157 - The Promise of Time
If it walks like a duck, and sings like a duck,
And excretes slime like a duck,
Then it’s a d- uh, you know?
I don’t think that’s a duck.
Welcome to Night Vale.
The future is here, listeners. The future is now.
Dying has become a bad joke, and we wonder how we ever put up with it.t
The Quality Cryogenics Corporation, run by one Casper Rhodes, is offering a simple solution. They will remove your brain upon death, freeze it, and then revive you hundreds of years from now, when the technology exists to live eternally.
The town was recently traumatized by time working correctly and us all having to deal with aging, so this solution is exactly what we are looking for. And it only costs 10,000 in cash, no refunds. I am currently getting together the funds to purchase this service for both myself and my husband Carlos, because I believe that the two of us can live together forever. No more is there this awful time limit ticking down from the moment of our meeting until the moment of our parting. Now our brains will sit snugly next to each other, until we are weakened anew to a bright future.
Carlos says he is a little unsure about this, because he thinks that death is one of the most scientific processes of all. But he’ll come around. We’ll just talk about it, and he’ll see it my way. After all, we have the rest of our lives. And our lives – will never end.
Here’s the news.
Now that we all know we’re going to get to live there, all any of us can talk about is the future. What is it going to be like? Will there be trees? Will we still have that insufferable moon? These are the questions we are all having to consider now that we will live forever. And one person is claiming to have those answers. A professional futurist and digital prophet named NZ has released a lengthy report outlining what the future is like. Apparently, skyscrapers will be twice as all, but also twice as thin. Each floor will only hold about one medium room or three very small rooms. But also, skyscrapers will have thousands of floors. The biggest revelation in NZ’s report is that in the future, menial labor will be done by robots! Robots will wash our cars, clean our toilets, and cook our food, leaving us all the time in the world to quietly boil in existential dread. According to NZ, these robots first enter the market in about a hundred years, and then really catch on until everyone has three or four at their disposal. And also everyone is so, so bored.
Man, the future sounds great. I can’t wait to get there!
This has been the news.
Let’s have a look at today’s horoscopes.
Leo. This is a fantastic month for new business plans, travels, meeting new people, and breaking out of the windowless prison cell you woke up in this morning. Good luck on all those exciting ventures!
Virgo. I hope you are not too attached to your left hand. Either way, you won’t be soon.
Libra. You will walk out from your house. The sun will look strange to you, even though you think it perhaps always looked like that. It will look like it always has, and it will look so strange. As you walk down the street, you will see a path you’ve never noticed before, leading away from the familiar into a dark and twisted wood. You will follow this path, the warm dirt softly crunching under your feet. At the end of the path, you will come to a small and cozy home. In the window will be a boy, and he will give you a sign. A hand to the side means it is safe to go on, a hand by the air means the burrowers are hungry tonight. A covered mouth means the time is nigh. You may proceed accordingly. Even the stars do not know what happens next.
Scorpio. You’re a great brother-in-law, husband, father and friend. And if it’s up to me - and let’s be honest, it is – the stars will never say another mean thing about you again.
Sagittarius. You are really walking on thin ice here, buddy! No really buddy, you are walking on thin ice, buddy look down, the ice is about to crack and the waters below are so cold and clear. You have never seen anything so beautiful.
Capricorn. You have spent your life searching for your soul mate. Finally, having given up on love, you have volunteered to board a starship destined to never return to our world. You will live out decades on that vast arc, developing close but platonic relationships with the few fellow humans that are with you. Finally, in your 83rd year, you will land on a planet that’s surface will appear to be made entirely of silver. You will step out onto that foreign terrain, and waiting for you will be an alien being made entirely of vapor, a wisp of a creature whose droplets will curl around you, and you will smile and realize that you have finally found your soul mate.
Aquarius. Your lucky number is five, which is also how many days you have left. That’s an auspicious coincidence!
Pisces. Everyone knows your terrible secret, and they think it’s really boring.
Aries. This just says “spiders” in increasingly large fonts for about seven pages. Aww, that’s cute!
Taurus. Turn your eyes to the heavens. Honestly, it’s better not to see what’s approaching from below.
Gemini. There will come a day in which you will have to go to the ocean. Who knows when that day will come. You might be hundreds of miles away form the ocean, you might be in an airplane or working on a farm in Ottawa. But there will come a day in which you will have to go to the ocean, and so you will travel in whatever attire you were wearing when you were called, barefoot and groggy, walking day and night until you see the glitter of water, until you hear the hush of the waves. And then you will walk into the ocean until only your head is above the surface, and you will laugh and laugh and laugh. And the ocean will laugh with you. But today is not that day. Who knows when it will come?
And lastly, Cancer. Uh huh. OK. Yeah. Everything is basically fine with you, yeah. You’re good. Nothingggggg tooo report.
This has been horoscopes.
Demand has become so high for the services of the Quality Cryogenics Corporation that Casper Rhodes announced that he has run out of space for brains. “Gotta stuff these head blobs somewhere,” he said, “but where to toss ‘em?” City Council agreed that this is an important problem, and immediately requisitioned large swaths for Night Vale real estate to serve as eventual brain storage locations. There are rumors that this move was made in exchange for free use of cryogenic services by the City Council. But the council vehemently denied the allegation and said to prove their innocence, they would arrest anyone who tried to say that they were guilty.
Initially, the public library was one of the buildings intended to be converted to brain storage. But a single librarian scuttled out from the front door and stood eye to eyes with the City Council, until the City Council whimpered and backed down. At which point the librarian silently retreated, their deadly point made, their library safe.
This is quite a change from when the only customer of Casper Rhodes was Charlie Bear, weekday shift manager at the Ralphs. Now there are only a few people left in town who haven’t signed up. I am a little ashamed to say that Carlos and I are one of those few, it’s y-, eh, taking me longer than I thought to scrape together the money and Carlos still wants to talk about it more but don’t worry, we will definitely join you all in the future. I will see you there!
Speaking of which, local futurist and digital prophet NZ is giving a seminar on the future. But attendance is expected to be low. Frankly, people find NZ’s predictions a little silly. After all, what does this NZ know about the future that we don’t? All any of us know about the future is that some day we will end up there, and by the time we get there, it won’t be the future. In any case, we expected more exciting predictions. Frequent space travel, miracle cures to the disease, and contact with more alien species than the three we know about in our primitive time. But NZ just won’t shut up about robots, and how much of the future is defined by robots serving us hand and foot. Only three people showed up to NZ’s seminar, one of whom was your faithful reporter, and one especially upset attendee even threw popcorn and led a chant of “Booriing!” during the part about the robots. And I’m not sorry I did it, either. It was very boring.
The family of missing person Frank Chen has filed a lawsuit against the city, declaring criminal negligence in allowing a five-headed dragon to claim the identity of their one-headed human family member, merely because the dragon carried about Frank’s ID.
“You are all monsters,” said Frank’s sister Lauren. “Monsters! Monsters! Monsters!”
She said this through a bullhorn, as she drove her convertible up and down the city streets.
“But how could we have known?” the City Council fumed. “What, are we supposed to look into every suspicious disappearance in Night Vale? We only have 18 hands, we are doing the best we can.”
The lawsuit will start with a document review and depositions. Currently, they are seeking all records on the suspected killer of Frank Chen, one Hiram McDaniels, who has not been seen in town for a couple years now. They also want to interview friends of Hiram, including a radio host who wouldn’t describe himself as a friend, more a dedicated observer.
And now a look at the stock market. [squeals] Wheee, ahahahaha! Ahahaha ooh, oo-hohoh, whaaaaaaaaa, hahah, wow!!
This has been a look at the stock market.
Now let’s go over to – hello? Oh sorry, wha-what are you doing here? Listeners, the futurist NZ has entered the studio. They are waving at me frantically and holding up signs, um let me just put on my reading glasses. Embarrassing, but I suppose we all eventually reach that age. I never thought I would, but now that time is working correctly and I have aged – yes. Yes, no I see you, pointing at the sign, screaming NZ just give me a moment now where did I put those glasses? It’s in my pocket, oh [chuckles]. Now there’s some sort of metal man next to NZ. Oh, yes you have a sign, OK alright, alright, here’s my glasses!
[clears throat] Uh, NZ’s sign reads “I am not a futurist, I am from the future. A time traveler sent back to warn you all.” And they’re still pointing at the metal man.
Ah, this is one of those robots that NZ is always going on about! NZ is saying that everything they told us about the robots was true, and they brought one just to prove it, well hi robot! Oh, oh the robot has something to say? Oh, wait, it’s saying “I’m hardly a bear.” Well no, [chuckles] I’d say you’re not. You’re more of a robot. Oh no, I misheard, they’re saying “Time carved a pear.” What? NZ, I think your robot is malfunctioning. Wait, not it’s saying… it’s saying, “I’m Charlie Bear.” Charlie Bear? Well he’s the weekday shift manager at the Ralphs, this makes no sense. The robot is saying again: “I’m Charlie Bear.” And then it is saying: “Help me.” It is saying “help me” over and over in a hollow digital moan.
Listeners, uh..
Let’s check in on the weather.
[“Good Intentions, Bad Advice” by Nicky Flowers https://nickyflowers.bandcamp.com]
The robot told us everything. Once the robot was Charlie Bear, weekday shift manger at the Ralphs, and then a man named Casper Rhodes came to town. Casper offered the idea of living forever, freezing Charlie’s brain after death so that he could wake up in the future once mortality was a bad dream. Once sickness was a memory. So Charlie signed up. He took out his life savings plus a couple loans and paid the 10,000 dollars. And Charlie became the first customer of the Quality Cryogenics Corporation. And Charlie was so happy. He is so happy somewhere in town, even while this robot tells us its story. Charlie is unaware, and he is happy. Because Charlie believes he has defeated death. And Charlie will continue to believe this for another 15 years until the unfortunate whistle pig incident. And after that, his brain will be removed from his mangled corpse and will remain frozen for centuries in the grain silo outside of town. And then one day, Charlie will awaken. It will be the future, as promised, and as promised he will not be dead, but all will not be well. He will have awoken as a brain in a metal body chained to that body’s programming. It will be explained to him that he was brought to the future by the Quality Cyborg Corporation, in order to take care of any errands or busywork needed while the humans of that future relax and watch him toil.
You see, when we deny death and toss ourselves into the future, we do so with the strange delusion that the future feels it owes us life. That in the world of the future, they would want nothing more than to devote time and money into resurrecting each of us into eternal wellness. But the future does not feel any obligation to us at all. The past means only one thing to the future, the past is a resource. Every brain saved by Casper Rhodes is a resource.
It is a trick. We are being used. We must put a stop to this, we were all wrong trying to fight death this way, to put our trust in the future is though it would be anything but some other person’s present. Carlos was right, I was wrong! Who is this Casper Rhodes, and why is he doing this?
Oh, Casper’s calling to the station. He must be calling to confess or otherwise explain his crimes. Casper, is that you? What have you done? What have you done?
Casper: Hi there, Cecil. Was listening to your show and really disappointed to hear what you were saying about me, buddy. But as the Smiling God says: when your enemies try to bring you down, just smile wider and wider until your smile eclipses the sun and then all other life in the universe. Believe in a Smiling God, buddy. Believe in a Smiling God.
Today’s proverb: As Dolly Parton said: tumble out of bed, and I stumble to the kitchen. Have to fight an evil magician, yawn and stretch and fight him for my life. Wise words.
158 - The Battle for Time
Kasper Rhodes:
The future wants you.
The future needs you.
The future will have you, whether you want to or not.
Welcome to Night Vale.
Kasper Rhodes here, hello. There’s a lot of talk generally and in particular about the future. Everyone’s going on about this or that, rocketships and spires, eternal life and AI, but the future is also soil and leaves. It’s a hand holding a hand, it’s clouds and it’s water and it’s salt. The future is organic as anything. There is still sweat in the future, [chuckles] I’m sweating right now! It’s hot where I am. And I am Kasper Rhodes, president of the Quality Cyborg Corporation, and I can take you away from all this, in the name of the Smiling God. The God that grins down at us all, grinning through our pain and grinning through our joy, just always grinning, just always the smile.
Do any of you believe in anything? I do. I believe in anything at all, I just believe. What a powerful thing it is to believe, to let doubt (–) [0:02:27] off you, [chuckles] just like the sweat.
I have a proposition and it’s also a promise. I will take your brain, and how much were you using it anyway, and I will put it in a robot. And that robot will do wonderful things. That is my promise. And it’s also a proposition. [chuckles] Anyway, we’ll talk more in person, I’m on my way. I’ll see you soon.
[whoosh]
Cecil: (-) am I through? Am I, am I on the air? Am I on the air? I come to you in a time of emergency and panic. We thought we could cheat death. Kasper Rhodes promised to take our brains and freeze them into the future where we could be reawakened into life eternal. But it was all a lie. Kasper is a time traveler here to collect the brains of the past, to power robots of servitude in the future. We were being tricked into an eternal life of manual labor, and now we know the truth and stand against them.
Unfortunately, he has called in reinforcements from the future, and they are those very robots with our brains inside of them. They cannot fight against their programming, and they weep as they crush us, but still they crush us. There are robots patrolling outside of the abandoned grain silo and every other spot in town where the Quality Cryogenics Corporation is storing brains, so we cannot save our fellow citizens from the terror of the future.
(-) [0:04:01]. Kasper worships a Smiling God. I thought we had escaped that cosmic terror but it has returned, and it has come for our minds.
Night Vale, I call for resistance. I call for a stand against the future. I muster the present to destroy every moment that comes after. We will never stop fighting, we will never surrender.
Oh, um, ahem, but first. Tickets are going on sale for the Lions Club charity raffle. All proceeds from the raffle will be going of weapons and barricades to be used against the endless onslaught of the future robots piloted by our own brains. So that’s just a great cause. Let’s have a look at the prizes. There’s a package tour to somewhere called Nash-vile. That’s exciting. Uh, the package includes a map showing where Nash-vile is, and a pad of paper on which is scrolled: “You should probably get a hotel room when you get there.” Everything you need for a fun vacation.
There are ten free piano lessons from Louie Blasko. He says that piano is a great way to exercise your mind and your creativity, and he promises much fewer injuries this time around.
There’s a free haircut and style consultation from Telly the Barber. Uuuuuuuuuugh! Ugh, that vile Telly! Meh, I shouldn’t say that. Carlos has forgiven Telly for cutting his – beautiful hair all those years ago, and so I should too. There are lots of things I should do, and I’m sure I’ll get to them eventually. In the meantime, though: ugh! Vile Telly!
Finally, there is the grand prize, which is an all expenses paid trip into the bottomless hole betwixt the dunes, that inexplicable dark pit that appeared a few years ago out in the Sand Wastes. We’re not sure who donated this prize, it just showed up at the Lions Club in a basket that smelled of mud and wet dog. But the winners will have the opportunity, in fact they will be compelled whether they want to or not, to leap into the bottomless hole betwixt the dunes. This is all expenses paid. I’m not sure what expenses there are to jumping into a bottomless hole but in any case, they’re covered.
Raffle tickets are only 5 dollars and can be purchased at the Lions Club or by whispering into any crack in any wall. And again, proceeds go to saving us from the robot army, so please do buy a few.
[whoosh]
Kasper Rhodes: There’s a lot of talk generally an in particular about pain. “Oh, I’m in pain,” many say, “Oh, this pain is the worst I’ve ever felt,” many say. Many just scream and that’s understandable, I’d scream too if I could, but you can’t scream with a smile. That’s one of the laws of the Smiling God. I believe in laws. But then, I believe in anything.
Have you ever had rock candy? Who even thought up something so useless as these crystalline sugar lumps? What point is there to any of this, when rock candy is the kind of thing that we as humans apparently are up to? Generally, also in particular. But what I’m talking about is, what point is there to rock candy? And what I’m also asking is, what point is there to you? But I can provide a point, at you anyway. Wouldn’t that be nice for once? And don’t we want it to be nice for once, just once before we go? I’m talking here about purpose, and I have more purpose than I need. You have less purpose than you want. Let’s meet in the middle, and there in the middle, I will take your brain. Believe in the Smiling God and why not? I do.
[whoosh, high-pitched noises]
Cecil: [distorted] Night Vale, we will fight! [normal] Night Vale, we will win! The night may be long, but inevitably comes the dawn. Especially now that time works correctly here. Tamika Flynn has gathered her militia, who have aged to the point where they are no longer teenagers. It was kind of cute, a local friendly teenage militia, but now they’re just a militia, which is less cute. But definitely good to have on our side in this struggle. They are currently pelting the robots with stones but – ah, the robots’ metal frames are impervious to such attacks. Oh, this is so worrying! Josh Crayton, local shapeshifter, has resumed the form of a waterfall in an attempt to short out the electronics of the robot army. Unfortunately it appears that their bodies are water resistant and perhaps even waterproof, and so they are simply walking past him like he isn’t there. Josh, maybe some other form? Oh, OK, OK, Josh has panicked and accidentally taken the form of a 1970’s style avocado green galley kitchen. Oh, Josh, this will not be helpful at all.
“We’re going about this fight all wrong!” said Lenny Butler, who has no official bona fides on military tactics, but considered himself an aficionado of rowdy boys really taking it to each other on the battlefield. Lenny continued: “What we want to do is fight them!” When asked what that meant, he shrugged and (-) [0:09:47] irritably. “I know what it means!” he said. “I’m not gonna waste time explaining it to you, just like, flank them!”
Other towns have been forced to join the fight, as the robots are sweeping through the entire area. The ghosts of Pine Cliff have enthusiastically entered the fray. Unfortunately, of course, ghosts cannot physically affect our world, and so they are just hovering back and forth through the robots. But good hussle out there!
Citizens of the Whispering Forest muttered warm compliments to the robots in an attempt to simulate them into their tree forms, but robots are immune to compliments, as they’re only able to think as highly of themselves as they are programmed to do. Oh no, nothing is working! Ugh. Well, this seems like as good a time as any to talk about survival tips.
The first thing to consider is your water source. Now, your body is 60 per cent water, so that seems like enough, let’s move on.
Next, you will want to consider food. Stuck up on essentials like canned peas, easily stored grains, and those little bags of baby carrots which are just big carrots carved into small spaces and called babies. Which his not how babies are made. This is not what the word “baby” means.
Anyway, if you find yourself in an emergency situation without enough food, consider expanding your definition of the word “food”. For instance, theoretically, you could eat a desk if you tried hard enough. Maybe the problem isn’t a lack of food, but lack of motivation on your part.
Finally ,look for shelter. This one is easy, there are houses and buildings everywhere and you can just go into them. Some of them will be locked, they might even have people inside who say things like: “What are you doing in my house?” and: “You can’t be in here, this is the stock room of an Arby’s!” But don’t let naysayers like that get you down.
This has been, survival tips.
[whoosh]
Kasper: There is a lot of talk generally and in particular about triumph. “We are winning,” a person might say. “We will defeat you,” a person might crow as the town falls in supplication around him. “You will all be taken to the future!” that person might continue. “You will be made useful.”
And isn’t that wonderful? To be made useful? Isn’t that the best thing a person can be? I think so. It doesn’t matter what you think, [chuckles] it turns out you never did. It’s so impersonal chatting over the phone, es-especially since you haven’t been picking up. It seems rude, your refusal to listen to me, but-but I don’t mind. After all, it’s hard to begrudge you your last minutes of human freedom. Tell you what, tell you what, I’ll head over and collect you myself. Wouldn’t that be nice? For me, I mean, again it doesn’t matter what it is for you, it turns out it never did.
OK, [distorted] see you soon, bye bye!
[whoosh]
Cecil: Give me back my radio frequency! Oh, I… Am I, I think I’m back on. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Well, I’ll talk whether you can hear me or not. More robots are pouring out of the time vortexes. The vorteces, vortes.. vorces.. vort-vortex-eses. Whatever they are. Thousands of robots are coming out and this is too much, we can never defeat all of them! The robots are marching to Kasper Rhodes’ army that was already here and they are… Listeners, they are fighting them. These new robots are fighting on our side. At their head is the one I recognize as containing the brain of Charlie Bair, the dayshift manager at the Ralphs, and he’s [huffing] he is announcing that some of the robots have broken free of their programming, that they have found a way to manipulate the metal body they were trapped in, and they have come back to help us prevent this all from happening. And the present day human Charlie Bair is running up to join his future metal counterpart.
Night Vale, out on that battlefield is a robot which contains your brain! Find that robot and help it fight, or fight it, depending o n which side it’s on. Together, with ourselves, we can win this. There is still hope. There is always hope. There is also always
The weather.
[“Sugar Neighbors” by Dane Terry https://www.thedaneterry.com]
Together, us and us, our own selves and our robot selves, we rushed against Kasper Rhodes, more and more of his robots broke free of their programming and joined us. Tamika and her militia were now Tamikas and their militias, and the intimidation factor was through the roof.
This whole time, we just had to trust ourselves. [chuckles] And also have versions of ourselves that were embedded in super strong metal bodies. That was all it took this whole time to be victorious.
Charlie Bair the human stood shoulder to shoulder with Charlie Bair the robot, and both fought valiantly. Josh Crayton took the form of a chainsaw, which was then wielded by Josh Crayton’s brain in a robot body to glorious and gory effect. It did not take long for the tides to turn. Sometimes, once the balance shifts, it shifts as quickly and definitively as a broken elevator plunging down a shaft. And then, Kasper Rhodes himself finally fell.
Whether it was the stones cast by the Tamikas, or the fists of the Charlies, or Josh the chainsaw wielded by Josh the robot, I cannot say. In the chaos of battle, individual human action becomes indistinct, but the fact of Kasper’s death is indisputable.
And in that moment he fell, every robot slumped into stillness, because time had changed. Kasper never took our brains when we died and used them in robots of the future, and because of that, every one of those robots no longer had a brain in them. They were empty shells. We carried those empty shelves with affection and care to Grove Park, where they would be sorted for parts and the resulting scrap metal used to fix the massive amount of damage done to town by this battle.
We kept one robot, though, just one. The scrawniest one with the most rusted joints and Pamela Winchell, who has been reading books on hobbyist surgery, removed Kasper’s brain from his still warm body and placed it in that robot, and the robot came to life in a panic.
“Don’t worry,” we told Kasper the robot, “we’re not going to hurt you! We’re just putting you to work for the Miriam McDonald memorial fund. You will clean up the sand from the Sand Wastes until all the sand is gone. We don’t know how long that will take, it may take forever. Good luck!”
And even now, a lone robot with a broom sweeps sand out of the desert.
Hm. A fitting end for an unfit man.
[sighs in relief] Now there is only us, and the returned reality of our aging. And our death.
I have come to think that Carlos was right. There is nothing more scientific than death. We fear it, reasonably, because it is a thing we can never know, perhaps not even when we experience it. But it is not worth perverting our lives, changing everything about ourselves just to avoid our natural ends. New generations will come. New people will live. And like everyone before us, we will gracefully exit to make room for those coming after.
As the old saying goes: “Death is only the end if you assume the story is about you.”
[laughs] This is not a story about you! And you were glad, because it would be boring if every story was.
Good night,
Night Vale,
Good night.
Today’s proverb: Every friend group has a joyful chasm. If you do not know who the joyful chasm is, then I have news for you: you are the joyful chasm.
[post credits segment]
Kasper: There’s a lot of talk generally and in particular. So many words. Oh man. Oooh maannn. Ugh, oh! [chuckles] This is not how. It isn’t. Was it? But it’s what’s left of me. Oh, it’s quiet in here at least. I can’t feel the smile anymore. (–) [0:25:49] that smile. In here, it is quiet and dark. My metal body moves, but my brain is still. I like it in here. [shivers] Nooo-oooo! That smile! The- the smile has appeared. Oh, oh God, y- you don’t understand! The smile is in here with me. [distorted noise, discordant music rises, then fades out]