The symptoms were ricked in a list in Beta’s “mind.” They rifled through the books, head bobbing as they scanned mutation medical textbooks at once. Medically speaking, the results were consistent with…
They closed the book and put it well out of sight.
Ramirez was a generally healthy person; a sudden illness was unlikely. After eliminating several background factors, they were left with one final result. Poison. If Not-Sheila was telling the truth, and accurately at that, then someone had done the unspeakable against her.
They gave the moth another hug.
It could not have been Jim, right? It could have been accidental? That is an unfortunate phenomena that happens. Ramirez was also an officer. There could be someone with a vendetta against her. There were many options they would rather it be. Jim was their friend, they trusted him with everything. Surely this was all some misunderstanding!?
The moth did not respond to the hug. It did not seem to even be aware of its surroundings anymore. The fan-like whirring that came from it kept fading out, only to start up again with a little jerk.
Their horror caused them to stop petting the moth altogether. This could not be true. It had to be a misunderstanding. It had to be false.
Beta began to pace around the apartment, fans clunking. “Sheila,” they said, clicking. “Can you… describe the symptoms Ramirez experienced before her death?”
They did not know if this was a sick joke by the false-Sheila. But if it was true, there was a horrifying possibility that they could not shake. They walked back into the living room and pulled out a medical textbook. The necessary documents were already coded into them, but such a claim like this needed secondary proof.
The moth whined and did not respond for several minutes. Then, after another convulsive twitch, it began.
“It started with cramps. In her legs.” There was an eerie detachment in the moth’s tone. “She almost fell several times. Then her arms experienced the same discomfort. Soon she could not walk on her own. She complained most of her back. That is when she asked for an ambulance.”
Another silence, though this one shorter than the last. “I do not know the word. Like twitching but much worse. She could not control any part of herself. This lasted for a very long time. And then she stopped moving.”
“Ramirez?” Beta’s fans stopped all together. “She has… died? What has happened to her?”
Though they were not as close to her as they were to Jim, they had grown quite fond of her. The news that she was dead hit them hard. Was the moth implying that Jim had hurt her? No, no… Jim was mad at her, but they couldn’t imagine that kind of violence! Not their friends!
“I don’t know, I don’t understand, but they had a fight.” The moth’s voice was quiet and fearful, and it began to tremble as it told the story.
“Then Admin got very calm. They had coffee and we went on a walk and Ramirez started to feel unwell. She had trouble walking and wanted to sit down. Admin wouldn’t let her. He made her keep going and took her into the Whispering Forest and then watched her die.”
It curled up as small as it could in Beta’s arms. “I tried to make Admin get help but he would not. He said if I told anyone, they would take him away from me.”
Jim parked his car and got out. He surveyed Lucy's building for a moment, not entirely sure what he was expecting. It looked normal enough. Maybe 805 did know the meaning of subtlety.
[txt: • jim] I'm here. Can you buzz me in? I'll come right up, I'll help you, we'll be okay.
She didn't want to leave this bed. She wanted the blankets to swallow her right then.
But Jim was going to help.
She pulled the blankets around her as she sat up, her head swimming a little--best not to think about that--and crept through to the door to buzz Jim in and unlatch the door.
[txt: Lucy] its unlpcked
The elevator ride up was used to consider his appearance. He was splattered somewhat with gore and oil from 805's mock-Sheila. That would probably prove useful. He vigorously rubbed his face and slapped it a few times, which got his eyes watering. Then, for good measure, he pushed up his sleeves a little and dragged his fingernails across his skin, as hard as he could stand. The scratches weren't as deep as he'd like, but they showed, and the pain helped the on-the-verge-of-tears effect.
It would have to do. If 805 had done their job properly, it would be more than enough.
The elevator dinged as it let him out onto Lucy's floor. He knocked on her door, said, "Lucy? It's Jim," in as hoarse a voice as he could manage, and let himself in.
A whimper came from a bundle of blankets on the couch, which wriggled a moment and Lucy's head emerged a little. She didn't surface for long, but enough to spot Jim. She flinched, that tumult of emotion kicking up again, but Jim would help. He said he'd help, and she said she'd listen to him.
He shut the door quietly behind him and hurried over to her. Kneeling beside her on the sofa, he gently pushed back the blankets so he could see her face. His own expression was a mask of concern. "Hey, it's me, I'm here. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?"
She winced at the touch, and could only blink at him in wide-eyed dumbfounded horror. Her first attempt to make any kind of noise was only a petrified squeak, and she could hardly summon words to speak any better than she had been able to text.
"I-- I don't..." Her voice sounded to be in as many pieces as she felt, and it hardly felt real. "Jim, something-- but I don't know-- I'm..." And then she sputtered again and with another squeak pulled the blanket back over her face.
"Lucy," he said quietly, tugging the blanket away again. "Listen to me. It's not safe here. We have to go. You can bring the blanket, just get your shoes on and come with me, okay?"
She said she'd listen to him. She said she would, and she meant it. And she didn't want to think about what might happen if she didn't listen again. With some effort she sat up, and still wrapped up in the blanket she shuffled towards the kitchen to paw for her satchel and slip on her shoes.
He trailed after her, tugging at his fingers and chewing on his lip. The moment she had her shoes on, he hurried to the door and pulled it open. "Good, okay, come on. Hurry, before they come back."
Come back?? She followed after him in a rush that almost made her trip over her blanket, and only just remembered to lock the door as the elevator doors slid open for them.
Down they went, and then out to the car. Jim got Lucy bundled into the passenger seat before climbing behind the wheel. He drove them across town, and then out of town, across an expanse of rock and dust and sand until they came to the weather-worn buildings and boardwalk of the Night Vale Waterfront Recreation Area.
Jim pulled up to park behind the structure, then got out and made a show of checking to be sure no one was around before he came around and opened the door for Lucy. "Okay. We're safe here."
The whole drive over Lucy stayed perfectly still, and otherwise did her best to disappear, to no avail. Was she shaking? It was hard to tell, she didn't quite trust her own skin.
As Jim got out to look around, and even after he opened her door, she still didn't move.
He waited for a few moments, fidgeting with increasing agitation. "Lucy, please," he said, pouring as much fear into the word as possible. "There's this little shack thing like right here." He gestured vaguely behind him, where there was indeed a small building, perhaps once meant to house some sort of vendor, standing open and empty. "I can't stay out here in the open. She--it might come back, and I don't think I can take another round."
She twitched and tumbled out of the car with a squeak, and started to scurry in the general direction Jim hand pointed. Even if they burrowed under the boardwalk, they just had to get somewhere where the sky wasn't so zarking big.
He hurried to keep pace with her and guide her into the building. Once inside, he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. "Okay. We're okay."
Never mind how dusty the floor was, Lucy simply dropped into a heap at Jim's side further from the door with a mewling keen, muffled by the blanket.
After a moment, he sank down next to her and hugged his legs to his chest, dropping his forehead to his knees. "This can't be happening," he muttered. "This can't be happening." He drew in a shaky breath before turning his head to look at Lucy. "What did they do to you?" he asked gently.
For a long time she could only manage some whimpering, but then she choked on one--Jim had asked her a question. He was asking for an answer. She'd said she'd listen to him, and he was asking for an answer.
"I don't-- I don't kn-know who." She spoke so softly it was difficult to hear the words over the shaking. "I don't know who o-or how, but... th-there was this shaking, a-and this voice, and a-a lotta light, lotta light. Th-th-the voice--" Her voice cracked and her resolve faltered. Zarking belgium, she sounded crazy, absolutely insane...
"No, no, no," he whined, scooting closer to her. "Not you, too. Shh, shh, you're okay now, I'm here, we're here, you're okay."
She shook her head with a few negative whines. "I'm-- it's-- Jim, I'm so confused, it's so many pieces, I don't-- Jiiim..." She nudged closer and curled up tighter. "Jim, I'm so lost, there's that voice an' those things an' that light an' my skin an'... an'..."
He unfolded himself and gathered her up in his arms. "You're safe now, I'm here, I won't let them touch you again."
"But I don't-- I don't know who, how--" Something slurched under her skin and she immediately regretted saying anything, but now it was out there.
"It was probably the same bastards who came after me," he told her through gritted teeth. "They try to get in your head, I don't know how, I don't know why, but I'm going to find them and make sure they can't hurt either of us again."
"'Try'?" she laughed nervously, even if she didn't mean to. "'Try', good one, if that was a 'try'..."
After some strained giggling threatened to nudge her into hysterics, she managed to say, "Who do y'think? What happened with you?"
"Fuck, I'm so sorry," he said, tightening his hold on her. "Whatever they tried didn't work on me. It hurt like hell but it didn't--but they got you. Fucking bastards, I'll throttle them all."
For several moments, he just breathed. Then, quietly, he said, "It didn't work on me, so they took Sheila. Fucking Ramirez helped them. And they trapped me in my apartment and made me listen while they--" He stopped abruptly, and buried his face in Lucy's blankets. He counted to thirty, then lifted his head to continue, keeping his voice as flat as possible. "Sheila's dead. They built some sort of sick replicas of her, tried to convince me one of them was actually her."
No, no, not Sheila. "I-- I saw, practically i-in pieces, I-I saw--"
In a flurry she got her arms loose from the blanket and rubbed furiously at her forearms, suddenly all a-twitch with that poor moth's struggles as she-- she--
"Lucy?" Jim reached for her hands but drew back before touching her. "Lucy, hey, shh, I'm here, I'm here, it's okay now."
"How?!" she cried, her voice cracking in two places. "What can we hope to do against a-- a terror that conjured horror out of my ceiling and puppetted me into a literal nightmare??"
This time he did take hold of her hands, and looked her in the eye for good measure. "There are regular people behind most terrors," he told her. "Terrible, awful people. So we find out who they are. We find where they are. We fucking end them. And even if there is some sort of monster? Monsters can be killed, too. I know a thing or two about that. We can fight back."
Lucy flinched and almost yanked her hands away, but she stayed still and listened to Jim--she said she would, and she meant it. She felt so small and bare and broken as he looked her in the eye, but his assurance was mesmerizing.
"How?"
"We stick together," he said firmly. "Whatever they did to you doesn't work right on me, so they can't get us both at once. We've got some leads to figure out who they are, and I'm good at getting information. That awful light, and. . . Ramirez." He looked away when he said the name, and took a deep breath before going on.
"I'll see if I can figure out what they did. Then we can stop it. I don't know, we'll have to plan as we go, but we've got one thing on our side. We're survivors. Whatever they want with us, it's not gonna stop us. We'll fight back. We'll win."
He sounded so sure. He had to be sure, he knew better. That drew a shudder, but he was right. They had a shot.
No. They had more than a shot. They had a plan, Jim had a plan. All she had to do was listen.
Her hands still shook, but weakly she squeezed his fingers. "Just... tell me what to do."
Oh, this was excellent. 805 had done a stellar job. He'd do them a solid and put off killing them for a while longer, just to say thank you. This was going to be easier than he thought.
"Just stick with me," he told her. "Don't trust anyone until we've figured out who we're fighting." A small smile, with a glimmer of hope, spread across his face. "We've got this. We'll be okay. And we're gonna smash these bastards to bits, make them regret ever deciding to mess with us."
The moth was still for a moment. Then, it began to spark, and, with a disgusting squishy noise, exploded, leaving a burn mark on the floor and a mess of guts and cybernetic parts all over the room.
“Fuck you too,” Jim muttered, ignoring the mess in favor of picking up where 805 had left off.
[txt: • jim] No, no, no. Don’t tell me they got to you, too. Fucking shitheaded bastards. It’s not safe here, probably not there either. Can you meet me somewhere?
[txt: • jim] Probably no one’s out at that boardwalk place, right? Since everyone insists it’s a hallucination? We can go there to talk. I think I’m okay enough to drive. Are you? Do you need me to pick you up?
Lucy blinked at her phone blankly for a long moment before she could attempt to text back.
[txt: Lucy] Jinn i dont know if i csn evdn leave mu bbed theres no no way i can drive i dontlnow whats hapoened oe what todo
[txt: Lucy] wyhat happened to uou??
Jim was already out the door and headed down to his car when his phone buzzed.
[txt: • jim] Bastards took Sheila from me.
[txt: • jim] Look I'm coming to get you, okay? We'll be okay, we'll figure this out. Just don't let anyone in who's not me. I'll text you when I'm there.
[txt: Lucy] ok
Would she even be able to open the door? She hadn't been allowed last time.... but when was last time? What was last time?? Entertaining that notion for even a moment and her head went spinning, and she felt even less inclined to ever leave this bed again.
“I have sent her the message,” they affirmed. “Another one will be sent if necessary.”
The moth was given another gentle hug. “It is not your fault,” Beta said, the joints of their fingers clicking as they moved. “If I encounter Jim, I could talk to him. He has not caused me harm before. We are friends.”
They were sorry for this poor thing, but they were not even sure that they were Sheila. And Jim was their long-time friend, there was more reason to trust them than the moth in their arms.
The moth jerked sharply, a spasm running through its entire frame. “No! Stay away from Admin! He has experienced an error, he will hurt you!” How could it make them understand? “Ramirez is dead! He gave me to bad people! He is going to hurt Lucy! Admin is not your friend anymore!”
“I sent her a message,” they said, pointing to the flashing of their eyes. It has only been a few minutes, Sheila. She may be busy.”
It was just a quick: “Hello! How is your condition today? Is everything well?” That would be sufficient, they figured. If she did not respond in a reasonable amount of time, they would follow up/
“I saw her recently…”
“Did you tell her?” the moth asked anxiously. “Did you warn her?”
It twitched again, just once this time, and let out a pained whine. “You should stay away from Admin, too. He’ll hurt you, he’ll hurt everyone. I couldn’t stop him, I didn’t understand, I’m sorry I’m sorry.”
One of the moths flew into the window while the rest waited outside.
“Nothing we do is ever good enough for you,” it said, in a voice that blended pouting and indignant rasping. “Anyway, we held up our end successfully. No thanks to your information-hoarding. We did it, though.”
And, as if on cue, Jim’s phone went off.
“That’s because nothing you do is ever worth anything,” he sniped in reply as he walked over to his desk to check the message.
[txt: Lucy] jim i need you im really conndfused and i dont know what to do plaese im ry scatteredeap i need you 7 need your help
Impressive. Lucy was never that incoherent. “Let’s hope this time is different. Now get the hell out of here, I have work to do.” He waved a hand dismissively at the moth and dropped down into his chair to consider his reply.
As soon as they had carefully returned the apartment to its original place - that awful dog would no doubt be scratching and whining at the door pretty soon - Department 805 snapped back to their tower and took their primary vessel, Sara Hamilton, back over.
“Come, my pretties,” they rasped as a veritable cloud of modified moths descended on the office from the walls, ceiling, vents, basically every surface in the building that could adequately hide a moth (three workers had complained so far and all of them had been used to feed the moths, which used energy up like it was going out of style). “Let’s pay Jim a visit. This time we won’t have to break his door because he can’t ignore us.”
If anyone in Night Vale thought the moth swarm was unusual, they didn’t say so. This was probably the fifth cybernetic moth storm that week, knowing that town. Department 805 was endlessly amused by the fact that modern Strex activity went right under the town’s residents’ noses simply due to how little they thought of bizarre events.
All of the moths at once descended on Jim’s apartment and started throwing themselves at the windows, trying to get his attention.
Jim didn’t have music playing this time, and the pounding of the moths on the windows startled him so badly that he fell out of his chair.
“What the ever-loving fuck?!” He pulled himself to his feet and, after a moment of confused staring, threw the window open and stepped back.
“What the hell is with you and theatrics? Can’t you just use the same goddamn hole you put in the door last time?”
“Sheila?” Beta trilled nervously as the moth began to quake in their arms. Did they need to be cooled down?! No, they were organic! “Sheila, the light is absent. Strex is not located in Night Vale any more. Sheila?”
They took a while to formulate a response. “I am sure she is in prime condition. Lucy is a strong friend.” It was an assurance, but not to the moth. It was for themself. Was that a threat they were postulating? No, it couldn’t be.
“I am devastated to hear that happened to you. Please, let me provide aid. I can make you feel better.”
“Make sure Lucy is okay first! Please, Beta, find Lucy! I don’t know how long it’s been, I don’t know.”
The moth wriggled free of Beta and flew several tight, anxious circles around them. “You have to warn Lucy!”
The Not-Jim grinned and drove the scalpel down onto her head.
Just before it could reach her, Lucy woke up with a start.
She was laying down on her bed. The gentle light of morning peeked through the bedroom window, along with the song of birds chirping outside.
At the foot of the bed rested an intricately made--and, happily, inanimate--plush version of Jim. A jagged thread smile swept across its face underneath two black button eyes. It held in its arms a plush Sheila, its threaded slits of eyes indicating gentle slumber
Around Lucy were the familiar smells and sights of home, and everything was back where it should be.
for as much as she had just startled, Lucy was terrified to move. nights and demons, that nightmare was intense, to the point where she started to seriously doubt that it was a dream at all.
but why would she even entertain that, that was ridi--
she shuddered violently before she could even finish the thought.
where was she? what was outside? could she even look? the last time she’d tried had almost...
she caught sight of the plush, and for a long time only stared at it with a tangled rush of emotion that almost made her sick. so intense and confusing was it that she could hardly tell up from down, and it all felt so scattered that she almost dissolved into tears.
finally she got up the nerve to scoot over to her nightstand and grasp at her phone. she had to text Jim, he’d know what to do.
The android was still suspended in disbelief. Jim was their closest friend. Even when things were rough, they had never felt their safety in jeopardy. But what claimed to be Sheila was so fearful, like they had never seen the true one before.
The conflicting emotions began to make their cooling systems spasm, so they decided to sit down with the moth still wrapped up in a hug.
“Do you think it may be the remnants of Strex?” Beta’s mechanics clicked a regular rhythm, in an attempt to calm them down. “I do not know this Sara, but she is not here now. You are here with me.”
The moth stiffened. “Maybe. Sara worked for them before she died. And there was a light--” It twitched, suddenly, a sharp spasm that worked through its whole body. There was a moment of stillness, and then the twitching continued, growing more and more persistent. “Light and light and light and--and--”
Silence. The twitching subsided.
In a quiet voice that sounded more electronic than organic, it said, “They took me apart and put me back together wrong.” A pause. “What if they do that to Lucy, too?”
The Not-Jim hopped over to the table and climbed up Lucy, hovering right over her face, holding its gleaming scalpel high above her head yet still too close.
“Say you’ll find me,” it whispered. “Say you’ll listen to everything I have to say.”
Everything around Lucy was shaking, like an earthquake. Things were floating up off the counter and hanging in the air. That light was coming in through the window in the living room, so bright Lucy could easily see it from the table, feel it, buzzing in her teeth and her bones.
The Not-Jim twisted the scalpel in its knotted silk hand as a bit of dried gore from the moth fell onto Lucy’s face. Its chest was heaving, its breath like a crypt, its eyes still emitting a blinding light. “Say it! Say it and mean it!”
everything was wrong, and every possible fiber of her being felt electrified and impossibly loose and every one of them shrieked and begged for peace, for destruction, to be ripped apart and turned inside out and just be through with this torment.
it could be through. he’d promised it could be through. he’d promised.
“I’ll come find you!” her voice felt so ragged and foreign that she couldn’t even be sure she’d actually spoken. “I’ll listen! I mean it, I’ll listen, I’ll find you, I’ll listen! I mean it, I mean it, I mean it, I mean it!!”
They woke Lucy up. Or maybe they just fed her more images and smells and sounds. At this point, there was hardly a difference between reality and false hells.
She was still strapped down, but this time, to the kitchen table. Not-Jim was over on the counter, covered in drying viscera, toying with the same scalpel Jim had wielded in the dream.
“The subject is not cooperating,” said that stern voice from everywhere as the Not-Jim sharpened - cleaned? - the implement. “The subject will be decommissioned and the experiment cancelled. Elimination is imminent.”
Not-Jim turned toward Lucy. Its former button eyes were pits of starlight, staring deep into Lucy’s mind, past the traces of its static protector that now cowered in its fringes, defeated.
“You should not have done that,” it said, in Jim’s voice. “You should have listened to me.”
she startled out of the diffused light and back into a harsh light, and something bit at her wrists. frantically she tried to blink the light out of her eyes, but as she did she realized she was in her own kitchen, its overhead light impossibly bright, and she was on--
no. no, her nightmare was never this cruel, there was no way--
that voice redirected her panic. decommissioned, what did that mean, why would she be--?
her eyes flitted over to the creature on the counter, and its eyes transfixed her before it spoke and wrenched her back into panic. her mouth and throat refused to cooperate, so with wordless protest she only struggled against her bonds.
805 barked triumphantly at the retreating voidstuff, then took up the metaphorical controls of Lucy’s brain.
“There’s no need for this nightmare to continue,” Jim said to Lucy. His voice was calm, friendly, inviting, everything good that Jim could be. “It can be over, right now. Your apartment can be back where it was. Even Sheila, if you want to see her again. It’s not impossible.”
The rest of the figures receded, and only Jim was left, suddenly not in medical scrubs but in his usual yellow hoodie. No longer was the light harsh and clinical - now it was heavenly. Powerful, but benevolent, like summer rays viewed from the safe, cool shade.
Sheila was perched on Jim’s shoulder, no longer broken or hurt or even upset. She was whole, and happy, and chirping some sweet song as Jim spoke.
“Find me in my apartment,” Jim said, “and when you do, you need to do everything I say. Only then can this nightmare come to an end. And it will, I promise. But only if you do what I tell you to do. Okay?”
And now, after putting up with all their torment in the physical world, Lucy couldn’t resist 805′s will mentally, either.
she wanted to say yes. yes, just listen to Jim, and all of this would be over, it would all be over if she just listened to–
“Admin experienced an error, you have to hide!”
that made her blink against the haze… haze? no, it was only this nice light–
light? there was that light outside the window. the programmers were outside the window.
“The answer is simple, user Lucy, to destroy–”
he wouldn’t do that, would he?
“–and to return you to your–”
no. it was ridiculous.
“There are no safe places, it’s for your own good.”
it was ridiculous.
“I know better than you.”
wasn’t it?
“I don’t…” she tried to roll over, rub some darkness back into her eyes. “I– I don’t know, I need–”
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