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Carlos is late submitting his semi-monthly report—less than twelve hours; but all the same the roar of the chopper landing on his lawn isn't unexpected. The knock on his door does surprise him; so they still consider him an employee, nominally.
The men in their well-cut suits and sunny ties are courteous, though they make it clear their invitation isn't optional.
Carlos obediently gets into the yellow helicopter, and doesn't try to look out the window, doesn't watch Night Vale falling away beneath him as they climb.
For the first couple of days, the interrogation can still be termed a debriefing. They put him up in a nice, if windowless, hotel room, down the hall from a conference room with a leather couch where the various executives ask their questions, interjecting sympathetic asides while their assistants take notes on tablets. Carlos apologizes for the delay in his report. "I usually send it while Cecil's show is airing," he explains, "to avoid detection. With that schedule disrupted, I had to find alternate transmission methods," and his superiors nod understandingly.
On the third day, Carlos detects the faintly acrid aftertaste of the latte he's brought, and knows that his answers haven't been satisfactory. He finishes the coffee, sits down and waits for the investigatory board members like he hasn't noticed the faint trails at the edges of his vision, the slight haze over his thoughts that might only be sleepiness from the warmth of the room.
Carlos is used to it; he's been dosing himself for months now, building up a tolerance, refining avoidance techniques. He lets himself smile easily, relaxing on the couch; lets his drug-loosened tongue babble about Night Vale's peculiarities, the ordeals of conducting science in a place where the fundamental laws of physics only work when they feel like it. It's cathartic, really.
His interrogators smile back, bring him more drugged coffee and try to subtly direct the conversation, asking how his scientific work pertains to Cecil, to the radio show, to the local opinions of StrexCorp's buyout. Carlos jabbers about everything they already know, from his previous reports and their endless analyses of Cecil's recorded shows.
(It was his research which cracked that puzzle, figuring out the way to successfully export uncensored recordings out of what he then only knew as Site 42-NV. It earned him a promotion, and an assignment to the most scientifically interesting community he'd ever heard of, in or outside of StrexCorp's projects.)
Carlos knows the session is over when one of the interrogators—the man was an associate vice president when Carlos was hired; he's been promoted since—leans forward and asks, nonchalant and friendly, "So where is Cecil these days anyway, Carlos?"
"Dunno," Carlos says, shrugging lazily. It must be late in the day; he's been fed enough of their persuasion cocktail that he can't feel his toes, his fingers feeling disconnected when he rubs their pads together, like they're on someone else's hands. "Haven't seen him lately, I've been busy here," and he giggles at the lack of a joke; he's always too busy to see Cecil, isn't he...
"Carlos, it's very important that we find Cecil," the man says, putting his hand on Carlos's knee, solid and focusing. Carlos looks down at it and thinks of his hand on Cecil's knee, then lets his floating thoughts drift past that memory, as the VP continues, "StrexCorp needs him. And we need you to help us. Where did you last see Cecil?"
"You know, around," Carlos says, waving a hand that may not be his. "He was on the radio, but I couldn't see him there. And then he wasn't on the radio at all anymore. But you know more about that than me; I don't make the calls, I just do what I'm paid to..."
They bring him back to his hotel room, holding his arm to help him walk in a straight line. His mind's too addled for him to do more than lie on the bed, staring up at the featureless ceiling. It's the last time he's going to see it, he knows. He wishes the room had a window; he'd have liked to look into the terror of the void one final time.
In the night he awakens to a gloved hand clapping over his mouth, and a prick on his arm that takes everything away.
What comes back after that is inconsistent, blurred by pain and more advanced chemicals. The lights are much brighter, the surfaces under him much harder than the comfortable leather couch. The voices are sharper, emanating from speakers while anonymous figures in white lab coats and surgical masks tend to him with needles and electricity.
Carlos answers all their questions. Sometimes he cries, more from the confusion of the drugs than the pain, or so he tells himself. It's all right that he seems weak. It's good that he seems weak. It means they're more likely to believe him, when he sobs, "No, no, I don't know—I don't know where Cecil is. He didn't tell me where they were hiding out—he didn't trust me; boyfriend or not I was still an outsider—he didn't tell me. He didn't tell me!"
He says it over and over, calmly, angrily, shouting, whispering. He says it so many times that most of himself believes it, and that's also good, what he needs to convince them.
Deep inside Carlos, buried far beneath the drugs and pain, a fragment of himself remains untouched, safe behind the walls he spent so long constructing with meditation and chemical regimens and behavioral therapy. That tiny fragment curls tightly around the truth that he cannot, will not surrender: that Cecil didn't trust him only because he told Cecil not to. "You can't tell me where you're hiding out, Cecil, you can't, I can't tell you why but it's not safe—don't even hint it, I'm begging you, Cecil, don't—"
The StrexCorp interrogators don't believe him; or maybe it's company policy to keep asking even if they do. "Where is Cecil Palmer?" they demand, again and again.
There are answers Carlos could give, of course. Old Woman Josie's, the bowling alley, the clock tower—Cecil hadn't told him, but Cecil hadn't really needed to; Carlos knows Night Vale that well. But he'll die before any of those answers leave his lips, and there's a comfort in that. A comfort in knowing that he's closer now to death than otherwise, closer to the end of this than the beginning. Maybe it's his time in Night Vale that makes this reassuring; or maybe it's just the torture.
"Where is Cecil Palmer?" they demand, and Carlos bites his lip, twists his head back and forth on the cold metal table, and finally screams, "The dog park!"
And that fragment deep inside grins with malicious triumph, wondering how many StrexCorp drones will be lost in that forbidden place, before they realize he was lying, and take their retribution.
Regret was something Carlos forfeited back when he signed on StrexCorp's dotted line. The fragment of himself remaining wishes he could see one more sunset dye the pale desert sands apricot and crimson. Wishes for a radio, to hear his favorite voice tell him good night, one last time.
But mostly he's relieved, when the next needle to slide under his skin makes everything go black.
It's a rude awakening when they inject the counteragents, brutally dispelling the fog of drugs to pull Carlos back to consciousness. The hangover leaves his mind painfully clear, sharp like broken crystal. That needle is followed by another pinch which goes in cold—a paralytic, he recognizes, as even his limited control over his trembling limbs vanishes.
He still has full sensation, can feel in excruciating detail the sour dryness of his mouth, the cuffs digging into his arms, his throat. They've lashed his limp body into a wheelchair, head strapped upright. The drug's been modified to not impair his lungs or heart, involuntary functions continuing unimpeded; but his eyes are taped open, drying eyeballs sore.
As the wheelchair is moved, he focuses through the ache, peering at his surroundings—not the interrogation chamber, nor the conference room. Glass walls, dark baseboard, weirdly glistening cobwebs in the ceiling's furthest corners—no. No.
Carlos knows this place.
Two men in suits and yellow ties roll him into the booth, stop the wheelchair with a rough jerk that throws him against the straps. He can see before him speakers, desk, office chair, microphone.
There is another man in that chair, his hands bound with yellow zipties, one leg at an unnatural angle, bent against the chair's wheeled base. His face is covered in a black hood marked with yellow triangles, but Carlos knows those hands, those shoulders. Knows that torn shirt and askew tie.
No...
"So, Mr. Palmer, are you any more willing to cooperate?" the taller man in the yellow tie asks. He's the Strex-Corp associate vice-president, or whatever his position is now.
"I don't see why I would be," says the bound man. The hood only muffles Cecil's baritone a little; it's as calm and authoritative as any of his radio broadcasts. "You can't drug me; it might reduce my efficacy. And you can't shoot me, as my death would defeat the purpose. So why should I do anything you say?"
"It's quite simple," the VP says. He nods, and his associate unties the hood over Cecil's head, as the man explains, "You're going to go on the air and announce to all your listeners that you're taking a sabbatical. In the meantime they're all required to tune in every day as usual, to listen to Kevin's broadcast. Which you're sure they'll find every bit as informative and trustworthy as your own."
Cecil squints as the hood is removed. One of his eyes is swollen, blackening, but opens with the other as his vision adjusts to the light, his gaze fixing on Carlos.
"If you do not do this," and the VP makes a motion outside of Carlos's line of sight, but Carlos hears the clink of a chambered bullet, feels the stamp of cool metal against his temple and knows it's the barrel of a gun against his head, "then we will murder this man, right before your eyes."
Cecil blinks at him once, like a sunning lizard. His politely interested tone doesn't shift a decibel. "And how is that supposed to convince me?"
"This isn't a trick, Mr. Palmer," says the VP. He puts a hand on top of Carlos's head, wrenches it back to press his neck against the strap. "This isn't an illusion or a double—this is your lover, who you know we captured. And we will kill him. Believe this."
"Oh, I believe it's Carlos," Cecil says. "And I'm sure you'd kill him as happily as anyone. I just don't get why you'd think I'd care what happens to a Strex scientist?"
The VP snorts, a practiced sound—literally, following his StrexCorp HR training. There are seminars and conferences on interrogation techniques. He smacks Carlos's cheek, not lightly. "You think this sorry fool is working for us?"
"I know he is," Cecil says. "StrexCorp has always been funding the scientists. That was apparent from the moment they first arrived." His eyes drop to Carlos, a brief glance, and Carlos wills to see in them what he can't hear in Cecil's voice—some signal, some sign that his calm is only assumed. That this revelation is a new lie.
There's nothing. Cecil looks back up at the VP, explains, "Not many groups can get access to Night Vale. The City Council didn't send me any prior notice that scientists were coming. Government agents were watching them from the moment they crossed the town line, so it wasn't a federal program. And scientists as a rule aren't independently wealthy enough to fund their own research. So they had to have another sponsor, and StrexCorp was the best guess, having both the resources and the interest."
"Clever," the VP says. Carlos has to agree. It's not that Cecil's not intelligent, far from; but this sort of logic is rare in Night Vale.
Rarer still for Cecil to apply it to him. For Cecil to approach him with anything like rationality instead of passion.
The conclusion is obvious, and Carlos is glad for the paralytics, that he cannot sigh with relief. He hopes they're not monitoring his heartbeat, won't realize they've given the game away. This isn't Cecil's interrogation—this isn't Cecil at all, just another StrexCorp trick. Programmed hologram, failed clone, simply latex masks and makeup—drugs and physical discomfort failed to break Carlos, so they've stepped up to full-blown psychological manipulation. He should feel honored.
Most importantly, this isn't Cecil. StrexCorp doesn't have Cecil yet, or they wouldn't be bothering with this charade. It's worth all of this, to know that.
"So when did you figure out he betrayed you?" the VP demands, continuing the farce. They must not be tracking his pulse after all.
The fake Cecil cocks his head. "I don't quite take your meaning," he says, and oh, his voice really is excellent; Carlos hadn't realized they'd managed such an accurate reproduction. "I told you, it was obvious from the start. I always knew who he worked for."
"You didn't," the VP growls. "His reports never mentioned—"
"Oh, I never told Carlos I knew," fake Cecil says. "It wasn't a discussion I wanted to have. And he didn't either, I expect, since he never brought it up."
"But you took him as your lover anyway," the VP says, and even knowing this is a ploy, Carlos hates the way he says it, hates the sound of the word in his mouth. Any word with 'love' as a root should have long been excised from the StrexCorp better practices glossary.
"I did, yes," fake Cecil agrees. "He's quite a skilled one, too. Practically perfect," and he smiles—a flawless imitation of Cecil's smile, showing slightly too many slightly too sharp teeth.
"Then, if you don't want to lose your perfect lover, you'll do what we ask," the VP says.
The fake Cecil leans idly back in his chair. "I said, practically. He wasn't that good."
"You have an excellent poker face, Mr. Palmer," the VP purrs, a sound that makes Khoshekh's seem cordial. "Perhaps you need more proof of our resolve." He gestures to his silent associate.
The man steps forward. Carlos sees, out of the corner of his eye, the flash of metal, a serrated hunting knife. It comes down fast and certain, quick enough that for an instant there's no pain, just a pinching pressure on his right hand's little finger.
Then a rough grip clamps around it to stop the blood flow, and it hurts, a stinging pang that he can't pull away from, can't even swear about. A faint wheezing whine escapes his throat and moisture wells at the corner of his eyes, more painful against their dryness.
"That was one joint," the VP says casually. "He has thirteen more, if you're in need of further demonstrations."
"Or you could just cut off the whole hand?" the fake Cecil suggests, just as casually, miming a helpful chopping gesture at Carlos's arm. "He has two of those, and it seems more efficient. Though tough work with a knife that small. There's a machete in the intern break room?"
There is a machete in the break room, Carlos knows; they keep it on hand for spontaneous jungle outbreaks, the cost of owning a fichus in Night Vale.
But it's not that which catches his attention, but the movement of Cecil's hands, still bound with the zipties. His sleeves are rolled up, baring his forearms; they're naked except for the plastic biting into his wrists. But on his left arm, below the ties, there's a slightly paler band of skin, where a watch used to be.
StrexCorp knows about the watch; Carlos had requisitioned it from a subsidiary, rather than risk a private order being discovered. And they may know Cecil wears it, from Cecil's broadcast—Carlos had asked Cecil not to mention his gift on the air, but Cecil forgot, as he often did, caught up in the blissful excitement of narrating their relationship.
If they were trying to break Carlos, Cecil would be wearing the watch, as proof of his identity.
Or else, if they missed that broadcast, then there would be no sign there ever had been a watch, no reason for a double to have such a thing.
But if he's not a doppelganger, not an illusion—then this is really Cecil. This is Cecil, who StrexCorp is trying to break, and Carlos is just a tool for that destruction.
A useless tool, it seems. More useless even than he'd guessed.
"I suggest you quit bluffing while your lover is still mostly intact, Mr. Palmer," the VP says. "We've heard your broadcasts; we know how much you were troubled by a simple haircut," and Carlos feels the man's thick fingers scrape through his hair, tugging until he draws more tears from Carlos's open eyes.
"Oh!" Cecil says, in a tone of enlightenment. He laughs, a brief, glittering chuckle. "That explains it—I was wondering where you were getting your information. I didn't think a cold scientist like Carlos would be so effusive in his reports. So you've managed to listen to my little show. I don't know if I should be flattered or insulted, that you actually bought it?"
"Bought it?" the VP repeats.
Cecil's eyes remain reptilian, cold-blooded as his crocodile smile; but his voice drops into a treacle-thick well of simpering sentiment, a voice Carlos has heard so many times, on the radio and off. "Oh, my beloved, perfect Carlos," Cecil cries, "how can I bear to see you in such a state? I've been beside myself, all these days you were gone—curse these corporate bastards, for laying a hand on your beautiful body!"
He shakes his head, casting off the pretense of emotion like water, and says brightly, "Is that more what you were expecting? I almost feel like I must apologize, for laying it on so thick—but in my defense, it wasn't for your benefit. And poor, sweet, emotionally dense Carlos the Strex scientist didn't seem like the type who'd grasp nuance. If I was going to make him so uncomfortable that he'd turn off the radio and ignore my broadcast, I had to be obvious."
Cecil folds his ziptied hands, sets them on his knee. The pale band where the watch isn't shows like a damning brand. "I thought it was working, too, for a while," he continues. "When I made it clear that Carlos couldn't say anything to me, couldn't so much as leave a voicemail that I wouldn't make embarrassingly public—he had to step most carefully, in the interests of preserving your secrets. And I confess, I started to genuinely enjoy it—community radio can be so dry; to have a City Council-approved excuse to ham it up was delightful! I'll tell you, I was so disappointed that he survived that encounter with our miniature foes from below; it was such wonderful tragedy, some of my best work.
"And then out of the blue, he calls me—he wants to see me—now that, I didn't see coming! I assumed you ordered him to get close to me, for the sake of your investigation, hmm?" and Cecil inclines his head with careless curiosity.
The VP doesn't answer, and Carlos can't see the man's face well enough to determine what it is or isn't giving away. In truth he'd been instructed to pursue that avenue of research a month before the incident with the miniature city. He'd found excuses to avoid it, to keep the distance he'd realized was necessary to maintain his crumbling objectivity.
Then he'd been lying on the bowling alley floor, realizing that if he died, StrexCorp would send another scientist. Realizing that they might send another anyway, if he kept refusing, and what would Night Vale's fate be then; what would Cecil's fate be then...
Carlos had meant to tell Cecil, tell him all of it, in the Arby's parking lot, with the lights in the sky interfering with any surveillance equipment.
But in the end he'd been too much a coward. He'd said nothing, just sat in silence with the weight of Cecil's head on his shoulder, overwhelmed by that contact, the heat and pressure of his presence compressed to one point, a singularity, a big bang starting a new universe.
What thoughts had been going through Cecil's head then, as it rested on Carlos's shoulder? What plans, what resolutions might he have been making, to pacify one of Night Vale's enemies—unnecessarily, when Carlos was already tamed...
"I admit," Cecil says, "the bedroom skills were an unexpected bonus. But a few rolls in the metaphorical hay would hardly make me forget that I was sleeping with a StrexCorp scientist. So if you're going to saw off more of his fingers, or remove a limb or two, or just shoot him, it's your loss, not mine. After what you're doing to my city, I'll watch with pleasure. Heck, I'll gladly do it myself."
Cecil's gaze returns to Carlos, and he smiles. It's a crueler shape than Cecil's mouth is made to make, even with the sharpness of his teeth; and some last unbroken part of Carlos cracks to see it. To know that StrexCorp has hurt Night Vale badly enough to make Cecil cruel, as Night Vale itself never could.
"You're bluffing," the StrexCorp VP says, but it's unsure now; they've gone far off any projected strategy, and his insistence is the rote repetition of a scratched record.
And Cecil hears it; Cecil always can hear the emotional shades of any words, well enough to paint them truly in his own voice when he repeats them. "Let me prove it," Cecil says, his baritone dropping into bass, and Carlos would stiffen if he could, because there's a shade here that he's heard rarely, a potency more threatening than the usual sinister undertones. It sets his teeth on edge.
The StrexCorp men don't hear it, or don't understand if they do. The VP's associate is already moving, when Cecil commands, "Untie me and give me the knife, and I'll show you how I really feel about your scientist here."
"—Wait," the VP says, frowning, confused by this unexpected authority. But StrexCorp trains its people well, to shout how high when their superiors tell them to jump; and they are vastly, laughably inferior here.
The associate sets his knife to the zipties around Cecil's wrists, pulls up in one motion and the plastic falls away. Cecil stretches out his arms, accepts the knife handed to him. "Thank you," he says, pushing to his feet. He stands clumsily on only one leg, the other twisted and dragging; but there's nothing awkward about his voice, or his grip on the knife. Everyone in Night Vale learns their way around a blade at an early age.
"Hey, put that down!" the VP says, belatedly. There's a click in Carlos's ear, the gun being cocked.
"Don't worry," Cecil says, calm, as soothing as he wishes his town good night. "I'm just doing your job for you; it's about time we get this whole tedious business over with," and he raises the knife. And Carlos cannot meet his eyes, with that blade between them, but he wants to—wants to tell Cecil that it's all right, that this is what he has to do. That Carlos knew it could end like this and he came to Night Vale anyway; he doesn't regret, doesn't regret any of it, and he hopes that Cecil will not either—
The lights go out.
Carlos would think that the tape slipped and his eyelids have fallen shut, except that through the blackness he hears the StrexCorp men exclaim in surprise. "Stop, or—"
The VP's cry cuts short with a strangled choke, with the wet sharp sound of a blade scraping cartilage. The gun goes off, deafening in Carlos's ear even with its silencer; there's a thud, the unmistakable thump of a body hitting the floor, and then a second.
Then Carlos feels the serrated knife against his neck, slick and wet, liquid warm instead of steel cold. He still can't move, cannot shift from it or towards; can only wait for it to open his own throat—about time we get this over with—
Instead, the knife wrenches upward, slicing through the strap around his neck. His head falls limply forward but is caught, held in wet hands that reek of blood but cradle so carefully. He can feel each finger gently stroking his cheek, peeling the tape from his eyes. Can hear the voice in his ear, Cecil's deep absolute voice—"Carlos, brave wounded Carlos, I'm so sorry, but I can't walk by myself; you have to stand, you have to move."
His voice is wind and thunder, is a hurricane and Carlos is in its eye, while everything around him is swept away, pain and suffering and drugged paralysis forgotten, leaving only purpose.
The straps holding his arms are also cut away, and Carlos stands as he has to, shakily, leaning against Cecil as heavily as Cecil leans against him. In the darkness, the floor underfoot is slippery, with what Carlos does not allow himself to think. Through the darkness and the metallic stench they limp, through shouts of confusion and wailing sirens and the crash of stones breaking glass. It's a maze of chaos but Cecil worked at the radio station for years, and knows ways through the building that should not exist at all. He guides Carlos with a tug on his shoulder, with more words in his ear when he falters, the storming voice of authority which can call a whole town to heel.
They stumble into brilliance—sunlight, Carlos recognizes, from the scorching heat on the back of his neck. A white van pulls up before them, its sliding door gaping like an open wound in its side. "Get in!" a child's soprano cries, and they fall into the van's belly, barely manage to pull in their limbs before the door slams shut and they're moving.
They're lying on a thick layer of rough tendrils—purple shag carpet, Carlos will identify later; now he only slumps in it, breathing in musty fibers. He wraps his good hand around his wounded finger, feeling it throb as potholes jostle the speeding van.
There is another hand, not his, stroking through his hair with an almost frantic tenderness. Other voices mutter around them, but Carlos only has the strength to listen to that single one closest to him: "Carlos," Cecil is saying, over and again, broken and tormented, "oh, Carlos, oh, I am sorry, if there'd been any other way—"
But then, that anguish he's heard before, on the radio while nearly mortally wounded in a bowling alley; and only minutes ago, perfectly assumed and then dismissed.
Carlos unfolds his shaking hand from his finger, reaches out to find Cecil's wrist and curls his fingers around it, bare skin under his torn sleeve's cuff.
Cecil answers the question before he can ask it. "I'm sorry, I gave the watch to the others to examine. As proof of you. They wouldn't let me go otherwise, even though we knew Strex had you—but I told them if you were really theirs, that watch would tell more than time."
It had, of course, when Strex had shipped it to him; but Carlos had removed the tracer and the listening device, had reported them broken, the way so much technology breaks under Night Vale's farce of scientific principles. "It doesn't," Carlos chokes out. It's a struggle to move his lips, to force breath through his vocal chords. "It doesn't do anything but keep proper time—"
Cecil's hand in his hair stills. "I know, Carlos," he says, not soothing but matter-of-fact, unconditional.
It's logical to doubt him, to distrust this. Carlos can be as useful to Night Vale, to Cecil, as ever he was to StrexCorp. He knew already how far Cecil will go for his town; he knows now how well Cecil can lie. It's logical to disbelieve whatever absolution or affection Cecil seems to offer.
"So it was all a lie?" Carlos asks, though he doesn't know which lie he's asking about. Or maybe it's not a question at all, but his own confession.
Cecil doesn't evade, doesn't try to reassure or deny his own revelations. Instead he says, "No, it was true; it was all true. Just not the whole truth, and the parts left out are what most matters. I'm sorry, Carlos, I'm so sorry—"
It's logical to disbelieve—but Carlos is back in Night Vale now, as he thought he wouldn't be again. And logic here dries up and crumbles and blows away like sandstone in the desert, the sun and the wind whetting it away, slower than water but more inexorable. Until all that remains is weathered bedrock faith, too impossibly solid to be ground down.
Though no one should have such faith in him, a StrexCorp scientist; neither rationality nor passion should be enough for anyone to trust him. "No," Carlos says. Each word is a struggle through the blackness encroaching on his vision. He tightens his fingers around Cecil's bare wrist. "No, Cecil, I'm the one who's sorry, I should have told you—"
Cecil presses his forehead to Carlos's, makes a noise that is more vibration than sound, a shivering Carlos feels more than hears, that might in another universe be a laugh. "Oh, Carlos," he says, "anything you want to tell me, I want to hear. If only I knew what I should tell you..."
"Tell me—who am I?" Carlos asks.
"You're Carlos," Cecil says. "Carlos the scientist."
"—But not StrexCorp's," Carlos says. "Not a Strex scientist, not anymore."
"No," Cecil says. His arms fold around Carlos as his voice drops low and undeniable, as if he's back on the air, issuing Night Vale's truths into the desert twilight. "Not theirs—my Carlos, my brave, brilliant Carlos—not theirs ever again," and Cecil's voice can hurt and command and lie, and it's not logical or rational or right—but Carlos, Carlos the Night Vale scientist, hears him now, and believes.