“Oh, and Nilanjana? Draw another ‘Science’ with a heart around it please. Put that next to the new equation. Thank you, Nils.

“But getting to King City is not as easy. Getting anywhere from Night Vale is a little tricky, as we have a vast desert around us and our reality does not seem to align exactly with the reality of the rest of the world, but King City is an especially difficult case.

“Look at this map. Stan, can you please put the map up on the projector? No, wrong slide. That’s the picture of a bee with a label saying ‘Blood Oath.’ That goes with the apiology project. Yes, the next three slides as well. They’re some free-writing I did about bees. That’s why they’re labeled ‘Research Notes.’

“Okay, yes, good. There’s the map. So this is a map of our region, with all roads and highways, and I want to show you all something. Let’s start here with a laser pointer and try to make our way from Night Vale to King City. Head out on Route 800 and then turn here, and merge with this— But oops, we missed it. So we go back, maybe try cutting across on this little mountain road. You believe in mountains, right? Not everyone does. Either way, we end up miles away. You see? None of the roads connect. It is like they are two entirely different road systems that seem like they should connect but never do.

“Here, this next slide even brings us down to the level of horse and hiking trails, small ranch roads, stuff like that. I won’t try to trace it all out right now, but believe me: there is no sequence of walking or driving or any other kind of transportation that would take us from here to King City. Even though, and this is very strange, we could easily follow any number of roads to get to, say, Soledad, just a few miles down the highway from our target. Okay, so easy enough, now that you got to Soledad, just head down the highway to King City. Well, if you’re starting in Soledad you can do that. But if you start tracing the roads all the way back in Night Vale, then by the time you get to Soledad you can’t find any way to get to King City.

“Scientifically speaking, wow. Big wow. This makes no sense, right? Do you think this makes no sense? Everyone nod if this makes no sense. Everyone’s nodding. See, we are all in agreement that it makes no sense.

“But this is all laboratory work. And what does lab work tell you? Almost everything. Labs are very important.