Synopsis: Night Vale fanfic about Valerie, a surveillance agent from a vague yet menacing government agency, stationed in the black van across the street from Max (an adjunct professor of copywriting at Night Vale Community College) and around the corner from Cecil the Community Radio Host and Carlos the Scientist. Later, a heist occurs.
Valerie watches the street, but her eyes keep coming back to the brown house with the blue door.
She is twenty-six (or she thinks she is twenty-six, as time does not work in Night Vale) and moderately good at what she does. That is to say, she is good at what she does as an occupation. At what she does in general: she is moderate. She is grateful for her routine, having recently lucked out and been chosen by the mysterious voices in hidden gorge for Regular Weekday Hours after three faithful years of exclusively working Weekend/Leap Day Service.
Working as a surveillance agent for a vague yet menacing government agency may be slow-going at times, but it's steady work, and that is hard to come by in a place like Night Vale, overcrowded as it is by worldly baristas and otherworldly monsters alike.
She watches the houses. She watches the sun rise, brash and noisy. She watches the normal-looking citizens go about their normal-looking days in the weirdest little town in all of the world (and possibly all of the space-time continuum -- that is, if time were real, and not just a conspiracy made up to sell imaginary cornflakes and military-grade submarines).
In the crackling silence of a black van parked curbside in a suburban desert community on an early Wednesday morning, Valerie goes through her daily municipally-mandated checklist and notices the municipally-mandated behaviors of the Barista District neighborhood citizens. They take out the trash; they sort their recycling into paper, plastic, and City-Council Blood Feed; they pretend to enjoy exercise, if they choose to endure the physical act of exercising their corporeal forms at all.
Sometimes a citizen gets in their car, believes the engine into starting, and drives away for a few hours, presumably to some place of employment or another, returning only to retreat immediately into the sanctuary of their home. Most citizens spend maybe a cumulative two minutes a day in the liminal spaces between their homes and vehicles, those faux-secure vessels of imagined privacy and controlled temperatures. Being a junior agent, she lacks the clearance of other, more official agents who spy on the interiors of homes via surveillance technology that she lacks the clearance to understand.
So mostly, Valerie watches the houses. They are more interesting than the people usually are anyway. Wednesdays working surveillance for Night Vale are usually a throw-away kind of day for the agents. Time, of course, does not work in Night Vale in the traditional scientific sense of quantifiability and chronology, but Valerie somehow always knows when it's Wednesday. Wednesday isn't a slot on a calendar; it's a feeling. Wednesday is a cup of room-temperature water. Wednesday is plain white socks with loafers. Wednesday is writing down an idea for a poem and then never actually writing the poem. But this Wednesday, with this particular house… something feels different. Brown house. Blue door.
Max. Of course.
She likes observing houses more than observing people, focusing on architectural quirks, letting her mind wander over the witch-hat turrets, the wrap-around porches, the intricate gingerbread tiling, the colorful bursts of flowerboxes in windowsills, the occasional stained glass window... The citizens of Night Vale go all-out when it comes to designing and renovating their homes, and features like these are so much easier to categorize than the overhead conversations and overseen human behaviors that she records during her daytime hours. People are complex; houses are simple.
Except for this infuriating brown house before her. Simple Cape Cod frame, enough windows to make you wonder about what the light looks like inside. She has seen the exterior before, countless times (and even the interior, once). But the blue door is new; Max must have painted it recently from the drab old birch color. She writes this down:
blue door, new. cerulean?
A report would have to be submitted, and after everything Max had put her through last year during Poetry Week, wasn't it just like him to paint his front door a brand new color without filing the proper paperwork, or requesting a House Beautification Permit from the City Council, or even shooting her a text?
Finally, after a long pause and a deep breath, she picks up the black walkie-talkie and whispers into The Inner Void: "You lack character, and it shows in your writing."
Whenever Valerie speaks into The Inner Void, she always has an intended audience but she can never be quite sure to whom she is speaking. When the City Council first conceived of the mandatory city-wide communication devices, they had not included any features that were deemed unnecessary, such as clear senders or recipients. Speak into The Inner Void, the City Council chanted, in unison. Speak and The Inner Void shall listen. Somehow, the messages find their way to the right person if the message is important enough.
A silence that is not brief, then a brief sigh that is not silent. She cannot quite tell if the sigh came from The Inner Void or from herself, but she knows the conversation is over. She knows she has only silence now. There are also many things she doesn't know. She doesn't know that the person she had directed the message at has heard her, and he has absorbed that message, and he has been changed by that message. She doesn't know that she was not changed by this knowledge, as she does not possess it, but she wants to be changed by the message, and so she is.
Some things need to be planned very carefully.
Max is not in the habit of planning things carefully, but he must intercept Valerie before she files that Door Color Reconsideration Report in the Hall of Public Records. Valerie, being a (vague, yet menacing) government employee, has full access to the Barista District Records Room in the basement, but Max, being a lowly adjunct copywriting professor at Night Vale Community College, does not.
He knows exactly who to turn to for help. When it's heist time, you go to the experts.
The sun is just beginning to set with a low rumble as Max walks up the front steps of the only people who can help him. He rings the doorbell and immediately hears the twangs of a faint acoustic song begin playing inside. Something about a second song? He rings the doorbell a second time, just in case the customized doorbell is some sort of code.
Cecil Palmer, the voice of Night Vale, opens the door. "Max! Welcome... to my home!"
Max has been here before for various parties and even that one reading during Poetry Week last year where Valerie shared that weird poem about her heart being a second-story window and someone jumping out anyway, but Cecil loves welcoming guests to his home every time they visit.
"Hey there, Cecil! Got a minute? It's about…" Max lowers his voice, conscious of Valerie's black surveillance van around the corner. Okay, maybe her poem was like, weirdly beautiful. Still weird though.
"... a heist."
Cecil's face lights up with a toothy smile (Is that a smile? Has Cecil always had that many teeth?) and he ushers Max inside right away, calling for his husband Carlos to join them in the den. Max greets Carlos, remarking on his handsome Evening Lab Coat, and the trio settle into the comfortable cactus-green furniture so they can begin the discussion in earnest.
Carlos and Cecil hold hands on the love seat and Max watches them for a moment from the armchair.
Before he can speak, however, Cecil leans forward conspiratorially (still holding Carlos's hand) and begins chattering away. "We LOVE heists! Did you hear about the heist that my niece Janice pulled off to get the Registry of Middle School Crushes? I talked about it on the radio! Janice is SO talented. She's my niece! Here, let me go fetch my Emergency Heist Kit for you. We didn't need it for Janice's heist, because she is so talented, but I believe every home should keep a heist kit, just in case. Back in five shakes of a dragon's heads!"
And with that, Cecil hops up from the sofa, kisses Carlos on the cheek, and scampers out of the room. Carlos, still blushing from Cecil's enthusiastic affection, adjusts his glasses and smiles at Max.
Max glances out the window to the black van parked just around the corner and makes a conscious effort to return his gaze to Carlos. "Thank you both so much for helping me out with this. I can't go into details, but there's a lot on the line for me here."
"No problem," says Carlos. "When a family member or a neighbor asks for help, you help that person. No questions asked. Which is somewhat difficult for me, as a scientist. I love asking questions. Like, why are there no geese in Night Vale? But I get it. And you know how Cecil feels about heists."
Max laughs. "I think we all know how Cecil feels about heists. Still, though. Thanks."
He falls silent and his gaze wanders back to the window. It is beginning to grow dark outside, and Valerie will be on her way to the Hall of Public Records soon to file that report.
Carlos clears his throat. "Max, did you know that a teaspoonful of neutron star would weigh about six billion tons?"
"Um, no, I didn't know that. My high school astronomy class focused more on philosophical discussions about the constellations. But that's cool. That's, uh, really heavy."
"Yes. Heavy." Carlos leans forward and peers into Max's eyes. Max meets his gaze. Carlos's eyes are kind and wise, and his hair is perfect. He has teeth like a military cemetary. "But not as heavy as sitting on your true feelings."
Max makes a sound somewhere between a scoff and a snort and he shifts in his seat. "I don't know what you're--"
"Found it!!" Cecil bounces into the room with a black duffel bag that reads HEIST KIT in square white letters. "This should have everything you need! Microphone laser, tape recorder bungee cord, dream journal, grappling hook, mild explosives, imaginary corn muffins for energy, major explosives, a jade dagger, reflective sunglasses, and a travel-size Bloodstone Circle set for luck. Plus some other miscellaneous heist stuff. Have a blast!"
Max gratefully accepts the duffel bag and stands from the armchair. "Great. Thanks."
Carlos stands as well, and Max shakes his neighbors' hands. "Good luck, Max. Remember what I said," says Carlos. His hand is oddly warm.
"Good luck, Max, good luck!!" cries Cecil. His hand is oddly cold.
And with that, Max is out the door and on his way. A heist is afoot.
"I'm just saying, V, you deserve to be with someone who's actually, like, considerate. Look at me and Joe! We've only been going steady for five months, and he sends cactus flowers to my office every Tuesday because he knows how much I love them," Rose's voice crackles from the Inner Void speakerphone as Valerie drives past the Moonlite All-Night Diner toward downtown.
"It's not about being with someone or what I deserve! And there's nothing going on between me and Max! It's the principle of the thing!" Valerie shouts, pounding the steering wheel in frustration. Stupid Max and his stupid beard and his stupid handsome face. "It's about how he totally ignored protocol and painted his front door without the proper permits! Knowing full well it would mean extra work for me, because now I have to file this stupid Door Color Reconsideration Report! It's like he's trying to bother me. And a blue door with a brown facade? That's just tacky."
"Okay, jeez! Take a breath. That's what Joe always tells me when I get stressed."
"Yeah, yeah, Joe is your smooshbaby. We get it." Valerie exhales. She knows she should try to calm down. Rose is only trying to help, after all.
Since Valerie met her double during The Day of The Doubles after that weird sandstorm, the pair had gotten along swimmingly. They shared various interests like lucid dreaming and listening to Cecil's radio show, and their universes were nearly identical except for their names, their hair (Rose's hair is golden-yellow like cornsilk, while Valerie's is blue-black like the night sky), and the fact of salt and pepper having the opposite names in Rose's world, which makes for some very slapstick mealtimes for the dynamic duo. Rose liked Valerie's Night Vale so much that she decided to stay, and since then she made a comfortable life for herself, moving into Valerie's apartment in the Barista District, getting a job as a legal assistant at Miriam McDaniels's law firm, and even dating a member of the Sheriff's Secret Police.
"That's Officer Smooshbaby to you. Anyway, I have to go. Miriam's breathing fire about the deposition report I gave her yesterday for the case about the Estate of The Whispering Forest. Good luck with everything!" says Rose.
"What would those lawyer dragons do without you? What would I do without you? Thanks, girl. Love you."
They end the call just as Valerie pulls up at City Hall. She exits the vehicle, slams the van door, takes a deep breath, and enters the building.
Max waits until the main entrance door closes behind Valerie before creeping out from behind the hedges. He'd earned a Lurking Badge back in Blood Pact Scouts, so it should be a snap for him to break into City Hall undetected. Right?
Heist kit in hand, he sneaks around to the back of the building and trips over a patch of air near the emergency exit, knocking over a trash can in a loud clatter. The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home watches from the basement window and giggles. No one is around to hear her giggle, but it sounds like heavy boots treading the creaky boards of a pirate ship. More shriek than giggle, really.
Max reaches into the heist kit and uses the travel-size blowtorch to cut a smallish door-shaped hole within the emergency exit door. Upon stepping inside, he carefully inserts the heavy steel door cut-out back into the door and superglues it into place. He is in. The emergency exit opens into the average-looking stairwell, and he begins the descent.
Think of a jaguar. No, think of a ninja. No, think of a ghost. Think of a jaguar ninja ghost, and then double it. This is the amount of stealth with which Max creeps down the stairs to the basement and down the dimly-lit basement corridor. In the basement, lanterns illuminating the dank hallway crackle with ghastly purple flames. The smell of cinnamon and dead leaves wafts through the air.
Door after door, each spaced a few feet apart. The dim light enables Max to just about make out the strange labels: THE ENNUI ARCHIVES. CRYSTAL OVERFLOW. JERRY'S STUFF. BAD FIRST DATE REPORT CATALOGUE. He dares not explore these cursed chambers. He is a man on a mission and nothing will deter him from reaching his goal.
Max rounds the corner. Then another corner. Then yet another corner. He glances behind him at a solid stone wall where the open hallway used to be. It is at this point he realizes he is now trapped amidst an actual labyrinth. His feet carry him around corner after corner, tiptoeing carefully at first, then trodding along rather anxiously, then plodding along in great fearful strides, then essentially running the desperate run of a man who is unsure whether he is running away from his past or running toward his future.
The purple lanterns are nowhere to be seen at this point, but their eerie light continues to cast everything in disorienting shades of violet.
Corner. Corner. Corner. SPLASH! And suddenly the ground disappears and Max finds himself engulfed in cold dark water, flailing about and sputtering for breath. Fortunately, the heist kit is surprisingly buoyant and makes a fine makeshift floatation device. So the rumors about the secret lake in the basement of Night Vale City Hall were true.
There is no light here, only water and darkness. The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home watches Max from her rowboat a few dozen feet from where he swims, or rather, floats anxiously. If she had a mouth, she would smile. She has secretly lived in his home long enough to know how important this journey is for him, and she is proud of him for endeavoring to accomplish it. She has only one oar and rows in small circles, facelessly, secretly.
Max clutches the heist kit buoy with both arms and catches his breath. The lake may be wide, but he knows if he floats in one direction long enough, he will eventually find land.
Wait, he thinks. I can't just keep floating through life. If I take direct action, there could be consequences, but there could also be results. I'll never know if I don't try.
Kicking and splashing, coughing and shaking, flailing and hoping, Max moves forward. The pitch darkness inhibits his visual progress, but he can feel the distance contracting and shrinking as he passes through the lake. One moment his hands are submerged in water, outstretched, searching, and the next moment they are pressing against a damp stone wall… with… indents?
A ladder. Built into the wall. Of course.
The only way to go from here is up. In a Herculean display of physical strength that literally no one is around to witness except for The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home, Max hoists himself up onto the stone ladder, finagling the (thankfully waterproof) heist kit back onto his shoulder. He climbs. He climbs and climbs. He climbs what feels like several stories taller than City Hall should be, and then he climbs some more.
When he finally finds himself standing on a small landing, he is not even surprised to discover that the only way forward from the square platform upon which he stands is down a great chute. Max scoots onto his caboose and slides forward.
Acceleration. Apprehension. Exhilaration. To his mingled horror and joy, Max understands this is not just any slide -- it's a curly slide! Whizzing and shooting downward in loops-de-loops at a dizzying speed, Max hoots and hollers all the way down.
He lands on his feet with a light thud on a thick black playground-grade low-impact rubber mat. Before him lies a short, average-looking hallway that turns a corner, lit by fluorescent overhead lights rather than purple lanterns. He knows he is close to his destination: The Hall of Public Records. He is ready.
Max rounds the corner and stops dead in his tracks. Valerie is standing at an open file cabinet, report in hand, meeting his gaze. Time freezes for a moment under the mundane fluorescent lights. The lights do not flicker, and neither Valerie nor Max blinks.
For once, Max speaks first. "I got your message."
Valerie sighs. "Listen, Max, I didn't mean--"
"No, you listen," he says. "Sorry, that sounded harsh. But listen. I'm sorry that everything happened the way it did."
"You'll have to be more specific--?"
"Last year. Poetry Week. When we… and I left before you woke up. I just-- I have a habit of leaving before things get… complicated. I didn't realize that it meant something to you. And then a few days later, you read that poem at Cecil and Carlos's Chill Yet Mandatory Reading--"
Valerie finally blinks, breaking eye contact, and stares at the gray linoleum floor. "The Chill Yet Mandatory Reading was a mistake."
"No, it wasn't."
Valerie looks up. "What?"
"Well, first of all, if you didn't share a poem at the Chill Yet Mandatory Reading, Officer Joe would've had to arrest you and imprison you in the abandoned mine shaft outside of town."
"They did just get Disney Plus in addition to HBO…"
"But more than that," says Max. "I've never heard anything more beautiful."
The ghost of a smile. "Do you really mean that?"
Max takes a step closer. "I do."
It is like a lightbulb lights up Valerie's face for a moment, then flickers out. She shakes her head. "You're just saying that so I go easy on you and rip up this Door Color Reconsideration Report."
Max lets out a frustrated sigh. "Don't you get it, Val? I painted my door for you."
She eyes him skeptically. "I don't--"
"You've been sitting ten feet outside my house, out in that van, everyday, and we haven't exchanged a word in months, not since Poetry Week. I had to do something to get your attention."
Her eyes widen. "My attention? Max, what are you saying?"
"Valerie, there's not a lot in my life that feels real." He takes a step closer. "I'm an adjunct professor at a community college because I couldn't hack it in the copywriting world. You write circles around me. Half my students defect to Community Radio Journalism." He takes another step. "The town I live in is deeply weird. There are angels and hooded figures and vicious librarians." Another step, and they are now inches apart. "And then there's you. Mysterious and beautiful like the moon. Always observing and never giving anything away, but you give everything to the people you love. And I should've told you ages ago that I love pretending to sleep next to you."
Valerie lets out a shaky yet jubilant laugh and it sounds like church bells on Bloodstone Day. "Max… I guess I just have one question."
Max waits expectantly with more than a little anxiety.
"Why did you paint your front door blue? It doesn't match your house's color scheme at all."
Without a word, Max reaches into his borrowed heist kit and puts on the pair of reflective sunglasses. Valerie finds herself staring at her own reflection, into her own blue eyes.
Cerulean.
"I might be stupid," says Valerie.
"Not as stupid as me," says Max, and then his mouth is on hers.
They'd kissed before, but this one was different. It was a planet of awesome size, lit by every sun, all lush green forests and deep peaceful oceans. There was no trace of the desperation or sense of urgency from their previous encounter. He holds her closer, and their mutual relief is like waves rolling onto the shore.
Time does not work in Night Vale, but it especially does not work during a life-changing kiss. This was the true heist all along, though it is unclear who is the thief.
After several minutes, or perhaps days, or even years, they come up for air and simply embrace, Valerie's head resting on Max's shoulder.
"I still have to file that report," she whispers.
"I wouldn't have it any other way," he says.
Valerie feels Max's heartbeat against her own and smiles. It was a pretty good Wednesday after all.
THE END.
GOODNIGHT, NIGHT VALE, GOODNIGHT!