Sticking to the Facts

Carla was a scientist. She believed in fact, not the work of fiction. But it was a challenge to not think the woman in front of her wasn’t from a storybook. She was incredibly tall with skin as pale as the moon. She had heavy tattoos in a deep purple ink crawling up her arms. They seemed to create tentacles and odd symbols. It should have been impossible but the woman’s eyes were the exact shade of purple as her tattoos, and Carla had no doubt that she wasn't wearing contacts. The woman pushed her short, yet thick, hair out her face revealing a lifelike purple eye ingrained on her forehead. Half her head was shaved, and the white locks on the other side fell over her right eye. Her face was nearly flawless, perfect symmetry. She wore tight purple pants with an even tighter white shirt, purple suspenders and tie included. She flashed a wicked grin at Carla, and held out a tattooed hand. “Cecil Baldwin, Voice of NightVale Community Radio Station”
She stared, dumbstruck. What should I say? Do I try and fix my hair? Invite her in? “Um..hi Cecil, I’m Carla a...scientist…” She trailed off awkwardly. Thankfully Cecil didn’t seem to notice or care much. The tattooed women breezed past Carla and into the living room of the old house she was occupying. “There’s science stuff everywhere!” Cecil exclaimed. Carla blushed heavily at the mess, trailing behind the taller woman. “You like science?” She asked. Cecil turned around in a flash, her heavy eyes glinting with light. “Oh no! Too much knowledge and the Secret Police will be after me. No, I am the Voice of NightVale. I report what’s happening, and my dear Carla that is you!” Before Carla could even offer tea (or register being called dear), Cecil started firing questions.
“Do you intend to harm NightVale?”
“Any human experiments or mutations?”
“You won’t spread lies about mountains existing will you?”
“You won’t use pens, or break any laws?”
“Will you accompany me to dinner tomorrow night?”
Carla couldn’t understand half the questions she had been asked. Pens illegal? Human experiments? Lies about mountains! But the last one stumped her most off all. Dinner! The look of shock must have registered on her face as Cecil let out a small laugh and handed Carla a card with two numbers on it (1. The radio station, 2. Cecil’s home phone) and a big book with an eye, matching the odd woman’s own. “I have to interview the Waterfront on their new project, but I expect answers to all those before your press conference. It is my job to be ahead of the game. Goodbye sweet Carla!” The odd woman strutted out of Carla’s old home and promptly disappeared. “Waterfront? In a desert?”

***
A few hours later Carla was still unpacking and contemplating the questions the woman had asked her. Was there a proper way to answer those preposterous questions? And did she want to have dinner with Cecil? If Carla stayed with the facts she would admit she thought more on that last on then any other one. But there were always some facts that got always got lost in research.
Carla’s phone gave a ding, answering without a thought she was surprised to hear her lead scientist Roberta on the other line. She'd never talked much with Roberta, there was always something a little bit off in their conversations. “Oh hel-” She was cut off near immediately.
“Are you listening to this? It’s fucking crazy! This town in insane, it’s practically out of a book!” The older woman’s voice was excited, but Carla was simply confused.
“Listening to what? Roberta slow down a little.” Carla placed the box she was carrying down, in case she needed both hands for whatever came next.
“The radio! There’s this lady on there, she’s the Voice of NightVale. She has this amazing voice, it’s all deep and soothing, sexy really and she’s doing the daily news. Turn on the fucking radio Carla!”
“Okay! Okay I’m going!” Carla walked to her small kitchen were an old, but working, radio sat. She turned it on and didn’t even need to tune it as it snapped straight to the woman’s voice.
Carla hadn’t noticed it earlier but it really was sexy. Her voice was deep and husky, sounding like it carried a million secrets. Carla leaned her forearms against the counter and listened close.
“The Apache Tracker was at the scene, he’s the white guy who pretends to be a Native American and wears that ridiculous, cartoonish head dress, for those of you who don’t know. Anyways, he claimed that he could use the native gods to track the culprit that jerk! Now as many of you have heard there are some new scientist in town. They are lead by the beautiful Carla with her peeerrrfect hair and flawless skin.” - Carla blushed fiercely at that - “And I have all the information you need prior press conference...after the weather.” An indie song blasted through the radio and Carla sat in the kitchen staring at the little box. It seemed that she wouldn’t have anymore time to think about her answers to those odd questions. She dialed her phone quickly and began speaking.

***
Cecil Baldwin sat near the mic, tugging the old phone cord. The lovely Carla had called and had fired off her answers like one of the mandatory machine guns for middle schoolers. A smile played on Cecil thick purple lips as the weather came to a stop.
“Why hello listeners, we are back. On the case of the new scientist i have some interesting information that came from non-other than the peeeerfect Carla, who I fell in love with instantly. It seems her and her fellow scientist will not be putting any citizen at risk with human experiments. They will bring no harm and will not break any laws. Carla stated that “mountains do exist, how you thought otherwise i will not know” but let’s ignore that for now. The scientist have come only to see how our town works and why it works the way it does. And yes. Carla will go have dinner with me tomorrow night.” The smile stayed on Cecil’s lips and she let out a great laugh “It seems NightVale that today was a good day, and while tomorrow may be filled with dogs raining from the sky, aliens killing students, and the Desert Bluffs we shall not dwell on that. FOr today was a good day. Goodnight, NightVale, Goodnight.”
Cecil waited until the giant On Air sign turned off before pushing back in her seat and rolling over to Intern Dana. The younger girl smiled, her eyes hardly leaving the paperwork in front of her.
“I’ve only got some chunks of tomorrow planned. Management started sending pages over, and Mike couldn’t yell loud enough.” Cecil let out a great sigh and help her hands out to Dana. “Rock, paper, scissors!” Dana let out a groan as her Bomb lost to the Dog Park.
“I don’t want to tell them though!” The pretty girl moaned. Cecil shot her a dark smile, and Dana would have sworn the eye on her forehead blinked. Cecil snapped her suspenders and nearly floated out of the recording booth.
“Feed Khoshekh!” Intern Lana’s voice trailed behind her.

***
Carla had no fucking idea what to wear. Cecil’s voice was playing behind her, going on about some old woman who had angel friends. Was this a formal date? Or was it more of a casual one? Should she try and manage her hair instead or….? Staying to the facts, Carla was hopeless on dates. She trailed slowly to the single bathroom and stared at her reflection. She had dark hazelnut skin, with wide matching eyes. Her hair was a brown nearly black and frizzy as hell. When she was a girl she used to pretend she was Hermione Granger, solving mysteries with Harry and making out with Ron. Somewhere down the line Ron grew a vagina. She stared at her reflection, running her hand across her somewhat chubby cheeks and over her thick lips. She ran both hands through her hair, drawing it back into a thick ponytail.
A knock shook the foundation of her house, snapping Carla to attention. She hadn’t even realized Cecil wasn’t on the radio. She was only a little sad she missed the “Goodnight, NightVale, .Goodnight.” It was her favorite part. Carla peered out the window and could only catch the white top of Cecil’s pretty hair. She cast a worried glance at her old lab coat over jeans and a pair of old brown boots. It wasn’t exactly date material. She let out a laugh and ran downstairs.

***
“Sorry that took so long I was-” Carla’s breath seemed to run out as she stared at the radio host. The woman was wearing thick combat boots, with dark purple shorts connected to her short sleeved, pin-striped button up by suspenders. Carla’s eyes scanned the woman’s long legs, inspecting the tattoos that matched those upon her arms and forehead.
“It’s no problem at all dear, Carla. I thought i would be running late anyways.” Her deep voice stirred something inside Carla, in response she hurried closer to the odd being.
“You look wonderful!” She squeaked out, trying to recover she continued. “Like the end of the world by bacteria, truly marvelous stuff!” She flushed a deep red and nearly ran back inside until she noticed the other woman was blushing just as hard, if not worse. It was kinda cute actually.
“Neat!”