She pulled into a strip mall that only had two businesses: Carlos’s lab and Big Rico’s Pizza. Big Rico’s had struggled ever since wheat and wheat by-products had been declared illegal. This was the result of a long and not terribly interesting story, but the gist is that wheat and wheat by-products transformed first into snakes and then into evil spirits resulting in a number of dead citizens.

Jackie parked the car on asphalt that had been lifted into sharp undulations by the roots of a nearby tree, which was transformed by the tires of her slowing car into a disquieting thumping that did nothing to improve her mood.

Carlos’s lab was on the outskirts of the science district, which was a pretty run-down part of town. There were a few new laboratories being built, but the science community did not like gentrification, so they resisted new money, holding tight to their history and culture.

It was not uncommon for a single block to have not only marine biologists but also quantum physicists living next door to each other. In many other cities, this may seem like the makings of a civil disaster, but Night Vale’s science district really made it work.

There were certainly some major disagreements and highly public conflicts between, say, the astronomers and the ornithologists, neither of which considers the other a real science. It’s difficult sometimes for two scientific groups to get on well when the core tenet of one science is to disprove the existence of another science—such as it is with meteorologists and geologists.

Carlos’s lab was helpfully labeled with a simple illuminated yellow and black LAB sign and a handwritten

WE ARE “OPEN”!

sign in the front window. The door was unlocked, and led first into a small waiting room, like a doctor’s office but with fewer deadly traps. She passed through it into the lab itself.

Carlos and his team of five scientists were huddled around a table. There were rows of beakers around them, all bubbling, and a chalkboard covered in numbers and also the word science! in different fancy cursives. Some of the iterations had pink chalk hearts around them. It was much like any university-level science lab.

“Excuse me,” Jackie said.

None of the scientists noticed her. They were all writing busily on clipboards and wearing lab coats. This is called “doing an experiment.”

She walked up to see what they were experimenting on. Under some work lights was a pink plastic flamingo.

“Careful now,” Carlos was saying. “We don’t know what this or anything else does.”

The scientists nodded in unison and scribbled on their clipboards.

“We understand very little.”

More nodding, more scribbling.