“So you know how we’re always being watched by agents of a vague yet menacing government agency right? (“Sure.”) And how they’re linked somehow with the World Government? (“Mm.”) Well. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person in Night Vale who thinks about this stuff but have you thought about why the World Government is interested in us? Or why there are always lights over the Arby’s? Or what those ghost cars are that come roaring down Route 800 late at night at impossible speeds and angles? I don’t know why those questions don’t eat at other people. Cecil gets downright mad when I ask them. (“Oh yeah?”) No one else sees them. But I do. Glowing arrows in the sky. Dotted lines. The entire world is a chart telling you how to understand it if you just look for them. (“Cool. Sure.”) Anyway, so what I think is that the World Government was so unwieldy at first that the leaders, green-skinned, yellow-eyed creatures that do not blink and refuse to ever physically look at the world they rule, they got together and split it into eight committees. And those committees were split into six subgroups each. And each of those subgroups had three chapters. It was all done to keep things organized, but in this way everyone lost sight of what they were supposed to be doing. (“. . .” [Jackie had given up even trying to pretend she was paying attention.]) Instead of governing the world, the chapters and the subgroups and the committees just bickered with each other over who was in charge of what, and which Red Roof Inn the World Government holiday party would be held in. And all of their agents no longer understand whose agenda they should be following, let alone have even the smallest idea of what that agenda would look like. So these agents are as vague as their agency, practicing their skills without any direction but keeping whatever competing committee or chapter or whatever is in the area out of its way, even though they’ve lost track completely of what they’re competing over. What is terrifying, I think, about the World Government is not that the world is held under an iron fist, but that the world is sand scooped up in a sieve. The people running it have no more idea than us why there are lights in the sky above the Arby’s or why there are ghost cars. Terrifying, right? I think the grand conspiracy of our world is just an argument between idiots.”

Deep breath. Both of them. Jackie had been watching a leaf on a branch outside wave back and forth, almost falling but not.

“And this piece of paper.” Steve held up empty, pinched fingers attempting emphasis. He looked at his paperless hand. Jackie showed him the paper in her own.

“What about it?” Jackie asked.