Chapter 23: Know Your Enemy.

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Previously on Midnight Burger, zombies.

Oh, shit.

They're coming right out of the open door.

Hang on.

I gotta go back.

Once upon a time, there was an unconscious lady in a parking lot.

There's a woman passed out in the parking lot.

Who gave people bars of gold for no reason?

Looks like a bar of gold.

It's a gold bar.

And can travel through space and time for no reason.

I'll find out for for myself.

Also gives people what?

A diamond.

What?

Yeah.

From the surface of where?

Surface of Mercury is covered in diamonds, just like this.

The surface of Mercury.

Also, she hates the diner for no reason.

Just tell us your name.

Trying to stop me.

I won't stop.

Anyway, don't worry because Ava is on it.

None of this makes any sense at all.

And that's great.

Okay, now.

Zombies.

Oh, shit.

They're coming right out of the door!

Okay, actually.

I actually don't have anything to say about the zombies.

There were zombies last time.

It was fun.

Everybody had a good time.

That's what we do here.

Okay, let's start the shift.

Ma'am, I agree that when we send you a notice saying that your license is suspended, that we should send it registered mail, but sending things registered mail requires more money.

And the fine people of this city voted to cut our budget last year because we had too much money, apparently.

You can't have it both ways.

You're gonna need to pick a lane, which apparently you have a very hard time doing because your license is suspended.

Now, please fill out this form and mail it to this address, alright?

Thank you.

322!

322!

Hello?

Yeah, look, I can't can't talk about this right now.

I'm slammed, okay?

We'll have to talk about it later.

I'm not doing this now.

Goodbye.

322.

When you sign the wait list,

you need a first and a last name.

Okay?

Clementine.

Yes, that's me.

What's your last name, Clementine?

Oh, I don't have one.

You don't have one?

No.

Can I get one here?

No, Clementine, you cannot get a last name at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Is there anything else I can help you with?

Yes.

Yes, I think there is, Casper.

What what happens here

at this window licenses registration suspensions?

I mean this whole place the DMV is that what this building is called?

There's a gigantic sign out front.

Oh

Okay,

and what do you

do here ma'am

Your number is 322 and that unlucky gentleman over there he just picked up the number 403

Does that give you an idea of the amount of people I have to get through today?

I should know this by now.

I've been around, Casper, to a lot of different places.

I guess I've always followed what interested me, and that never led me into buildings like this.

Municipal buildings aren't meant to be a hall of wonders, ma'am.

It's meant to be a place wherein one's arrival is always unfortunate.

You talk funny, ma'am.

If you don't have any business here, I'd appreciate it if you'd be respectful of all the other people who are here and, like me, don't want to be.

Sure.

Sure, I have to go anyway.

Darn.

I'll be back, though.

Great.

323, Courtney DePona.

Hey, Caesar.

Yeah, it's all locked up.

Do you need anything over there?

We've got all this food.

It's just going to go bad.

Need five pounds of jack cheese by any chance?

Yeah, I'm hearing a lot of people saying, How long could it really be?

And I have to say, I have a bad feeling.

No, you can't come help me.

No, Caesar, we have to stay away from each other.

If I get you sick, Inez is going to kill me.

I'll be fine.

Sign up for unemployment right now, okay?

Okay.

Bye.

Fuck my life.

Hi.

Hey.

We're closed.

Everything is.

Why is everything closed?

Seriously?

Wait, uh, a virus?

Yes.

What's this place?

This is my place.

Gloria's ta taco.

Um.

Taco's?

Oh, right.

You're closed?

Yes.

For how long?

According to the state of Arizona, one month.

Until the virus goes away?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Until the virus goes away.

What?

Fucking hell.

What's so funny?

Who are you?

I'm Clementine.

Oh, you're just walking around talking to strangers today?

Today of all days?

Yeah, I guess so.

You from Desert View or something?

Taking a little field trip?

Maybe.

I mean,

I guess this is a good time for it.

No cars on the road.

It's a ghost town.

What happens after a month?

After a month.

Well, then it's back to business as usual, usual, of course.

Kind of sounds like you don't believe that.

I don't.

But what do I know?

You're supposed to be wearing a mask, you know.

I think you can get a ticket or something.

I'll be okay.

You're not wearing one either.

It's in my car.

I wanted one more day.

You seem pretty sad.

Everybody's got this look on their face.

Everybody on TV, this half-assed positivity.

Nobody's buying their own bullshit.

They're handing out this plan, and if we stick to the plan, everything will come out great.

They'll know we're going over the edge of a waterfall, and nobody knows how high it is or what the fuck is down there.

This thing's going to take everything from me.

This place of yours.

It's everything to you?

It really is.

I busted my ass to get it, and now...

Suddenly, the streets are empty.

What a mess.

You know, I've never had a taco before.

That doesn't surprise me.

You know what?

Wait here.

You have the honor of being my very last customer.

Okay.

I'll be right back, okay?

Sure.

Good night, everyone.

Drive safe.

They're a dangerous deer out there.

They love going through your windshield.

Can't get enough of it.

And that, as they say,

is that.

Oh, hi,

Hark, a straggler.

I liked your speech.

Thanks.

Did I make a speech?

Yes, it was at the beginning of the night.

Ah, feels a million miles away.

Huh.

Who are you?

Clementine.

Oh,

that's a name.

I don't think I've ever seen you around.

Are you one of Dr.

Baker's little backup dancers?

He's always changing his lineup.

Who's Dr.

Baker?

That's what I say, Clementine.

Who is Dr.

Baker?

I don't.

He's a poodle.

A poodle.

Inside joke.

He's one of those standard model jackanapes.

You know the ones?

Elbow patches, pipe smoking, has children who hate him.

Like a cliche eating itself from the inside out.

What are you talking about?

Standard model of physics, Clementine.

Keep up.

Standard model.

Standard poodle.

I started calling them all poodles.

Okay.

Okay.

But seriously, who are you?

Heard there was a party.

Boy, there was, wasn't there?

Thank God for booze.

It's perfect for letting smart people enjoy stupid things.

Why do you have a party if you think they're stupid?

I said something about a flaming Viking boat in my speech, didn't I?

Yes.

I was kind of putting on my own funeral tonight.

You're dying?

No,

but my career is, which feels like death.

But I did it to myself, so I figured since I was the one that killed my career, I should probably be the one to give it a funeral.

You don't look like an undergrad.

Grad student?

Why don't I look like an undergrad?

You've got this look about you.

The look of someone who knows a few things but has no idea what to do with it all.

Yeah, that's about right.

How do you end up at a faculty party?

Are you dating your professor?

No.

No shame.

It happens to the best of us.

Not to me, but

to the other people.

It happens to them.

I, um,

I was out somewhere and just sort of got swept over this way.

I recall that about college life.

It's late at night.

You have a drink in your hand, and you're looking around thinking, whose house is this?

Turns out it's yours.

Looks like it.

What are you studying, Clementine?

Let me guess.

Something useless.

Philosophy?

No.

Damn.

Uh, history.

Well, I was right about the useless part.

Studying history is useless?

Sure, it is.

What if you really need to know what happened?

Then I suggest you wait around.

It'll happen again.

Would you like a drink?

Uh, no, I shouldn't.

Presbyterian.

If I drink,

I need to stay in control or things get weird.

Weird.

How How weird?

You know, the boundaries of reality collapse in on themselves, stuff like that.

Okay.

Clementine, what are you doing in my house?

You're having a party.

Not anymore.

Why are people so obsessed with their careers?

I see it all over the place, no matter where I go.

I saw these coal miners in this place called Wales.

They were on strike, and they were fighting with police and getting put in jail.

They were fighting for their lives for these jobs, and the jobs were hours out of the day down a long, dark shaft under the earth.

They were fighting for that.

What else could they do?

That seems a strange thing to fight for.

It's all they had, I suppose.

If you took that away from them, who could they be?

This place called Wales?

You talk funny, Clementine.

Do you have a brain tumor or something?

I did have amnesia for a while.

Well,

this is getting more interesting.

Do you have it right now?

Do I need to throw you down some stairs?

No.

How'd you get it back?

I just needed something to remind me.

What

was it?

It was the coal mine in Wales.

I saw a deep black pit, and the darkness reminded me of where I was from.

Cincinnati?

No.

The suburbs of Cincinnati?

Why is this all so important to you?

Why are you calling this a funeral?

I made a terrible mistake, Clementine.

I let it define me.

I convinced myself that this place and my office and my army of terrified teachers' assistants was all I had.

It started to define me, so I had to kill it.

That's the problem with careers.

They start to define you, and you start defending them instead of defending yourself.

I started defending myself, and my career jumped in front of the bullet.

Talk in this weird way where things keep changing positions.

I'm a scientist, is what I mean.

I'm a scientist.

My career is not.

My career is now gone.

And look at me.

Still a scientist.

The career part is just about people looking at you and owning a nice house in upstate New York.

What's this?

It's an award.

What for?

I was the lead on a very large study about gravity waves.

What's a gravity wave?

A gravity wave is.

Oof.

You're a history student, and I have to explain gravity waves to you?

Yes.

Um

do you know what a supernova is?

Oh, yes.

Okay.

In the massive explosion of a supernova, all kinds of stuff comes out, like iron.

Iron is what made this planet.

And gold.

And gold.

Correct.

Look at you.

Despite the fact that all kinds of things get flung out into the universe during a supernova, 99% of what gets released are neutrinos.

A neutrino is very small and has almost no mass.

When a neutrino hits you, you don't even notice it because it can barely even interact with your physical body.

But a supernova is so powerful that it can bombard you with enough neutrinos to completely obliterate your body.

And it can do that from 100 million miles away.

Ouch.

Ouch, indeed, Clementine.

And a supernova as powerful as it is is child's play compared to a gravity wave.

How powerful is a gravity wave?

Way off in deep space, we observed a gravity wave.

Two black holes collided, and we sat there on Earth and watched.

The gravity wave that the two black holes released generated 36 septillion yadawatts of power.

Is that a lot?

Yes, Clementine.

It's greater than the energy generated by all of the stars in the universe combined.

And that was an average one.

Shit.

But here's the thing.

Here's the part of my acceptance speech for that award that made everyone in Belgium pee their pants.

That supernova I talked to you about?

It could obliterate your body with neutrinos.

A gravity wave.

A gravity wave could obliterate the fact that you ever existed in the first place.

A gravity wave can be the cosmic bent paperclip sending the cosmos back to factory settings.

That's terrifying.

It can also not be that.

What?

Yeah.

There's no way to predict it.

Sometimes it can be nothing.

Sometimes it can be total obliteration.

And then sometimes

it might just turn your socks pink.

Wait.

So.

A gravity wave.

Can change things unexpectedly.

Like,

one minute something is normal.

And the next minute...

Pink socks.

Or suddenly the dinosaurs are alive.

or magic is real, or the Pacific Ocean is chocolate syrup.

So it can be a good thing.

Like, if you like chocolate syrup, that last one is a good thing.

Nobody likes chocolate syrup that much.

And how would the migrating ray whales feel about a chocolatey city?

Be a good thing, right?

A big change like that, it could be a blessing.

See, this is the problem with total annihilation.

Everyone wants to imagine they're the one who made it out alive.

Okay.

Tacos.

Clementine?

Yes.

Hi, okay.

Look at all of these.

Crash course.

Garnitas.

Simple.

Slow-cooked pork, shredded, spiced, put in your taco.

Barbacoa.

Originally from the Caribbean, you ever wonder where the word barbecue comes from?

There it is, in your taco.

Okay.

Tacos, alpastor.

End End of the 19th century, a bunch of Lebanese people show up in Mexico and they say, hey, y'all ever thought about taking that big slab of meat and spinning it on a spit grill?

Presto.

Tacos al pastor.

And then, gardené asada.

This is very important.

Gardne asada is a food, but it's also an event.

Would you like to come for garden asada on Sunday?

Like that.

It's also a symbol, as in, you are invited to the garden garne asada.

You are trusted.

You are one of the family.

Got it?

No.

Great.

Let's see.

What are you going to do now?

Fuck, Clementine.

Really?

Like.

If you had the power to change things, what would you do?

I don't really like to think that way.

Why not?

Because I don't have the power to change things.

Why bother thinking about shit like that?

I don't know, because...

because maybe one day you will

maybe one day you'll wake up and suddenly have the power to change things nobody wakes up suddenly having the power to change things they do have you heard of Ashoka the Great

no

ruler of India a long time ago I guess his father passed away and he woke up one morning as the ruler After fighting a bloody war with a neighboring kingdom, he realized that he was the ruler of his kingdom, but still doing what his father expected of him.

So he stopped going to war and became a Buddhist.

Converted most of his kingdom to Buddhism too.

You're kind of describing it like anyone can wake up one day to find they're the king of India.

I think they can.

I mean, I like the optimism.

I'm kind of getting a contact high being this close to a bunch of optimism like that, but

what am I supposed to do?

Go to sleep at night hoping that I'll be the king of India in the morning?

Or should I maybe do something more productive with my life?

I'm just asking you what you would do.

It's not gonna kill you to imagine you're the king of India for a second.

Okay, fine.

I'm the king of India.

What now?

Not really the king of India.

I mean,

you can change whatever you want to change.

What do you change?

I'm fine.

Well,

where do I start?

Uh, several bad hair choices?

Think bigger.

Okay, colonialism.

Okay, but

now a little more personal.

It's pretty personal.

You know what I mean.

I don't know.

It took a lot of planning to get this place.

I worked hard on the plan.

If I was waving some kind of magic wand around, I would just say, hey, respect the plan, life.

I don't need a lot.

Just for the plan to be respected.

I mean, they're saying now that all this, the empty streets, everyone hiding inside is all because of a bat in China.

And here I am in a taco joint in the greater Phoenix area and a Chinese bat is fucking up my life.

How am I supposed to function in a world like that?

I lost my parents when I was 18.

Something coming out of nowhere like that is terrifying.

So I started making plans.

The plans worked for a long time, but now...

Now I don't know how to live in the world anymore.

So that's all I would do.

I don't need to convert India to Buddhism.

I just need everybody to stick to the plan, you know?

Props to your friend Ashoka, though.

Convincing a whole kingdom to meditate must have been a pain in the ass.

Yeah, he was really something.

Great kisser, too.

What?

I have to go, Gloria.

Thanks for the tacos.

You didn't try anything.

Clementine.

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Hi there, stranger.

You've just stepped on a scorpion back.

See those three plasma cannons pointed at you right now?

If you take one more step forward, they're going to turn you into corn chowder.

In case you don't know, you're on Quilandus, a barely habitable ice giant.

And on an icy planet,

it is always chowder season.

What's your name?

Lady,

you're approaching a hidden fort on a remote planet with no population, and you think I'm in the mood to have a conversation with you?

Well,

yeah.

Must have been a while since you've talked to someone.

Aren't you going crazy?

I appreciate your concern, but I'm going to be just fine.

Come on,

I'm Clementine.

What's your name?

Clementine?

Yeah.

That's not a name you encounter on the outer rim of Triangulum.

Well, it's the only one I've got.

Sort of.

Look,

I'm the only thing on this planet.

Which means you're here because I'm here.

That's not good for me.

So I'm afraid you're going to have to turn around and go back to wherever you came from because the only other option involves you being dead.

Okay.

Have it your way.

Ow.

Hello?

What the fuck?

Guess they missed.

Who are you?

I just said I'm Clementine.

What do you want?

Um.

Oh, uh, okay.

My ship crashed.

There we go.

My ship crashed over the um hill, and I'm waiting for assistance.

I saw your smokestack there.

Come on, it's cold.

Aren't you cold?

It is cold.

How are you dressed for a day on the beach?

I was just having lunch with a friend.

What?

Who are you hiding from?

Kind of feels like you're hiding.

Maybe I just like it here.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is a beautiful planet, but seems like the kind you'd only want to see in pictures.

So you're really the only one on the whole planet, huh?

Not anymore.

We're just gonna do it like this.

Me outside, you in there.

For the time being.

You from Pathos?

What difference would that make?

It would explain why you're not freezing to death.

Then, yes, I'm from there.

I thought Pathians all had blue skin.

Ah, common misconception.

Look at me.

Come on, I'm obviously unarmed.

What could I even do to you?

Thank you.

Stand over in the corner until I'm convinced you're not here to kill me.

Okay.

So.

This place is a piece of shit.

Wasn't expecting company.

Who are we hiding from?

Several interested parties.

What'd you do?

Many, many

things.

Do you want to be any more specific than that?

With a total stranger?

No.

Okay.

Does your ship have an emergency beacon?

What ship?

The ship you came here on.

Oh, right.

I have no idea.

Great.

Just.

Great.

Everything okay?

Throughout life,

you want to be left alone, and someone finds you.

You need a friend, and there's no one around.

I'll be your friend.

I was talking about the first part:

wanting to be left alone.

No offense, whoever you are, but if you're letting a total stranger into your little snow fort, it's about the second part: wanting a friend,

Laif

Clementine.

I heard.

So who's chasing you?

Might be better to list who isn't.

Uh-oh.

You're currently hanging out with a criminal.

A paranoid man hiding out in a snowfort surrounded by booby traps?

I'm shocked.

There's always two sets of laws.

The laws everyone has agreed on and the laws set up by the ones who don't follow those laws.

You can always violate one set of those laws and then be safe in the other set of laws.

Criminals protect criminals, citizens protect citizens.

You get into real trouble when you break laws in both places.

Then

you have nowhere to hide.

Hmm except a big icy planet?

Yes.

Sounds like you're in a lot of trouble, Laif.

I am.

So what happens now?

You live in this fort forever?

I've been calculating my next move while simultaneously trying to figure out how it all went wrong.

And how's that going?

Not great.

I'm usually pretty good at getting out of things.

How do you.

How do you find the point where it all went wrong?

What do you mean?

I imagine you didn't plan on your life ending up this way.

No, of course I didn't.

I've been trying to figure that out.

I have this really complicated problem that I've been trying to unravel.

It's confusing.

I've been thinking that if I can find the point where it all went wrong, then I can fix it.

I think that's kind of a fantasy, Clementine.

No, I don't think it is.

I don't think it has to be.

One time someone said to me that if you can boil something down to one word, if you can make things that simple, make it all into one thing, you can figure it out.

Nothing's ever one thing.

People keep saying that to me, and I hate it.

It's true, though.

The universe is a complicated place.

You try it.

What do you mean?

Look around.

Your life sucks.

Try and boil it down to one thing.

One word and one word only.

How did you get here?

Anger.

Fuck.

What was that?

Shit.

Lafe, what's happening?

Attention inside the building.

Exit immediately and surrender all weapons.

Remember those two sets of rules I told you about?

Yes.

Here comes one.

What do you mean?

It's the Teds.

Just sit tight, okay?

When those bots come in here, just...

Tell them you were my prisoner and they'll arrange for transport back to your home planet.

Understand?

What are you going to do?

My ship's out back.

I'll be fine.

I haven't talked to another living soul for a very long time, Clementine.

I appreciate you breaking the street.

Hey, tell your grandkids one day that you used to hang out with outlaws.

That'll be fun.

Okay.

Gotta go.

Attention inside the building.

Exit immediately and surrender all weapons.

Do not move.

Identify yourself.

Hey, Laive,

Lave, the robots blew up.

What a boom

they exploded?

Yes.

That's.

weird.

Stay here, okay?

Okay.

Look, we can go round and round about this all day, just

it doesn't matter.

We can't afford any of those places.

We might as well be talking about sending them to the moon.

No.

What do we think is the most possible thing?

That we pull off a bank heist and we can suddenly afford private school, or that he learns to adjust his attitude somehow.

I know.

I know.

Everybody's teacher sucks.

That's school.

Jesus, I know you had good teachers.

You also went to school in fucking Vermont.

Urban Decay.

You've heard of it.

Okay, well, you can keep thinking about all the stuff, and I'll keep thinking about, you know, actual reality.

I'll see you at home.

Oh, Jesus Christ, I'm on a break.

It doesn't sound like you're on a break.

It sounds like you're yelling at someone on your phone.

It's how I relax.

What was your name again?

Persimmon?

Clementine.

Right.

Clementine.

How's that last name coming?

I've got some options.

Help me pick.

No.

Leap flame.

What?

I saw it on the side of a ship one time.

What kind of ship was this?

Was it carrying elves?

That's a no, then.

Clementine leap flame?

Are you fucking serious?

You pick one.

No.

You work in this building.

Aren't you supposed to help me?

You're misunderstanding the point of municipal buildings.

What's your last name?

Well, mine comes from a ship, too.

My name is Casper the Queen Mary.

Your phone's ringing.

I've been wondering what that sound is.

Thank you.

Girlfriend?

Wife?

Uh,

we don't have marriage where I'm from.

You don't have it?

Nope.

Like satellite television?

It's just not available in your area?

No, there's a whole theory behind it.

It's important to have genetic diversity, so we're encouraged to have multiple partners in our lifetime.

Oh.

Okay.

Okay, it's all becoming clear to me now.

What?

You come from some sort of commune out in the countryside, don't you?

The kind they're going to make a documentary about in 10 years because you all decided to kill yourselves so you'd get beamed up to the mothership or whatever.

What?

You have no last name, and your first name is a fruit, and you come from some sort of free love cult.

I didn't think you guys existed anymore.

That's not where I'm from at all.

Okay.

I don't have the energy to suss your origin out right now because I'm on a break.

Okay,

what should we talk about?

Nothing because I'm on a break.

Okay.

What about when you're done with your break?

When I'm done with my break, you have to take a number to talk to me.

Okay.

Bones ringing again.

Thanks.

There's a station nearby, but it's pretty bare bones.

Find the station manager, and they'll arrange for emergency transport, okay?

Sorry, it's the best I can do.

I'll be okay.

Sorry if I ruined things for you.

It was only a matter of time before someone found me.

I'm surprised it took this long, honestly.

Then what'll you do?

I will.

I will have to ditch my ship.

That's going to be a tough one.

I've had this ship for a long time.

There's an asteroid belt with a mining colony I've had my eye on.

I make it look like a rock, give it a shoe,

and then I hitch a ride.

Where?

No idea.

Anger.

What?

You said the reason your life sucked was because of anger.

Oh.

Right.

What did you mean by that?

People rarely come off the way they actually feel.

The calm ones tend to be the most nervous.

The open and loving ones tend to be the control freaks.

The devoutly religious, consistently the biggest sexual freaks you'll ever meet in your life.

You wouldn't know it to look at me.

When I was young,

I was pretty mad.

Mad at my parents, then mad at my planet, then mad at the universe.

That anger became pretty important to me.

Living in that anger was more important to me than the people in my life were.

I lost them and held on to the anger.

And then,

one day,

I wasn't angry anymore.

And when I realized that, I took a look around and everyone was gone.

Now I'm on the outer rim of Triangulum, about to give up my only possession.

Pretty inconvenient that time only moves forward.

What if you could do it all over again?

All over again?

How does that sound?

Exhausting.

No, I mean do something different this time.

Do what different this time?

You don't even know what you're talking about.

Aren't you,

you know,

full of regret?

No.

Oh.

This is the problem with humans.

Things go wrong and they say, ah, if only I'd done this, that, and the other thing.

Why?

What if you didn't do anything wrong?

What if it's the world that was wrong and you were right?

What did you do?

I contradicted them.

Who is them?

Pretty much everybody.

Seriously, though.

Imagine a group of men gathered around a map.

They're all looking at the map trying to figure out which way to go.

Then you discover that they have the map upside down.

What do you do?

Tell them the map is upside down.

Right.

Here's the problem.

All of the men looking at the map have spent a lifetime telling everyone that they are really good at looking at maps.

They've written books about their amazing map-looking prowess.

They have toured the world making speeches about their magical map-looking abilities.

What happens to them now if you tell them they're looking at the map wrong?

They'll be fine.

Ah, but this is what I was talking about before.

The career defining you, taking over everything about you.

For them,

there wasn't a person there anymore.

Just a career.

If you threaten the career, you threaten their existence.

It would be an existential crisis for them if you were to say, hey, maps upside down.

Do it anyway.

I did, Clementine.

It was me against them, and I was outnumbered.

So here we are now.

I'm drunk and my Viking boat is on fire.

Sometimes it's you.

Sometimes it's the world.

And all you can do is sit there?

Tonight, that's all I can do.

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Rules and restrictions apply.

807.

Yes, that's me.

No, it's not.

Look, here's my little number.

You're not Samantha Yalmerson.

Sure, I am.

Clementine,

where is Samantha Yalmerson, and what have you done with her?

She gave me your ticket.

Why?

Because I gave her something.

What?

Gold.

Uh-huh.

A lot of people like it.

I've heard.

Why are you here?

Well, I figured if I had a number, you would have to talk with me.

You couldn't keep saying, I'm on a break.

You're slowing things down, and there's a lot of people here who don't want to be here.

You're one of those people.

I am.

I don't know.

I kind of like it.

There's something comforting about it all.

That's the warm embrace of a semi-organized, mostly deficient local government you're feeling.

Probably a nice change from whatever goat farm you came from.

I want to make you a deal.

Okay.

Just let me ask you one question and get one honest answer, and I promise I'll leave you alone.

Samantha Yalmerson got gold, and all I got is you leaving.

Well, I'm out of gold now.

Why would I do this?

Well,

I don't know a lot about the world.

It's shocking to hear.

And when you don't know a lot about the world, you have to go with your instincts.

My instincts tell me that you would actually like to answer a question from a total stranger.

Why?

Because you spend your one break out of the day arguing with someone on the phone.

Nobody asks questions in an argument.

I imagine you miss being asked questions.

I imagine you miss someone being curious about you.

Ask your question.

What were you arguing about on the phone?

My son.

My son is...

Well, he's very smart, and that's a problem.

Well, that doesn't sound like a problem.

It is.

Try to imagine it on a spectrum.

On one end of the spectrum, you have total dummies.

And those dummies, God bless them, are very happy.

But then as you travel across the spectrum and people get smarter, their happiness level gets lower and lower.

Eventually you get to a point where someone's high intelligence is now actually making them very unhappy.

Because now they're so smart that they can't take the world at face value anymore.

These are the people who always see bad news in the good.

They can't celebrate small victories because there are so many more to win.

Give them a free car and they think about the yearly maintenance fees.

These are the people who can find a lead lining in every cloud.

And that's your son?

No, that's me.

My son.

Well, he's several steps past me on this scale.

He thinks that literally everything in the world is stupid.

Farce.

Everything's a facade to him.

Try convincing a kid like that that he needs to do his homework.

It's not like there are many kids out there that like doing their homework, but few of them flat out refuse and then cite the fact that Finland has banned all homework and have better educated students than most countries.

That's my son.

He's twelve.

He sounds like an interesting kid.

There's a lot of really interesting, really lonely, really miserable people out there.

I don't want him to be lonely, and I don't want him to be miserable.

And I make him miserable.

I try not to, but something always gets the better of me.

I worry about him a lot, and it makes me do stupid things.

I understand.

You know, if you're worried about him, I can help.

Please don't.

If I concentrate really hard, sometimes I can see what's going to happen.

Watch this.

Clementine.

I'll be honest, you have really helped break up the monotony.

But I think you need to go back to whatever magical toadstool kingdom you came from and let me get on with my day.

Oh god.

Clementine.

Casper.

Sometimes it's not you.

Sometimes it's the world.

What?

Thanks for talking with me.

Okay.

Uh, Hattie,

how y'all doing?

I was just walking down this here road and got to thinking to myself, well, shoot, is is this here the house of uh deer?

No,

I I um how about you take whatever you're making an attempt at and lay it on those steps?

Come inside, please.

Have a seat.

Tea's ready, dear.

Oh, thank you.

Pour me a cup, would you?

Would you like some tea?

Some

have some.

It's good for the constitution.

Make one for our guest, dear.

Here you are.

Milk.

What?

For your tea.

Oh, uh, no.

I can tell a whole lot from a person by how they take their tea.

You can?

Oh, yes.

Milk and sugar means their needs are complicated.

Perhaps a little bit of artifice.

Just milk and no sugar means one is deep in their thoughts, perhaps at work on something that vexes them.

And then there's those who take nothing at all.

That could mean one of two things.

Either they favor honesty,

or they have a heck of a time trusting anyone.

And here you and I are, both of us with nothing in our tea.

I'm not in the past.

No, you are not.

Where am I?

Our house, of course.

But good luck figuring that out, dear.

What's your name?

Clementine?

Oh.

Well, that's a lovely name.

We've known a Clementine, have we not?

Yes, the McMurtrys, their little girl.

Oh, yes, Tiny.

They called her Tiny for short because she was just a wee thing.

Cute as a button.

The McMurtry's had a dairy farm, and if the sun was up, you just know Shayla McMurray was out there messing with those cows somehow.

And Tiny was always right along beside her.

She was.

Shayla even had her a little bucket made so she could pretend to milk the cows with her mama.

Tiny was a little overzealous with the milking, as I recall.

Oh, yes.

Tiny would try to milk any old thing.

The hogs, the chickens.

Even tried to milk the cat one time.

Lord, forgive her.

And then grew up quite quickly.

Oh, she did.

She shot up like a bean pole.

That nickname of hers went from appropriate to ironic in the span of a few short years.

Had to duck down to walk through the front door.

And despite the fact that she grew up to look like Paul Bunyan's wife, we kept to calling her Tiny, didn't we?

Such things tend to linger.

They do.

Memories of a happy time can truly stay with one from cradle to grave.

Can't they, Clementine?

I wouldn't know.

Would you not?

Why is that?

I don't have any.

Memories?

Happy ones.

Well, you poor thing.

Now, Clementine, surely there's some things you can recall fondly.

A bad memory or two can move like a storm across a life, darkening the landscape and causing us to forget that there's a blue sky just past the gray.

You were the voice I heard.

What's that now?

You were the voice I heard in the radio.

You were the voice I followed.

It's very possible.

My wife and I are always sending out the word along the airwaves.

It can end up in most interesting of places.

What is happening?

We're getting to know each other, Clementine.

Isn't that why you stopped by?

I certainly hope there isn't some other nefarious purpose to you showing up on our front steps.

I certainly hope this visit isn't some attempt to nose your snout around in something that isn't your business.

If I'm not in the past, where am I?

Hard to say.

It's your house, though.

Is it?

I don't like this.

Clementine, sit your butt back down in that chair.

Now, from time to time, my father would wander off into those woods there with his shotgun, looking for a dusky grouse or two.

He was quite the hunter when he wanted to be.

And he'd often recount to me that in his wanderings through those trees, he could hear the call of one particular grouse that he could not seem to set eyes on.

And over many seasons, he would always hear its call, yet could never manage to get it in his crosshairs.

It became quite the obsession.

His own little feathered white whale off there in the brush.

Every spring he would return from an excursion quite vexed, always hearing its call and unable to find it.

And then one day he realized his folly.

There was no grouse.

One of our neighbors who would hunt at the same time as my father had himself a very convincing grouse call that he'd whittled out of a tree branch.

He spent all that time searching for something that didn't exist.

And perhaps that's it.

You saw something that looked to you like our bygone years, chased after it, and found yourself somewhere else entirely.

Which is where?

Our house, dear.

I'm done with my tea.

You've hardly touched yours.

Is it too hot?

There's this tradition that runs in my family.

When your tea is done, you turn the cup over into your saucer, and the arrangement of what's left behind can be used for a bit of divination.

Isn't that something?

Couldn't tell you how many eggs you got in a hen house or some such, but the arrangement of the leaves could give one the broad strokes, you understand.

The gist of things.

Let you know of a harsh winter on the way, or if your sweetheart is to ask your hand in marriage, or if an enemy is about.

What are your thoughts, dear?

I'll lift up this cup and see what the leaves are telling me.

As always,

I think we're better served by honesty than by divination.

Very well, then.

Honesty.

Anything you wish to share with us, Clementine?

I know you're trying to stop me.

You can't stop me.

All we're doing is having tea, Clementine.

I don't know who you two are, or what you are, but it doesn't matter.

Nothing can stop me.

Stop you?

Clementine, what is it you seek to do?

We had everything taken from us.

Everything.

Now we're wandering around in the darkness.

We're so scared.

We're scared, and I'm going to stop it all.

I can do that now.

I can stop it all.

Listen to you.

You're talking to yourself just as much as you are to us.

Stay out of my way.

You have no idea what I'm capable of.

Children.

Time is the substance I am made of.

Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am the.

It is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger.

It is a fire which consumes me, but I.

I am the fire.

Clementine.

So this was your plan?

Lure me in and then try to stop me?

Is that why you called out to me?

How did you have the power to do that?

I have no power, Clementine.

Nor does my wife.

We are empty vessels through which the spirit passes.

That is all.

I don't know what that means.

Clementine, you have turned us into enemies while knowing nothing about us.

I know all sorts of things about you now.

Maybe not you and your wife, but I've learned a lot from the others.

And you have nothing to fear from us.

You just called me an enemy.

My wife can sense things more than others.

She does sense something in you.

I can sense something in her.

Anger, Clementine.

She senses your anger as I can sense your power.

Power can be a burden as anger can be.

I see you as twice encumbered.

But then I look deeper.

In sadness.

Confusion.

Fear.

You must begin to lay these burdens down, lest you burden others with them as well.

No.

No.

You can't get inside my head.

You have no idea how hard it is to keep everything straight in my head.

If I lose control, it all

there was a point when

I was nothing.

I didn't exist, but I could still feel myself.

I had to reach out and put myself together, one small piece of myself at a time.

I don't even know if I did it right.

This isn't my body.

I made this.

When I was done, I woke up in a parking lot.

And then I had to remember

who...

I was

and where I came from and I had to hold all of that together too.

I may look powerful to you, but every moment I exist is a struggle.

One wrong move and it could all unravel again.

And then

in the middle of all that, you people show up and try to fuck up my plans.

And what is this plan, Clementine?

What is this thing you're so scared of us taking away from you?

If I can remake myself, I can remake everything.

When I remembered where I was from, who I was before, I knew I had to just stop it from ever happening.

We were just wandering in the darkness.

The stars had burned out, and no light anywhere, and I know I can stop it if I can just do it right.

I'm

so close.

And if you all keep distracting me, you're going to ruin everything.

And you're going to keep distracting me, aren't you?

The

particulars of our mission always fall to someone other than myself, and that's to our benefit.

So I can't tell you what our next actions will be.

But

I can tell you that, once on our path, we do not waver.

That's a shame.

I'm going to have to do something about that.

I'll try not to make it hurt.

Proclaim this among the nations,

prepare for war.

I know you're up there, Clementine.

Hey, Frank.

How'd do you know it was me?

Wait, it was either you or eight tiny reindeer.

You can yell at me again if you want.

Hey, is there a frisbee up there?

Um,

this round thing?

Yes.

I'll bring it down.

Thanks.

What does it do?

Give it to me and go stand over there.

Okay.

Now what?

Keep your eye on it.

Three,

two,

one.

Oh!

Good catch.

What else does it do?

That's it.

It's fun.

I'm scared to throw it back.

I am also scared for you to throw it back.

Okay.

Um,

thanks for not yelling at me.

What good would it have done?

It was a year ago.

Here we are now.

It was a year ago,

yes.

Oh,

weird.

I thought I was getting better at that.

I've been really distracted.

Everything okay?

Yeah, it it will be.

Where's June?

Well, it's one in the morning, Clementine.

So, June's either at her home, someone else's home, or the bar.

Oh, uh, sorry.

What are you doing here?

I sleep here, sometimes.

Oh.

Why?

Honestly, I sleep here all the time.

I came back to town when I took this place over after my dad.

I haven't really worked out where I live yet.

Your dad?

He passed away?

He did, yeah.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

My.

I lost my mother.

You remember?

Yeah.

I was, um.

I don't really know how to explain it, but it all came rushing back to me all at once.

I I had to remember losing her all over again.

That's fucking terrible, Clementine.

I am so sorry.

I'm okay.

Now I'm okay.

I can't imagine having to go through that twice.

It was good that I did.

It was good.

It um

it made me decide something.

What's that?

That I'm never going to lose anything ever again.

Really?

Yes.

That

sounds pretty impossible.

That's just because you don't know me, Frank.

Okay.

If you could bring him back, would you?

That is a bad question to ask yourself.

I know.

I know.

It's crazy, but

just

come with me into the craziness.

If you could have

not bring him back, but um

if you could have made it all never have happened, would you?

I think anyone would.

What if there was something you had to do to make that happen?

Is there anything you wouldn't do?

No.

I hate to say it, but

no.

Honestly, there's nothing I wouldn't do.

I miss him all the time.

Okay.

Thanks for not asking me a bunch of questions.

I've decided I don't want to know the answers to any questions I have for you.

Okay.

Don't take that the wrong way.

No, I won't.

Hey, uh, do you mind if I stay here tonight?

Well, we are at a motel.

It feels safe here.

I can pay you.

I've got, uh, hang on.

I've got this.

Does this work?

That looks like about a thousand Canadian dollars, Clementine.

Is that enough?

It's fine.

At least it's not more gold.

Please don't bring up the gold.

You're in room seven.

The doors unlocked.

Keys in the bedside table.

Fun.

Do you need a bucket of ice?

No, I think I'll go right to bed.

I've got a big day tomorrow, Frank.

Oh, yeah.

What are you doing?

Hmm.

I'm not doing anything.

But there's all sorts of things I need to undo.

Good night, Frank.

Good night, Clementine.

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Thanks for listening to Midnight Burger, y'all.

Be sure and tune in this time next month for more adventures in the vastness.

And if time and tide roil you too harshly, or diurnal courses leave you with no safe havens, just remember we're out there, somewhere, looking for you.

We open at six.

Powerful that it can bombard

bomb why is bombard so hard

can bombard is hard can bombard

that it can bomb

that it can bombard a gravity wave why

words are hard

You're on Quilandus, a barely habitable ice giant.

God damn it, didn't I say?

Okay.

Sorry, I thought I said Landis the first time.

I'm gonna take that back one more time.

Sorry.

This is how I rehearse.

Another fucking plane.

Hang on a second.

You're right there.

The exact same time that the last plane came through.

They're like, yeah.

Lovefield.

Hatefield.

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