, depending on when you’re listening to this). This is over two hours of brand new Night Vale with live music and a ton of guest stars, plus ten bonus tracks of guest stars that we couldn’t fit into the main recording. So, even if you saw this show live, there is a ton of stuff in here you have never heard. Also available on Bandcamp and iTunes, our previous four live recordings and the Welcome to Night Vale audio book. Check those out. And we will see you with our brand new live script Ghost Stories in the U.S. in July, and in Europe in October. I can’t wait. Enjoy.

Cecil: And now an update on last week’s power outages. The Night Vale Electric Utility announced today that there may be more power outages in coming weeks. This time, due to sadness.

“We’ve just been sad this week,” the Electric Utility said. “Not for any reason, just…sometimes we get sad. What do we need a reason for? Last week we were feeling vengeful, so…power outages. This week we’re feeling sad, and we’re going to continue expressing ourselves through the medium of power outages.”

Now, power outages were, of course, certified by the Supreme Court as a protected form of free speech in the 1973 case of the Hayworth Electric Company vs the Hayworth Hospital. And the court stated that reasonable causes for a power outage include celebration of a special someone’s birthday, expression of undirected anger at an intransigent political system, and periods of just feeling sad for no reason.

But the Night Vale Electric Utility would like me to remind you that power outages are no excuse not to pay your electric bill. I mean, electricity is, after all, a privilege, not a right. Failure to pay your electric bill may result in localized lightning storms, shrouded figures standing silently in the back of familiar TV shows, and gout. So…

So. A spokesperson from the Sheriff’s Secret Police has just handed me a note explaining that I am not required to attend the murder mystery dinner theater, as I was here in my booth broadcasting during the time of the murder.

Oh. Um, they just handed me another note, but it reads, “We don’t know where that scientist is. Please let the scientist know he is required to attend.”

Now, look. Carlos has been busy all day in his science lab…science-ing. If, if he were even able to leave the lab, he would certainly not just murder a stranger…without stopping by the radio station to say hello to me first!

I’m gonna call Carlos right now.

Carlos: Hey, you! I was just thinking of you.

Cecil: Hi, I’m so sorry to bother you, but I’ve received some bad news from the Secret Police.

Carlos: Ugh. I knew this would eventually happen. They discovered that my team of scientists is studying geology, right? I know, I know, it’s illegal. And, as Francis Scott Key wrote in his famous poem, “Rocks are just rocks! Mind your own business, pal!” But I find geology so scientifically interesting, I cannot believe that they just–

Cecil: No no no, it’s not that. It’s…there’s been a murder, and the Sheriff’s Secret Police need you to attend the mandatory murder mystery dinner theater.

Carlos: Oh. But that is great news! Um, I love dinner theaters. I, um, I took some theater in college, you know, so I can play, like, a bunch of different roles.

Cecil: Oh, really?

Carlos: Yeah, okay. So the part that everyone wants to play in a murder mystery dinner theater, you know who it is? It’s the butler.

Cecil: Oh.

Carlos: Because the butler gets to wear pastel tuxedos and carry this pet rat. Ooh! And I can do, like, a really really good snooty British accent. Ahem.

[In an accent that…well I’m not good with accents, but it’s definitely not British.] “'Ey! I would never murder anyone! Might I perhaps take your coat, sir?”

Cecil: I don’t know if that’s really a British accent.

Carlos: Babe, it is.

Cecil: Oh, is it?

Carlos: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Cecil: Okay. All right.

Carlos: So, like, another great role in the murder mystery dinner theater is the rich heiress. Ah! The rich heiress! Um, okay. She gets to wear this like tight black dress, and pearls, and a feathered boa (which you know look amazing in).

Cecil: I do.

Carlos: I do. So, the rich heiress, of course, she seems like the murderer, because she always carries around this old bloodstained axe, but that’s the thing! She only carries the ax because her mother was the owner of the world’s biggest axe manufacturing conglomerate, and their family made a great fortune by chopping up people and taking all their money. Anyway, the rich heiress has this glorious and smooth Romanian accent.

[In another accent that I won’t guess, but it is not glorious, nor is it smooth] Please know that I would never murder anyone. Now go get me another drink doll. Chop chop! I’m kidding. [Takes one last puff of imaginary cigarette and exhales loudly]

Cecil: Ohhhh! Now, I’ve never been to Romania…

Carlos: Babe, it’s a dead-on accent.

Cecil: Oh, okay. All right. Now, listen, Carlos, I’m actually really surprised to hear this side of you. I mean, I had no idea that you were such a theater nerd!

Carlos: Yeah! Like, I’m a scientist, sure, but that’s not all I am, you know?

Cecil: Yeah?

Carlos: Like, getting to act in a murder mystery dinner theater would give me the chance to be…not a scientist anymore, you know? Like, um, like, like I could be anyone! Like…like a train conductor, and I’d shout “All aboard!” Um, or a pizza maker, and I would shout, “All aboard, and it’s a pizza!” Um, or, I don’t know, like, oh! Like a writer! And I’d shout “I am alone, so terribly alone!”

Cecil: Carlos, I– I think the idea is that everybody is just themselves, so that way the police can easily scan the crowd and find out who looks the most guilty. I mean, I don’t think that murder mystery dinner theater is ever supposed to be fun! They are grueling exercises in abrupt and arbitrary justice.

Carlos: You know who I want to play? I want to play a librarian.

Cecil: Oh, I don’t think that’s a very–

Carlos: “You seem to be very interested in young adult sci-fi adventure novels. Might I recommend Get What’s Yours: The Secret to Maxing Out Your Social Security by John Grisham?”

Whoo! That felt really good.

Cecil: It sounded good.

Carlos: Thank you. But I would really, really need to work with the director, you know, on how to get the pincers and all the long hairy legs just right. Ooh! Ooh! And we would really need to rig up a pulley system so that I could fly around the room and then descend from the ceiling like a normal librarian.

Cecil: Oh! Um, Carlos, I was just handed another not from the Secret Police that reads: “No more, please! Tell him he doesn’t have to come to the dinner theater at all!”

Carlos: …But I wanted to come.

Cecil: Aww.

Carlos: Um, eh, it’s no bother.

Cecil: Well, we will just have to put on our own murder mystery dinner theater this weekend.

Carlos: Okay. Um, I love you.

Cecil: All right. I love you too.

Carlos: Ooh! Ooh! You want to hear my Steve Carlsberg impression?

Cecil: Goodbye, Carlos.

Carlos: Okie-doke.

Joseph Fink: Nightvale.bandcamp.com, two hours of brand new Night Vale. And go to welcometonightvale.com and click on Live Shows to see our upcoming tour dates.