Welcome to Night Vale - 158 - The Battle for Time

Episode Date: November 15, 2019

There may have been a few consequences from our attempt to live forever. Oops. The voice of Kasper Rhodes is Rob Neill. Weather: “Sugar Neighbors” by Dane Terry https://www.thedaneterry.com Just announced: our 2020 World Tour! Our brand new live show is going to over 50 cities across North America and Europe! Tickets go on sale next Friday, November 22. Pre-sale for $10+ members starts November 18. More details: http://www.welcometonightvale.com/live/ Don’t forget: the holidays are right around the corner. They are lurking just out of sight. Find weird and beautiful holiday gifts for the weird and beautiful people in your life at our store: https://topatoco.com/collections/wtnv Music: Disparition http://disparition.info Logo: Rob Wilson http://robwilsonwork.com Written by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor. Narrated by Cecil Baldwin.  http://welcometonightvale.com Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Check out our books, live shows, store, membership program, and official recap show. Produced by Night Vale Presents.  http://nightvalepresents.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, Nightville, it is Jeffrey Craneer speaking to you from April of 2026 with a couple of cool things coming up. First off, we're going to be in Europe touring our newest Nightville live show, Murder Night in Blood Forest. We're going to be in Edinburgh, UK, on May 27th. We'll be in Manchester on the 28th. We will be in London on May 29th, and we will be in Amsterdam on May the 30th. You can get tickets for these shows at Welcome to Nightville.com slash live, and hopefully we'll have more. shows coming up later this year. Who knows? Just get on our newsletter. Go to Welcome to Nightville. Sign up for our newsletter. We will send you emails twice a month to let you know all of the news

that you need to know about Welcome to Nightville. One of the big news things to tell you right now is that our other hit podcast, Alice Isn't Dead, is coming back on April the 13th, written by Joseph Fink, produced by Disparition and starring Jacica Nicole. More episodes of Alice Isn't Dead return on April the 13th, so make sure you are still subscribed to that podcast. Finally, do you want some cool Nightville merch? Go to Welcome to Nightville.com, click on Store, and we have all kinds of cool t-shirts, things for the summer, tank tops, beach towels, and if you like coffee mugs, if you want calendars, if you want backpacks, all kinds of cool stuff there. So check out Welcome to Nightville.com And click on Store, click on live. If you want to see our live shows, we will see you in Europe.

And hey, thanks. The future wants you. The future needs you. The future will have you, whether you like it or not. Welcome to Nightvale. Casper Rhodes here, hello. There's a lot of talk generally and in particular about the future. Everyone's going on about this or that. Rocket Chips inspires eternal life and AI, but the future is also soil and leaves. It's a hand holding a hand. It's clouds and its water and it's salt. The future is organic as anything. There is still sweat in the future.

I'm sweating right now. It's hot where I am. And I am Casper Rhodes. President of the Quality Cyborg Corporation. And I can take you away from all this in the name of the smiling God. The God that grins down at us all, grinning through our pain and grinning through our joy, just always grinning, just always the smile.

Do any of you believe in anything? I do. I believe in anything at all. I just believe. What a powerful thing it is to believe. To let doubt wick off you. Just like the sweat. I have a proposition, and it's also a promise.

I will take your brain, and how much were you using it anyway, and I will put it in a robot, and that robot will do wonderful things. That is my promise. And it's also a proposition. Anyway, we'll talk more in person. I'm on my way. I'll see you soon. Pesusserce, am I through?

Am I on the air? Am I on the air? I come to you in a time of emergency and panic. We thought we could cheat death. Casper Rhodes promised to take our brains and freeze them into the future where we could be reawakened into life eternal. But it was all a lie. Casper is a time traveler here to collect the brains of the past to power robots of servitude in the future.

We were being tricked into an eternal life of manual labor, and now we know the truth and stand against them. Unfortunately, he has called in reinforcements from the future, and they are those very robots with our brains inside of them. They cannot fight against their programming, and they weep as they crush us, but still. There are robots patrolling outside of the abandoned grain silo and every other spot in town

where the quality cryogenics corporation is storing brains, so we cannot save our fellow citizens from the terror of the future. Casper worships a smiling god. But it has returned, and it has come for our minds. Nightveil, I call for resistance. I call for a stand. against the future. I muster the present to destroy every moment that comes after. We will never stop fighting. We will never surrender. Oh, but first, tickets are going on sale for the Lions

Club charity raffle. All proceeds from the raffle will be going to weapons and barricades to be used against the endless onslaught of future robots piloted by our own brains. So that's just a great cause. Let's have a look at the prizes. There's a package tour to somewhere called Nashvile. That's exciting. The package includes a map showing where Nashville is and a pad of paper on which is scrawled. You should probably get a hotel room when you get there.

Everything you need for a fun vacation. There are 10 free piano lessons from Louis Blasco. He says that piano is a great way to exercise your mind and your creativity. and he promises much fewer injuries this time around. There's a free haircut and style consultation from Telly the Barber. Ugh. Ugh, that vile Telly. Nah, I shouldn't say that.

Carlos has forgiven Telly for cutting his beautiful hair all those years ago. And so I should do. There are lots of things I should do. And I'm sure I'll get to them eventually. In the meantime, though, Ugh, vile Pelly! Finally, there is the Grand Prize, which is an all-expenses-paid trip into the bottomless hole betwixt the dunes. That inexplicable dark pit that appeared a few years ago out in the sandwastes.

We're not sure who donated this prize. It just showed up at the Lions Club in a basket that smelled of mud and wet dog. But the winners will have the opportunity. In fact, they will be compelled whether they will be compelled whether they will. want to or not to leap into the bottomless hole betwixt the dunes. This is all expenses paid. I'm not sure what expenses there are to jumping into a bottomless hole, but in any case, they're covered.

Raffle tickets are only $5 and can be purchased at the Lions Club or by whispering into any crack and any wall. And again, proceeds go to saving us from the robot army, so please, Do by a few. There's a lot of talk generally, and in particular, about pain. Oh, I'm in pain, many say. Oh, this pain is the worst I've ever felt, many say. Many just scream, and that's understandable.

I'd scream, too, if I could, but you can't scream with a smile. That's one of the laws of the smiling God. I believe in laws. But then, I believe in anything. Have you ever had rocket, candy? Who even thought up something so useless as these crystalline sugar lumps? What point is there to any of this when rock candy is the kind of thing that we as humans apparently are up to? Generally, also in particular, what I'm talking about is what point is there to rock candy?

And what I'm also asking is what point is there to you? But I can provide a point. to you anyway wouldn't that be nice for once and don't we want it to be nice for once just once before we go I'm talking here about purpose and I have more purpose than I need

you have less purpose than you want let's meet in the middle and there in the middle I will take your brain believe in the smiling God and why not I do Nightvale we will fight Nightvale

We will win The night may be long, but inevitably comes the dawn, especially now that time works correctly here. Tumika Flynn has gathered her militia who have aged to the point where they are no longer teenagers. It was kind of cute, a local friendly teenage militia, but now they're just a militia, which is less cute. But definitely good to have on our side in this struggle. They are currently pelting the robots with stones, but...

Ah, the robot's metal frames are impervious. to such attacks. Oh, this is so worrying. Josh Creighton, local shapeshifter, has resumed the form of a waterfall in an attempt to short out the electronics of the robot army. Unfortunately, it appears that their bodies are water-resistant and perhaps even waterproof. And so they are simply walking past him like he isn't there. Josh, maybe some other form.

Oh, okay, okay. Josh has panicked and accidentally taken the form of a 1970s, style avocado green galley kitchen. Oh, Josh, this form won't be helpful at all. We're going about this fight all wrong, said Lenny Butler, who has no official bona fides on military tactics, but considered himself an aficionado of rowdy boys, really taking it to each other on the battlefield. Lenny continued, what we want to do is flank them.

When asked what that meant, he shrugged and, t, irritably. I know what it means, he said, I'm not. not going to waste time explaining it to you, just like, flank them! Other towns have been forced to join the fight as the robots are sweeping through the entire area. The ghosts of Pine Cliff have enthusiastically entered the fray. Unfortunately, of course, ghosts cannot physically affect our world, and so they are just hovering back and forth through the robots. But good hustle out there. Citizens of the whispering forest muttered warm compliments to the robots in an attempt to assimilate them into their tree forms.

But robots are immune to compliments, as they are only able to think as highly of themselves as they are programmed to do. Oh, no. Nothing is working. Well, this seems like as good a time as any to talk about survival tips. The first thing to consider is your water source. Now, your body is 60% water, so that seems like enough. Let's move on.

Next, you will want to consider food. Stuck up on essentials like canned beans, easily stored grains, and those little bags of baby carrots which are just big carrots carved into small pieces and called babies. Which is not how babies are made. This is not what the word baby means. Anyway, if you find yourself in an emergency situation without in a food, consider expanding your definition of the word food. For instance, theoretically, you could eat a desk if you tried hard enough.

Maybe the problem isn't a lack of food, but a lack of motivation on your part. Finally, look for shelter. This one is easy. There are houses and buildings everywhere, and you can just go into them. Some of them will be locked. They might even have people inside who say things like, What are you doing in my house? And you can't be in here?

This is the stock room of. and Arby's, but don't let naysayers like that get you down. This has been survival tips. There is a lot of talk generally, and in particular, about triumph. We are winning, a person might say. We will defeat you, a person might crow as a town falls and supplication around him. You will all be taken to the future. That person might continue.

You will be made useful. And isn't that wonderful? To be made useful. Isn't that the best thing a person can be? I think so. It doesn't matter what you think. It turns out it never did. It's so impersonal chatting over the phone,

especially since you haven't been picking up. It seems rude your refusal to listen to me, but I don't mind. After all, it's hard to begrudge you your last few minutes of human freedom. Tell you what, tell you what, I'll head over and collect you myself. Wouldn't that be nice? For me, I mean, again, it doesn't matter what it is for you.

It turns out it never did. Okay, see you soon. Bye-bye. Give me back my radio frequency. Oh, I think I'm back on. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Well, I'll talk whether you can hear me or not. More robots are pouring out of the time vortexes.

Vortices. Vortices. Vortices. Whatever they are. Thousands of robots are coming out of them. This is too much. We can never defeat all of them. The robots are marching to Casper's army that was already here and their... Listeners?

They are fighting them. These new robots are fighting on our side. At their head is the one I recognize as containing the brain of Charlie Bear, weekday shift manager at the Ralph's. And he is... Shh! He is announcing that... Some of the robots have broken free of their programming.

That they have found a way to manipulate the metal body they were trapped in, and they have come back to help us prevent this all from happening. And the present day, human Charlie Bear, is running up to join his future medal counterpart. Nightville. Out on that battlefield is a robot which contains your brain. Find that robot and help it fight. Or fight it, depending on which side it's on. Together with ourselves, we can win this.

There is still hope. There is always hope. There is also always the weather. As a young Mars, I held your hand under the halos of blue argon light And holy rollers and a few scanning roll in the green gum The water Stars were exploded in that near Stars were exploded in rings around our lake.

We stopped in shallows and below us. Those stars were once again. I thought I could see. Maybe that's what we... Together. Us and us, our own selves and our robot selves. We rushed against Casper Rhodes more and more of his robots broke free of their programming and joined us. Tamika and her militia were now Tamika's and their militias, and the intimidation factor was through the roof.

This whole time, we just had to trust ourselves. And also have versions of ourselves that were embedded in super strong metal bodies. That was all it took this whole time to be victorious. Charlie Bear the human stood shoulder to shoulder with Charlie Bear the robot and both fought valiantly. Josh Creighton took the form of a chainsaw, which was then wielded by Josh Creighton's brain in a robot body to glorious and gory effect. It did not take long for the tides to turn. Sometimes once the balance shifts, it shifts as quickly and definitively as a broken elevator plunging down a shaft. And then, Casper Rhodes himself.

Self finally fell. Whether it was the stones cast by the Tamikas or the fists of the Charlie's or Josh the chainsaw wielded by Josh the robot, I cannot say. In the chaos of battle, individual human action becomes indistinct. But the fact of Casper's death is indisputable. And in that moment he fell, every robot slumped into stillness because time had changed. Casper never took our brains when we died and used them in robots of the future, and because of that, every one of those robots no longer had a brain in them. They were empty shells.

We carried those empty shells with affection and care to Grove Park, where they would be sorted for parts, and the resulting scrap metal used to fix the massive amount of damage done to town by this battle. We kept one robot, though, just one. The scrawnyest one with the most rusted joints, and Pamela Wynchell, who has been reading books on hobbyist surgery, removed Casper's brain from his still-warm body and placed it in that robot. And the robot came to life in a panic. Don't worry, we told Casper the robot, we're not going to hurt you.

We're just putting you to work for the Merriam-McDonald Memorial Fund. You will clean up the sand from the world. the sand wastes until all the sand is gone. We don't know how long that will take. It may take forever. Good luck. And even now, a lone robot with a broom sweeps sand out of the desert. A fitting end for an unfit man. Now there is only us and the returned reality of our aging and our death. I have come to think that Carlos was right. There is nothing more scientific than death. We fear it reasonably because it is a thing we can never know,

perhaps not even when we experience it. But it is not worth perverting our lives, changing everything about ourselves just to avoid our natural ends. New generations will come. New people will live. And like everyone before us, we will gracefully exit to make room for those coming after. As the old saying goes,

death is only the end if you assume the story is about you. This is not a story about you, and you were glad, because it would be boring if every story was. Good night, Nightvale. Good night. Welcome to Nightvale as a production of Nightvale Presents. It is written by Joseph.

Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Craneer and produced by Dysperition. The voice of Nightvale is Cecil Baldwin. The voice of Casper Rhodes is Rob Neal, original music by Dyspiration. All of it can be found at dispirition.info or at dispirition.com. This episode's weather was Sugar Neighbors by Dane Terry. Find out more at thedainterry.com.

Dane also made a beautiful podcast with Nightcap. Vail Presents called Dreamboy. It's a surreal noir musical mystery set in Cleveland. It's definitely for adults only, but if you want more of that beautiful musical storytelling, check out Nightvillepresents.com. Domments, questions, email us at info at welcome to nightville.com, or follow us on Twitter and Nightville Radio, or buy a new earth for yourself. You deserve it. Check out Welcome to Nightville.com for all the holiday gifts you could need for the lovable weirdo in your life. Today's proverb, every friend group has a joyful chasm. If you don't know who the joyful chasm is, then I have news for you. You are the joyful chasm.

Of talk, generally, and in particular. So many words. This is not how. It isn't. Was it? But it's what's left to me. It's quiet in here at least. I can't feel the smile anymore. The searing heat of that smile. In here, it is quiet and dark. My metal body moves, but my brain is still. I like it in here.

No! That smile! The smile has appeared. No, God, you don't understand. The smile is in here with me. High above Paris, near the very top of the Eiffel Tower, lives its janitor, whose job it is to clean the tower by night. But...

I have no idea how I came to be at the Eiffel Tower. He simply found himself here one night, able to recall nothing except for one childhood memory. He looked at me and he said, Tonight, I'm going to attempt a stunt. And he whispered in my ear and he told me, I'm going to hypnotize all Paris. And then there's this.

The janitor has never left the tower. Bye-bye. Coco do you have a cigarette? Thank you. That was the only two people who have ever seen the janitor. It was his boss, Mr. Chenard, speaking to the tower's 90-year-old night watchman, Coco, and Coco might be the only one who can save the janitor. The janitor had told Coco a story about a ballroom he said was at the top of the Eiffel Tower

and a strange show that goes on inside of it. Now there is no ballroom, yet when the janitor tells of it, Coco can really picture it. Uh-huh. Really? Yeah. He tells of crew chief Letitia, who runs that show. Lift with your land. Okay, I got it, I got it. Here she's carrying a giant backdrop with stagehand shock. Because my mother, she always tells me if I get lost, I should look for the iPhone tower and know exactly where I am. Hey, mine too.

Oh, really? Yeah, my aunt, but yeah. Yeah. Well, that's nice. That tower, that had personality. Almost like it was haunted with a benevolent presence, huh? Oh, hey, what was that? Oh, I creeped over something.

It was a mop. You are right? Yeah, I'm all right. Then there's the drunken, out-of-control diva who hosts the show. Flattery will get you nowhere except my dressing room. John Cameron. You know, John, you've been drinking a lot and it's not like you. Lots of people like me.

You know, when it's especially nice is when they don't know who I am. That's when I know it means something. That's what I need. I don't need fans, I don't need friends, I need people who have no idea who I am, and I need millions of them. And somewhere hidden in all of this may be the truth that can save the janitor. In the grand ballroom at the top of the Eiffel Tower, the red velvet curtains part, and suddenly the giant on-air sign above the stage lights up. The top of the Eiffel Tower, the orbiting human's door.

The orbiting human circus in naughty till New Year's. A brand new adventure. The perfect place to begin. It all starts November 6th from WNYC Studios and Night Vale presents. Hi, we're Meg Bashminer. And Joseph Fink. Of welcome to Night Vale. And on our new show, The Best Worst, we explore the Golden Age of Television.

To do that, we're watching the IMDB viewer rated best and worst episodes of Classic TV. shows. The episode of Star Trek, where Beverly Crusher has sex with a ghost, the episode of the X-Files, where Scully gets attacked by a vicious housecat. And also, the really good episodes, too. What can we learn from the best and worst of great television? Like, for example, is it really a bad episode, or do people just hate women? The best worst, available wherever you get your podcasts.