Episode 71 - The Registry of Middle School Crushes
I trip the light fantastic, and then I offer to help it up. And when the light fantastic is halfway up I let go, and it falls again. Me and the light fantastic do not get along at all.
Welcome to Night Vale.
To start us off, a follow-up on a recent story:
Local ne'er-do-well and five-headed dragon Hiram McDaniels will be brought to trial for his attempts to assassinate Mayor Cardinal and take over Night Vale’s city government. This trial is already being referred to as the “trial of the century.” And, indeed, could be referred to as the “trial of all time,” because Night Vale has never had a trial before.
Judicial matters are usually handled directly by the Secret Police, whose judgment is above question – even when it’s really bad and obviously wrong – or, in some extreme cases, handled by the City Council itself, who might relegate the wrongdoer to detention in the abandoned mine shaft outside of town, or might just eat the wrongdoer. It depends on whether the City Council has had a heavy lunch.
But Hiram McDaniels is huge, and a dragon, so the City Council and the Secret Police are both declining to get too close to him. As a result, for the first time ever, we will have a fair and open trial here in Night Vale in front of a jury of Hiram’s peers.
Speaking of which, Night Vale invites any dragons to come down to the courthouse to serve as his peers. Failing that, any multi-headed beings are welcome – although I can’t immediately think of any of those except obviously deer, and deer can’t take part in juries because of their profound belief in egalitarian anarchism.
Pamela Winchell, former Night Vale mayor and current director of emergency press conferences, will serve as the prosecuting attorney, and Hiram’s gold head will be acting in his own defense – as well as the defense of the other three heads accused. His fifth head, the violet one, who had secretly been working to stop the other heads, is not charged, and is expected to take the witness stand against his same-body brethren.
Updates on this exciting legal story will continue as we all try to figure out what “law” means outside of the context of the despotic control of shadowy government forces.
And now, listeners, from matters of news to matters of personal urgency. I present to you: A Heist.
Here is the mission: to retrieve a top-secret document.
Here are the players:
- Myself, of course: Mindful speaker in the mindless night.
- Carlos: Scientist extraordinaire, extraordinary scientist, great hair.
- Steve Carlsberg: Jerk. Good father…maybe. Don’t tell him that.
- Abby: My sister, whom I have not spoken with in quite a while, but whom I am hoping to speak with more.
- Old Woman Josie: Opera aficionado, and friends with powerful and forbidden beings who are handy with a lock pick…and who claim to know a thing or two about hacking.
- Finally, and foremost, of course, little Janice: My niece, and the second-most important person in my life. She is the leader of our mission. She is the reason we are all involved.
This, then, is the team. Here, then, is the target:
City Hall. Specifically, the Hall of Public Records – one of the most secure and dangerous places in Night Vale, where all public information is kept hidden from a public that might misuse it. Few have gone in and survived. No one has ever managed to remove – or even view – a single document from it.
So, why are we trying? Why risk our lives to do what is, by all accounts, impossible?
Because within that hall of records is the Registry of Middle School Crushes, a ledger that documents every slight swoon of our young citizens’ love-sick hearts. This registry, like all municipal documents, is constantly updated via invasive satellite mind-scanning. Janice wants us to retrieve the Registry of Middle School Crushes and destroy it. I will not ask why. We don’t have to ask why. We know that a family member is in need, and we act accordingly.
The plan? Hahahahahaha…but that would give it away.
More soon, whether the powers that be like it or not.
First, a word from our sponsors.
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This has been a word from our sponsors.
And now, traffic.
A woman walks into a bar. Presumably, she did not just appear there. Presumably she opened the door from the outside and entered it. Presumably she drove to the bar. Presumably she had obtained the car she used to drive to the bar somewhere, presumably with money. Presumably she had received that money somehow. She presumably had spent days, months, even years before this moment. Presumably she was born at some point, to a mother – presumably. Presumably she was a child once. There had been years spent in which she could not completely feed herself. There were years in which she was smaller, and stayed all day in rooms where adults taught her to be similar adults to the adults they were. There was a first kiss, nights spent in terror of the nights to come, the first vestiges of independence, moving out, finding a job, a decision – at some point – to go to the bar. Presumably.
“Can I have a drink?” she said to the bartender.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said the bartender. “This is the end of my shift. Ed will be out in a moment and he’ll be able to help you.”
The bartender left the bar. Presumably he opened the door. Presumably he got into a car. Presumably he drove home, the radio on and playing him through the soft-focus darkness of hot night. Presumably he had a bed somewhere, got into it, slept, and – presumably – dreamed. Presumably he grew older, day by day, and looked at each day as a missed opportunity to live a life that was in no way better than the life he was living, but just different. Presumably he edged toward death, fearing losing what he had, regretting ever attaining it. There was a last kiss, everything was forgotten, but in pieces, and in the most painful order. New things were learned slowly, and in the least helpful order. A basket of fruit indicating a sentiment too weak, communicated too late, to a person who was already gone. Presumably.
This has been traffic.
Back to the main event. Plans run apace for our heist from the City Hall Public Records room. The obstacles are grave, and myriad.
First, there was simply getting past the guard at the door of City Hall. Well, the guard doesn’t stop anyone, so as I said, it’s…getting past is pretty simple.
Then, there is avoiding the City Council, who lurk within City Hall. A many-form municipal entity, waiting for citizens to civically devour. You will have to tread carefully to avoid it.
Then, there are the stairs to the basement where the records are kept. These are very dangerous. Thousands of people die falling down stairs every year, so…we will have to take care not to trip.
Beyond that is the thick vault door, combination unknown, immune to detonation or heat. Rumor has it that the door to the records room could survive a nuclear explosion. Rumor has it that it already has.
Past the door, information becomes more piecemeal. Rumor becomes our only guide. There is, apparently, a grid of lasers – carefully calibrated so as to look mesmerizing, and cause an intruder to stop and watch them, thus failing to complete her mission.
There are pressure sensors in the floor, heat sensors in the hall, thought sensors in all of our brains.
The security is diabolical. But, we have devised a plan past all of it. Which, again, I can’t tell you. I’m sorry. Saying the plan on the radio would make it tricky to successfully perform it without being caught. But it’s really good. I promise.
We will make sure Janice gets the Registry of Middle School Crushes so she can destroy it. We just will never be able to tell you how.
And now, the answer to last week’s audio “Spot the Differences” quiz. Of course, the two audio scenes we set for you were quite similar. Perhaps, even, at an aural glance, identical. But there were eight specific differences. Did you spot them all? Let’s find out! Here were the differences:
- The shadow of the howling man is smiling in one scene, but missing in the other.
- There are shrouded figures in the grass in both scenes, and they look identical. But in the first scene, they are watching…while in the second scene, they are listening.
- Only the first scene scares me.
- The cow has one extra spot in the first scene.
- The cow has all of its blood in the first scene.
- The howling man is howling in both scenes.
- We don’t know why he is howling.
- Maybe it’s because of his shadow?
- What does the second man have to do with anything?
- The child is absent from both scenes.
How did you do? If you missed any, don’t worry. The Secret Police will be arriving soon to take you to a reeducation camp. And after that, you definitely won’t be messing up any more puzzles, or messing up anything – or doing anything – ever again.
Oh, I just can’t resist! Our brilliant plan is too brilliant not to share. I mean, it doesn’t even matter that much, I guess, because the plan is already in motion. What could the powers that be possibly do?
So, first, Old Woman Josie had her beings (who cannot legally be called angels) hack the thought sensors and the mind-scanning satellites so that instead of playing our current thoughts, they play a loop of thoughts about which sandwich place is our favorite (obviously, the Mario’s Very Authentic Italian Ice Cream sub sandwich place at the mall…obviously).
Then Abby, Steve, and Carlos all simply walked past the guard. Again, the guard doesn’t stop anyone. Simple.
Abby used a series of mirrors and clip lights in the doorway to City Council chambers to create the illusion of an empty hallway for the monstrous municipal members within, thus allowing the wonderful Carlos and the foolish…ly brave Steve to go down the stairs, carefully, and without tripping.
Those two, and those two alone, entered the basement. There, Carlos used a mathematical formula that he had arrived at scientifically to deduce the combination of the great vault door. Once inside, of course, Carlos would become instantly fascinated by the laser grid, determined to understand it. Which is why it was Steve’s important job to keep him focused and moving.
They then put on harnesses, which Janice had spent the last several weeks making from a home cat burglar kit she got as a prize in a box of Honey Nut Flakey-Os, and which she had lined with bags of frozen peas to throw off the heat sensors. And that is where they are now, dear listeners. Creeping ever closer to the Registry of Middle School Crushes, and to a triumphant end to a triumphant plan.
Nothing can…oh, no! Oh, no! Somehow it seems that the City Council has discovered the plan! I don’t know how that could have happened! Steve and Carlos are still in the basement! They’re still in danger! Still right behind the closed vault door! Where can they run? How can they hide?
I will try to sort out what to do. And in the meantime, I must take you to the weather.
[“My Postcard” by Toys and Tiny Instruments]
We have returned, listeners, to a heist complete.
This was not a heist of action, at all. It was not a heist of diamond-tipped drills or advanced electronics, no. This was a heist of words. A heist of fiction. It was a heist of storytelling, and it was magnificent. For there was no hacking by Josie and her friends, no mirror held by Abby, no absurd mathematical formula devised by Carlos, and no Steve. Thank God, no Steve.
There was none of that. Carlos, Old Woman Josie, Abby…and Steve…are safe at home – having never left their beds in this warm, still night. I created their action, I created their danger, with my words. And I delivered that danger to you. That was the entire plan. All of it. It was me, here at this microphone, telling you a story. A story about a successful entrance to the well-protected vault of the Hall of Public Records hahaha.
And, in response to my story, the City Council rushed to the records hall, flung open the vault door, deactivated the sensors and alarms, and charged in to capture Steve and Carlos – but those two were, of course, not there to be captured.
The only person who was there, having avoided the danger of the stairs by safely taking the ADA-compliant elevator down, and having waited, patiently, in the shadows for the City Council to rush by enraged, then open the door of the vault for her, was a very clever 11 year-old in a stealth wheelchair of her own design.
She waited. And when they had passed, she followed quietly after them. And while they searched, roaring for intruders that weren’t there, she slipped the Registry of Middle School Crushes from its shelf, rolled herself back to the elevator, and was gone before the Council had even an inkling that they were chasing only figments of my imagination.
It was, despite all of my misleading words, a two-person heist. An uncle (who can tell one hell of a story), and a niece (who can come up with one hell of a plan).
Janice took the registry out into the Scrublands. And there, in an arroyo that has not seen water in many years, she lit it on fire and watched the smoke pass up through the evergreen leaves of the Joshua trees.
I don’t need to know why she wanted it destroyed, although perhaps I could guess. But I won’t guess. I only know that she needed my help, and so I helped her.
Before everything, before even humans, there were stories. A creature at a fire conjuring a world with nothing but its voice and a listener’s imagination. And now, me, and thousands like me, in little booths and rooms and mics and screens all over the world, doing the same for a family of listeners, connected as all families are, primarily by the stories we tell each other.
And after, after fire, and death, or whatever happens next, after the wiping clean or the gradual decay, after the after…when there are only a few creatures left, there will be one at a fire, telling a story to what family it has left. It was the first thing, and it will be the last.
Stay tuned next for more stories being told to you all of the time – whether you are aware of them or not.
And from whatever fiction it is that we happen to be living together tonight, goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.
Today’s proverb: I had a dream in which cow-sized pugs existed. I was on a train, and one loped along outside my window. I’m sorry your dreams aren’t as good.