"Goodnight, listeners. Goodnight."
Cecil turned off the microphone - the one on the board, that broadcast to the entire town. The ones in the walls, that broadcast only to the Sheriff's Secret Police, were always on. He sighed contentedly, unclipped the second microphone from his shirt, took off his headphones, and pushed his blond hair out of his third eye.
Josh Watson from the Sheriff's Secret Police watched the radio host from just behind him, no expression on his face, which was strangely blistered on one side. Half of his scalp was covered in brown, normal-looking hair - the other half was bare and similarly blistered. When Cecil turned around, the catch in the radio host's breath and the change in his expression was attune to someone who had been preparing to be punished for a long, long time, but had pushed the thought to the back of his head, where it had coagulated like a small, sticky stone of dread - dread of something hidden and guilty brought to light.
"Hi, Cecil," said Josh.
"Why, hello, Josh," said Cecil. The pleasant surprise in his voice was practiced, smooth, skilled. One got the impression that this conversation was following a recorded pattern, that it had been had many times before.
"I love your show. We all do at the Sheriff's office," said Josh.
"Thank you, Josh. What a kind thing to say," said Cecil.
"Now, unfortunately, you again mentioned mountains. I understand we all make up slip-ups, especially people with dangerously free imaginations such as yours, but sadly this is your third slip-up in a week," said Josh.
"Oh, that's terrible. So sorry," said Cecil.
Josh brought out a small iron rod, fiddling with it, careful not to touch it. Cecil's two main eyes locked onto it, while his third rolled erratically around, darting from possible exit to possible exit. Josh looked pityingly at the radio host. "I'm not sorry about this, Cecil. I completely agree with the tyrant - ah, I mean the Sheriff - and all his policies regarding reeducation, even when it applies to good people - sorry, naughty citizens - like yourself," he said, without any sympathy for the man he admired at all.
Cecil swallowed. His third eye came to rest, pointing straight up at the ceiling. It blinked once, slowly, and then did nothing at all. "Reeducation?" The word was another slip-up, a tiny, gasped out variation in the otherwise perfected script.
Josh Waston's bright yellow left eye twitched up to meet Cecil's in warning, while his deep black right one remained perfectly placid, as it had been trained. Cecil quickly retracted his slip-up.
"Of course, Josh, of course. I'm glad you're so good at your job. Without alert and unrestrainedly brutal peace-keepers like yourself, who knows what kind of degenerate, democratic place Night Vale might be?" Cecil said.
Josh nodded exaggeratedly, so the motion was quite clear to the cameras. "Thank you, Cecil. I'm glad you understand."
The young radio show host slowly stood up and allowed Josh to take his upper arm and lead him out the the waiting black van. Once having made his guest (not prisoner) fully comfortable in his city-issued restraints and blindfold, Josh walked around the van three times before climbing into the driver's seat and scanning his pinky finger to unlock the steering wheel. He started the vehicle and turned off the cameras and microphones, a rare privilege afforded only to Sheriff's Secret Police officers of a certain rank, and only while transporting a citizen for reeducation.
Josh turned to look at Cecil, wanting to make eye contact, and felt silly when he remembered that his guest (not prisoner) was blindfolded. (Cecil was actually blindfolded twice; it took two blindfolds to cover all three of his eyes.) He turned back to look out the windows. "Don't be too afraid. It's just minor reeducation, not a full-on soul extraction like that one time when you implied that the moon was a celestial body and not an ancient luminescent being that must be sacrificed to twice a month." He paused, touching his blistered face. "Unfortunately - and don't be too scared - this is the sixth time we've had to remind you about the mountains, so there will be a small amount of torture."
Cecil inhaled deeply. "Thank you, Josh," he stated, and meant it. It was kind of the officer to tell him specifically what was ahead. Cecil hated vagueness and mystery, which is a difficult perspective when one lives in Night Vale. A small smile appeared on the half of Josh's face that had recognizable features. He knew this, and it made him happy when he had an opportunity to be kind. These opportunities were rare for an officer.
"Josh?"
"Yes, Cecil?"
"I had a date planned for tonight. Is there any way I could be home in time?" Cecil asked, slightly worried about Carlos.
Josh winced slightly - partially because of Cecil's worry, partially because his face hurt. "I'm afraid not. You most likely won't be back until morning."
Cecil nodded, not really having expected anything else. "May I - may I call him? I don't want him to worry."
"I'll see what I can do." That meant 'no'.
The rest of the drive passed in silence until Josh pulled up at the secret reeducation center in the sand wastes, near Radon Canyon. He pulled the blindfolded and handcuffed radio show host out of the car and led him into the building with unusual, even suspicious tenderness. Cecil felt the back of the chair. Wires were connected to his wrists, ankles, chest, neck and temples - everywhere major arteries resided. He took a deep breath and swallowed. Josh's feet clicked away.
The blindfold over Cecil's third eye was removed, and it rolled upward to see the terse, pale face of the genderless biomolecular engineer. The engineer wore a blue Sheriff's Secret Police uniform, with the purple epaulettes that represented an official city scientist. That made him think of Carlos. It hurt.
The engineer tugged on the wires to make sure they were fully connected to each of Cecil's major arteries. Then they leaned over a rack full of surgical tools and selected a large needle with a tiny clamp at the pointed end and an electrical node at the other. They connected the node to another wire, which in turn was connected to a microphone.
Cecil started to cry as the thin-lipped and bloodless engineer pressed his head backwards and shaved a small strip of blond hair away, starting on his hairline just above his third eye and ending about halfway along his scalp. Milky tears dripped out of his purplish tear ducts. His lips trembled with fear of what he knew was coming.
The engineer tested the clamp on the end of the needle. Then they swabbed the strip of exposed skin on Cecil's scalp. Cecil bit hard on his lip, muffling a sobbing howl of pain, when the needle plunged through skin, bone, and several inches of brain. A painful pinching jerk signaled that the clamp had attached itself to what he had managed to glean from Carlos was his Broca's area. Cecil focused on breathing. He knew from experience that he had just lost his ability to form meaningful words. For a man who made his living by speaking, a man whose pride and joy was his eloquence, that knowledge was both frightening and humiliating. He felt unspeakably violated.
The engineer tapped twice on the microphone. Cecil convulsed in pain. "One, two," they intoned. The guest (not prisoner) echoed on the inside, every instinct and hormone susurrating, One, two. "One, two," his lips whispered. They moved of their own accord. The words were too compelling, too natural. "One, two."
The engineer appeared smug, which only made their lips even thinner and paler. They skillfully manipulated a few dials on the microphone, amused by Cecil's twitching in response. There were very few diversions on this job. The only two were feeling superior about one's training and skill, and sizeable but justifiable measures of sadism. Maybe someday they would be rewarded for their slack apathy regarding their guests (not prisoners). They had heard that was an agreeable quality among officers. The engineer could fool themself into daydreams of the silver epaulettes of an officer, and being let out of the reeducation facility into the open sunshine, which they had heard was quite beautiful.
Cecil was crying a steady stream of white tears. The engineer finally got bored of playing with the dials as Cecil went limp and waited, resigning himself to the pain, which was less fun. The engineer reset the dials to the recommended settings for optimal reeducation. They intoned into the microphone: "Mountains do not exist."
Cecil quivered with the words. They were so loud and close that it hurt to hear them, while still his brain screamed them out. They felt bright and harsh and... beautiful. "Mountains do not exist," he murmured. "Mountains do.. do not exist." He said it again and again, helplessly savoring the pleasure of compliance. The needle burned. The words trickled over the pain like cool water. The words felt right. The words were good. "Mountains do not exist," Cecil repeated, now with complete surety. "Mountains do not exist."
Throughout the night, Cecil alternately shrieked in pain and chanted the words that made the pain stop. The moon rose and the stars twinkled while everyone pretended to sleep.
Carlos alone sat with his back to Cecil's front door. The night was growing old, and the scientist's eyes were red-rimmed and painfully dry. They had not been dry ten minutes before. Cecil had not answered the door, or his cell phone, or repeated pleas to the blank stone walls of his home. Curlicues of insecurity and fear squirmed in the scientist's gut. Say Cecil was inside and simply refusing to speak to his boyfriend? Say Carlos had done something unspeakably rude? One never knew, in the completely unparalleled culture that was Night Vale. Say Cecil - Carlos went cold at the thought - broke up with him? What would he do then?
The bloodless light of the early morning played across Carlos's sleeping form propped against his boyfriend's door. It touched Cecil's cheeks and warmed his face through the pair of thick black blindfolds that covered it. Officer Josh Watson gently carried the exhausted, barely conscious radio show host to his door. His tongue darted into his cheek and hid there when he saw Carlos. He pushed the sleeping man out of the way with his boot and tenderly laid Cecil on the couch, then returned to drag Carlos in and lay him on the floor. The officer clandestinely exited the house and drove away.
Around noon, Cecil awoke to find Carlos kneeling over him with a warm wet cloth, pressing it to his temples. "That feels nice," Cecil mumbled placidly, causing Carlos to jump. The scientist's dark eyes swept over him, full of relief and concern. "You're okay, Cecil?" he asked anxiously. "I remember someone I didn't recognize dumping us both in here. You were, um, in a car or something. He brought you here." Carlos glanced at him sideways. "It was, uh, a black van. With tinted windows. I, I don't think I was dreaming."
Cecil closed his eyes. As Carlos learned more about the way Night Vale was run, it was inevitable that someday they would have to have the "reeducation talk," as Night Vale parents termed it. Cecil had hoped to put it off, to spare his boyfriend's innocence a little longer, but better now. Better to tell him how it worked before he had a 'slip-up' of his own.
Cecil hoisted himself upright and tilted his head forward, showing Carlos the strip of shaved skin. He could trust in his boyfriend's scientific training to deduce the rest.
Carlos stared. The black van, the tinted windows, the man he hadn't recognized. He disliked making leaps, but that mark was definitely made by a needle. The scientist tried to push away the insidious thought, experimentation. He failed. Carlos swallowed hard and asked shakily, "Cecil - what, what did they..." he swallowed again, "did they do to you?"
Cecil smiled weakly, trying to reassure the agitated scientist. "It's really no big deal, Carlos," he said lightheartedly. The tone was as fake as when he used it to talk about "new station management." He paused, forming the words properly. "Every Night Vale parent talks to their children about this at some point, but since you didn't grow up here..."
Carlos's stomach sank. Another twisted reality of this dangerous fascist town. How did Night Vale possibly consider itself part of the United States of America? "What, Cecil?"
Cecil's smile was huge and instinctive. "I just mentioned some incorrect facts on my show, that's all. I'd been slipping up quite a lot. I had to be... well, reeducated." His smile quavered.
Carlos stared at him, shocked. The scientist had always thought of Cecil as innocent, naive, sincere, and candid. It had not occurred to him that these were dangerous traits here. He could see that in the paleness of his boyfriend's face. The look there was of a kind of exhaustion that could only come from prolonged physical pain. His boyfriend had been... tortured, he realized, appalled. Not just last night, but many, many times.
Carlos, not knowing what else to do, wrapped his arms around his boyfriend and rocked him back and forth, humming an old lullaby. Cecil began to softly cry into Carlos's chest.
A camera moved to focus on the two. A man with half his face horribly burnt watched them, with a look that was neither apathy nor indifference. "Cecil's a good man," he mumbled. "A good man. A man who deserves better." He turned to a screen, and pressed a few keys.
"Entered: Carlos," echoed the computer. "Now listed as: wanted. Five hundred dollar reward for: dead body of: Carlos."
"Goodnight, Cecil," Carlos murmured reassuringly. "Goodnight."