People seem quite surprised by this development! Someone contacts the local authorities, or someone who is part of the local authorities notices, or something, and then shortly: someone, wearing an orange t-shirt and jeans, flies up to it quite quickly and surveys it.

The entrance is clean, with green tiles and a metal bench. The doors to the subway are closed, and no train is visible through the glass.

The person in the orange t-shirt zooms around a bit, observing it to see if it's doing anything behind the scenes, and then recommends that bystanders get back, just in case.

And a minute later, an Asian male arrives, also wearing jeans but instead a black t-shirt.

He goes up to the man in orange, talks to him briefly, and then goes to the entrance and checks it out.

The ground starts to shake slightly. The doors to the subway open, and a swarm of houseflies pours out.

Well. That was unexpected, but fortunately he has some water on him, so he tries catching some of them in little bubbles of water-made-solid.

Many flies are trapped. They appear to be normal flies and react with alarm and confusion to the bubbles of water. The untrapped flies fly up toward the fluorescent ceiling lights and out toward the sky.

An empty subway car is visible behind the open doors.

He will go through the open doors and explore around the subway car, then, after reporting the weird flies.

Range, the guy in the orange shirt, will continue telling people to leave the area.

The subway car is small and clean, with an off-white tiled floor and large double-layered windows. There are several bars for holding onto while standing, long benches along the walls, and a few smaller benches perpendicular to the others, on both ends. There is a pamphlet under one of the shorter benches at the far end of the car.

Tyler goes into it to check nobody's hiding under a seat or something, looks for any signs of people in it – he'll get to the pamphlet later if it's relevant.

No people in the subway. Aside from the pamphlet and a small piece of a plastic wrapper wedged between an armrest and the wall, no signs of people recently here either.

Is the pamphlet displaying any pertinent information?

The front page has a simple drawing of a lot of passengers sitting and standing in the car, smiling and holding hands. Inside is a stylized route map, a list of times and what are probably stations, and a set of characters that the word processor gave up on and rendered as rectangles with numbers.

There is a chime as the doors close, then the car begins to move.

As the doors shut, he gets up and moves in their direction, quite fast, trying to get out and ultimately failing. He looks out the front of the car, can't see anything of use, and tries opening the doors manually. Some of the water on the other side of the doors, part of the 'bubble' containing the flies, breaks off and moves towards it at high speed, quite solidly – he's aiming to smash the window.

The doors don't open or break. There is a dull thud as the water hits the glass, but the glass does not break, and there aren't gaps in the glass for it to seep in through.

He makes the water more solid and reshapes it into a point, then smashes it against the glass, trying to shatter it from a point of impact instead.

The point definitely hits the window and there's another thud, but not nearly loud enough for that much momentum. The window isn't even scratched.

The car departs the station completely, and all the windows go dark and the water -- is missing? There's nothing there to move anymore.

That. Is slightly disconcerting.

Any water bottles nearby or will he have to consider other things if this turns into more of an emergency situation?

There are no water bottles nearby, or other drink containers.

Well, in that case he will consider what he'd do in the case of needing some sort of weapon and then he will store it away in his mind for if he ever needs it, but as the subway is currently just being offensive by transporting him against his will, he likely doesn't need it.

Unless it's fucked with his powers, too, in which case he will want to screw with it.

Anything interesting around?

The pamphlet and fragment of wrapper are where he left them.

There's a partially complete book of mazes and a stick of chalk jammed into the back of one of the seats.

An unlit stop button is mounted in one of the poles.

… If he presses the stop button?

It makes a clicking noise. It's hard to tell if this has sent any kind of signal.

Okay, well, he'll go look at the fragment of wrapper and the book of mazes and see if they're mysterious in any way like the weirdly printed pamphlet.

The fragment of wrapper is pink with a stripe of yellow, has a spiky edge, and was torn off as a triangle along a dotted line.

The borders of the book of mazes seem to feature a tall many-legged figure and a small fluffy thing being reunited across various cartoon mountains and rivers.

Whoever filled out the first few pages of mazes did a lot of backtracking and smearing the chalk. The backs of some of them have blocky drawings of what might be another being like the many-legged one in the mazes.

Many-legged beings. Such an interesting repeating design. Sigh.

If he looks out the windows to the subway car can he see anything or is it just dark, like a tunnel? Presumably there are also lights inside the car.

Outside the windows, it is completely dark. The car is well-lit by three long strips of unflickering fluorescent lights in the ceiling.

Still no water around?

Can he get into another car from this one?

Still no water around. There are doors at the front and back of the car, but they don't open, and their windows show only more darkness.

… He will look at the pamphlet again, in that case, see if he can get any information out of the probably-garbled text and see if anything else is relevant to why the heck this subway car just abducted him after appearing in the middle of nowhere.

According to the pamphlet, subways are a great way to reduce traffic and transit times, and are less stressful than driving.

The map shows a series of curved lines in different routes, all passing through one point. Each line has several dots, probably stations, labeled with different strings of characters. Some of the routes split into branches, or go beyond the edge of the pamphlet.

The times listed are labeled with the same character strings as some of the dots, but the time table seems to be cut off as well.

If nothing suddenly interesting has happened around him, to his surroundings, he will go look out the side of the subway car and try to get a view of something. Despite the fact it seems completely dark. Maybe there's something below them and he can get an angle on it.

He can see a bit of the side of the subway car with the light from the window, but nothing else.

Sigh. Does he have cell service?

Nope. Nor GPS signal, but his battery's doing fine.

This thing hasn't screwed his battery over, wonderful.

… Presumably no WiFi either?

No WiFi either.

Sigh.

He thinks he will sit on one of the seats, in that case. Wait for something to happen. He would've expected a response from Relay if he were still able to contact him, but there hasn't been anything, so he's probably quite cut off from where he was.

Especially since he's pretty sure Relay can reach planet-wide. At minimum.

The seat is decently comfortable.

There certainly is a lot of darkness to move through.

He will keep looking around and keep alert, ready to jump away if anything dangerous happens.

… And after a few minutes he will get a bit frustrated by the boring, stupid darkness, and a few minutes later he decides that he is going to try punching something to fix the situation.

Is there a window that is labeled 'Emergency Exit', by any chance? Maybe with a hammer nearby, though the hammer is optional.

The windows are completely lacking in labels and hammers. And light.

He will punch one, then. He can punch quite hard. Not quite superhumanly so, but definitely at the top end of human, and he knows how to throw a punch, even at a stupid, freaking window.

The glass fails to break, with a dull thud. It hurts his hand to punch, but not as much as punching something that hard should have.

Oh, how nice of the window.

He tries harder.

This produces a thud as loud as the previous one, and about the same impact to his arm.

It doesn't cause him to, like, damage his hand any more, feel like he might have broken a bone, that sort of thing?

No. His hand feels like he punched the glass hard, but not very hard, twice in a row, and does not feel very damaged.

… If he punches it even harder?

Same result: Medium-loud thud, sore but uninjured hand, uninjured window.

Ugh.

Admittedly he doesn't want to break his hand. That would be frustrating to have to deal with wherever he's going with this thing, which he is presumably and hopefully doing because it would be annoying to be stranded in a void for the rest of his life – they might not just have some quick-fix healer wherever, so he might not be able to get it easily healed.

How are the other weird items doing? Presumably they are still where he left them?

The pamphlet and book of mazes and wrapper fragment are still where he left them, on the seats.

He will pick up the book of mazes, in that case, and see if there are signs of someone having panicked and written about the evil subway or something. He didn't notice any last time, but still.

There isn't anything obvious. The back of one of the last pages is covered in squiggles, like someone tried to fit as many curves as they could into a line without crossing it over itself, then filled in the empty loops with zigzags and spirals. This might be an encoded panicked message of some sort.

If it is, he doesn't think he can read the language.

Still nothing new in his surroundings? There hasn't appeared some sort of, uh, planet or something out the window?

There is still only featureless darkness out the windows.

Nothing appears if he studies the featureless darkness, he assumes. Nor if he spends time looking around the subway car – are there advertisements and things on the ceiling or is it extremely bland on the inside?

The darkness stays featureless even upon extended study. There are no advertisements on the ceiling, just calmly glowing strips of fluorescent lights.

Ugh.

If there is literally nothing interesting here apart from being a weird freaking indestructible and less-harmful subway car in the middle of some stupid void he will kill twenty minutes playing games on his phone.

Stupid abduction.

His phone does not lose its charge, at least.

...

After about fifteen minutes of this, there is suddenly a lot of warm green light pouring through the windows, and the car begins to slow.

He looks up from his phone and then gets up pretty swiftly.

Can he see any details outside, or is it some weird, ominous, ever-present green light?

There seem to be large spikes stretching from the ceiling to the floor, with several layers of green, shiny film stretched between them. The light seems to be filtering through those, in different shades of green where pieces partially overlap. A floating orb of blue light passes through the film and approaches the car.

The doors slide open with a chime, and hot air floods into the car.

… He will tentatively move closer to the door, in that case.

The orb quietly beeps a minor chord and maneuvers around him to enter the car and float by one of the handrails.

Um.

… He'll stand near the door. And look outside in case it looks safer than the subway car because. Um.

Beyond the filmy barrier, the surrounding stone narrows to a single corridor, at the end of which are two tubes full of orbs moving very quickly, up through one tube and down through the other.

He thinks he's, uh, going to go outside.

But first, he tries – and fails – to ping Relay.

So he goes outside. Tentatively.

The air is hot, and incredibly dry, but does not seem harmful to breathe or stand in.

He's okay with hot environments. He walks out a bit further and – assuming there's nothing to either side of the subway car where he is now – follows the corridor.

The film causes a cold tingle to pass through his body as he walks through, but does not stop him. The corridor, made of smooth yellow and red stone after the film, leads to the two tubes he saw earlier. They are made of what looks like cloudy unbroken glass.

Is there any water around him now? Anything obvious that he can offload some liquid from or something?

Can he see where the tubes go?

There is no water nearby. The air is very dry, and the little orbs of light don't seem to contain any water at all.

The tube going up splits into two tubes that curve away from each other at the top, and go somewhere beyond the ceiling.

The tube going down seems to be a straight drop.

Is there enough space around the tube that he could follow it, either direction?

No, more glass fills the space between the tube and the edges of the holes in the floor and ceiling.

Hmph. He doesn't really want to try smashing this glass. Feels rude.

Can he go back over to the subway car and fly over it?

He can go back over to the subway car, but the subway tunnel is set into the wall, and there isn't enough room between the car and the tunnel to climb into.

When he gets back to the weird film he pokes it.

It's weird and he has no idea what it's made of. Any hints?

He can't feel any pressure or texture, just a cold tingle going entirely through the section of his finger within the film, more gently than the first time he went through.

… He is not quite at the stage of making himself bleed just so he has something to use for his power. So he walks through the film, shutting his eyes as he does so because that was creepy, and walks nearer the subway car.

Is the orb still in it?

Walking through the film produces a gentler cold tingling than it did last time.

The orb is still inside. Now it's floating slightly above one of the seats, and glowing magenta.

He has no idea what the different colors might mean, nor why the film would produce different amounts of tingles at different times, but he decides to go inspect the outside of the subway car some more.

The outside of the subway car is gray with two blue horizontal stripes. It has the large windows and the double doors he saw from the inside.

What does either end look like? Is there any obvious thing to cause it to move?

The very ends extend into the tunnel. There is no obvious source of motion, and everything below the bottom of the door is below the floor and blocked from view.

Hm.

Have any of the orbs done anything interesting or are they just continuing to move through tubes or sit passively in the subway car?

The orbs of light are all zooming through the tubes, except for the one floating passively in the subway car.

Sigh.

He's not sure this place will be at all useful and the implication of the subway car that has already transported him somewhere is that it will transport him somewhere else if he goes into it.

So he goes and sits down on one of the seats again, making sure not to touch the orb.

The orb bobs slightly in the air and hums when he enters. After a few minutes, there is a chime and the doors slide quickly shut.

The car starts moving and is quickly surrounded in darkness again.

Woo. Maybe.

He plays a game on his phone for a bit.

It still doesn't seem to be running out of batteries.

The orb continues to float and glow, and the car continues to move through the darkness.

… What, it's not even running down in charge?

Its charge has remained at 73% since he got on and started using it.

That's kinda weird. Fortunate, though, since he doesn't have a charger on him.

Anything interesting outside the windows or is it still a black void?

The windows still look out onto dark nothingness.

How's the orb doing?

It still hovers above its seat and glows magenta. It looks like it might be reasonably content?

It's a shame he can't contact Relay. Would be interesting to see if the orb has thoughts.

He sighs and gets back to playing games on his phone.

The phone continues to inexplicably fail to lose charge.

After about ten minutes he looks at the orb again.

If it hasn't moved or changed colors, he'll try saying, "Hi."

It pulses brighter, for a second.

"… Do you understand me?" he tries. "I don't understand you, but– uh, if you can change colors at will maybe go darker for 'yes'?"

It pulses brighter again, and turns yellow.

"… I'm taking that as a no," he says, sighing.

It pulses bright again, then returns to being magenta.

Unless the orb has anything else to convey, he returns to his phone.

The orb returns to impassively floating and glowing.

Games! Woo!

Checking outside intermittently to make sure it's still dark.

Same for checking if he can contact Relay.

Outside remains dark, and Relay remains un-contactable.

After another fifteen minutes, he tries communicating with the orb again.

He doubts it'll work, but maybe it understands some hand gestures? Like a wave?

It pulses brighter again, but does not change colors or move.

… Does it respond to a shrug?

It turns yellow again.

If he shrugs again?

It pulses brighter.

… He thinks he'll go back to his phone unless the orb continues to communicate, then, because it seems like trying to learn what the different pulses mean will take a lot of effort and he's not sure if the orb is even going to stay on the subway for particularly long.

The weird subway into the void that sort-of-probably abducted him from his home planet.

Ugh.

After about 15 minutes of this, by his phone's clock, tiny far-away pinpricks of light begin appearing amid the darkness through the window.

Okay, well, that's a thing.

He gets up to try to see some more detail.

Little dots of white light, very far away. They're scattered fairly evenly, but some seem to be closer than others. The car seems to be moving past them, some passing out of view at the edge of the window and some new ones coming into view every few seconds.

Presumably there is still no more water around him.

Are the dots in the weird void? Or has the weird void become less void-like?

The weird void is still void-like. Possibly moreso now that it is clearly not just a dark tunnel, but now it contains lights.

How's the orb doing?

The orb is still floating and glowing calmly, although at some point it must have turned magenta again.

Hm.

Well, he'll wait for the lights to do things. Like get closer or something.

The lights continue to drift slowly past.

… If it takes a really long time, he'll go sit back down and play a game, intermittently looking up again.

Lights continue to drift slowly by. One seems to pass much closer to the car, a bright white covering a lot of the window, there only for a few seconds. After that, the window returns to showing only the slow passage of distant dots of light.

Okay, well, he's not going to look out of the car quite as much now because he'd rather not get blinded if there's an even brighter one.

This is so weird.

More lights pass by, a few close enough to be visible as very large dots, but not filling the window.

Can he get any more information from the dots, while carefully not looking straight at them? Are they solid white up close or do they have more detail than that?

He continues checking for water.

The dots are solidly white, possibly brighter at the centers than the edges.

There is no water outside of his body.

… He considers, for a bit, but decides he's been without a weapon for too long.

A small cut opens up on his finger, and a quantity of blood leaves his body quite readily through it.

It's slightly disgusting, but it's better than being unprepared. He's not sure what's set to happen to him, through the rest of this trip, and doesn't like the idea of staying unprotected.

The orb floats to a seat a little further away.

Dots continue to brightly pass the windows.

He'll wait, feeling somewhat more prepared than he did previously.

The car continues to pass by the dots.

After about an hour and a half of this, no new dots come into view and they pass the remaining dots, leaving the windows dark again.

He is getting extremely bored by this point, and has been manipulating the blood in the air to try to take his mind off it.

It's quite soothing, and it takes a moment for him to notice the lack of dots. He looks around in case there's anything else outside instead.

Nope, just empty darkness again.

Well. Okay, ugh.

Hopefully the orb isn't too creeped out by him and his blood manipulation, because he doesn't really plan on stopping just yet.

After a while he'll go back to his phone.

After about two more hours of this, the car emerges into light. The car is high above a rocky grey landscape. Plumes of colorful smoke rise from holes in the ground. The sky above is blanketed in churning black and red clouds.

The car comes to a stop at a rocky ledge on a mountain, and the doors slide open.

Does the orb do anything immediately?

The air outside doesn't look particularly breathable.

After a moment, the orb turns green and floats out into the smoke.

Tyler waits a moment and then pokes his head out the door and hopes the air is not in fact immediately poisonous and somehow held outside the compartment.

The air smells really strongly of almonds, or maybe cherries. After a few seconds breathing it, he starts to feel dizzy.

He'll stick his head back in the compartment then.

Is it weirdly somehow filtered on the inside?

Well, the air here doesn't smell like much of anything, and his head starts to clear.

Is the air directly outside the compartment visibly different or is it only further afield that it clearly changes?

The air around the car might be a little bit thicker, but there isn't a clear line between the air outside and inside.

Hm.

And he gets light-headed if he does it again?

Yep. The air out there feels a little thicker than normal, too.

And it's not clear where a boundary is if he tries feeling for it?

He messes with a bit of the blood, trying to separate out the water from the 'impurities'. With the liquid that remains, seeming a lot more like water as expected, he puts some of it outside the subway car, seeing if it does anything in particular.

The air gets a little bit thicker immediately outside the door, and gradually becomes much thicker a few inches away from the door.

If he doesn't prevent it, he can feel something being absorbed into the water, but there are no visible changes.

He's not sure he likes this place.

He thinks he will keep the water that's been outside separate from the rest of it. Then he'll stay back in a seat and keep looking around a bit, in case something happens.

After a few minutes, the doors chime and slide shut.

The orb didn't get back in?

Nope, it's floating through the smoke, changing colors to match each plume it goes through.

Well.

He'll just wait quietly. Again.

The car moves forward into a tunnel in the mountain, and is soon enveloped in darkness again.

Is it the void darkness again?

Yes, it's completely dark around all of the windows.

Ugh.

He'll play on his phone some more.

His phone retains its charge.

After about an hour and a half, the car leaves the darkness again. Its windows look out onto an extensive stretch of a bright blue liquid, which glows and swirls with streaks of yellow and purple.

The car seems to have stopped moving forward, but the doors are not opening.

He'll wait. Watching outside the window in case something happens.

The sky pulses light and dark, starting at a slow pace and gradually speeding up until it becomes a constant background flicker.

Large crystals start to grow, very quickly, from the fluid. Some strings of tiny cubes are briefly visible in the air, but submerge before he can get a good look.

After a few seconds, a crowd of tall shiny things are visible in the distance, rapidly coming closer.

Woo, maybe visitors or maybe something dangerous!

He still has his 'weapon'. He'll sit patiently.

The tall things reach the area near the car, but don't seem to notice it. Up close, they look like red, orange, and yellow stacks of shiny prisms, partially transparent, wider at the bases, and with dark horizontal steaks through the tops.

Some of the giant crystals growing from the ground are cut down, somehow. In a few seconds, they are covered with the tall stack-things. Some of the felled crystal disappears, and some is made over the course of about twenty seconds into some cubish structures, quickly filed with stack-things. The rest is made into a wide and tall transparent circle, which the stack-things fill with little white spheres, and a stack of those strings of cubes.

More crystals start to grow from the fluid, and stack-things begin to stand in place around the circle.

That seems extremely creepy.

Tide would rather not be outside or near the weird crystals, thank you, and will happily stay within the confines of the subway car.

Fortunately for him, the subway doors remain closed, and the stack-things continue not to notice it.

After several more cube-structures are assembled from the giant crystals, and nearly all of the stack things have surrounded the circle, the white spheres are gone, replaced with tiny stacks of shiny white prisms. The pile of cube-string-things shrinks, but is quickly replenished by more of the tall stack-things. Some of the little white stack-things take on a red or yellow sheen, and get a little bigger.

Then, there are suddenly about a tenth as many of the little stack-things.

… Well, that's curious. Did they just disappear or did the existing crystals downsize or what?

It's hard to tell, everything is moving very quickly.

After about eight minutes, the little pale stack-things have grown to the size and coloration of the tall stack things. More crystals grow, and more cubeish structures are built.

After about twenty minutes, some of the cubeish structures are opaque. The little cube-strings are held in large webs of something shiny and blue. There is a circle of neatly growing giant crystals, instead of their earlier random scattering. The circle is filled with more white spheres and cube-strings, and again produces a set of little pale stack-things which grow and gain color until they are suddenly decimated, and the remainder finish growing into tall stack-things.

He continues to be confused and feeling rather fortunate he's not out there, in case he would also be part of the decimation.

The number of cube structures and tall stack-things continues to increase steadily for about an hour. There are three more cycles of little stack-things growing and mostly disappearing. The square of growing crystals is made wider. Most of the cube structures have metallic tanks full of the blue fluid added to their tops, and crystals grow from those as well.

More tall stack-things approach from the distance. When they arrive, it's possible to see that their lower prisms are wrapped with strips of something metallic. They build cube-structures near the edge of the existing settlement. Several of them stand in a group with the non-metal-wrapped stack-things, for about a minute. Then there are suddenly about half as many metal-wrapped stack-things and no unwrapped stack-things.

Another circle of crystals is built, and both are quickly filled with spheres and cube-strings. The spheres are replaced with pale little stack-things, which grow, and are decimated, and are then wrapped in the metallic strips. Large nets mounted on constantly turning metallic and crystalline wheels are made, and drag through the fluid, pulling out cube-strings and large yellow balls of spikes and dumping them into a pile, surrounded by a perimeter of tall stack-things.

He is still not sure why he seems to be in some sort of factory doing stuff with cube things. He continues to feel quite happy he is not taking part in the factory process.

There are several more cycles of little stack-thing growth, and they are still decimated and wrapped, but the cycles are happening more frequently and the population of tall stack-things grows. Hundreds of cube structures are built farther away from the main cluster.

The tall stack-things begin to lay a long strip of metal and crystal, tall enough to just emerge from the fluid, stretching into the distance.

The strip eventually is built to go through and underneath the subway car, although they still do not seem to notice it's there. After a few more minutes, the car moves forward and to the right, and then there is a click as it settles onto the rails. The doors chime and slide open.

He feels like he has misinterpreted the previous scene. And also feels like it's a little bit weird that this thing screws with time.

Does the bright blue liquid contain any water?

(This is a very fast subway car.)

The bright blue liquid is in fact mostly water!

A tall yellow stack-thing, wrapped in strips of metal, hops into the car. Apparently its bottom prism separates into two pieces, which it can use to push off the ground. Something pale is barely visible inside one of its lower prisms.

"Hello?" he tries, in case he has better luck with this alien creature.

It swivels its top prism, and produces a stream of low buzzes and chirps. It probably does not speak English.

It hops onto one of the seats, and rotates so the pale thing inside of it is still visible. It flexes its body toward the seat next to it, then the one across from it.

"I'm going to assume you don't speak English and just talk to myself here," he says. "It'd be extremely convenient if Relay were here but unfortunately he is not."

He mutters something in Cantonese. Might be talking about the stupid freaking subway from who the heck knows where, might be reciting a nursery rhyme. Who knows.

The stack-thing buzzes and adjusts itself, but not obviously in response to this.

The doors chime and start to close.

He grabs in some water before they shut – never know when he might next get a chance.

The windows go dark again.

The stack thing bounces a little, and twists most of its top segments to lean toward him and the water.

… He will move a bit of water towards the stack, separately from the rest of the liquid.

The stack twists and leans toward the water from different directions, not quite touching it. Then it hops from its seat, between him and the water, and leans at it from the other side. It scrunches up its lower segments and moves under the water, then hops to the top of the seat and leans all the way over it.

The stack thing hops back down to the seat and chirps at him.

He lowers it so it's not quite touching the floor in case the issue is that the stack thing doesn't like it floating?

The stack thing tilts at it some more from this new angle, then hops down onto the water.

The water is in fact floating. The stack thing will drop to the bottom of the small quantity and hit the floor, so he extends the water slightly so there's not empty bit at the bottom.

The stack thing hops up and down in the bit of water. Some of the water will splash if it's not prevented.

It is in fact prevented.

Also he solidifies – when the stack thing isn't there – the bottom of the water and also a small lip up the edge, so it seems less weird. It still looks like water, maybe slightly altered, but if the stack thing moves to the edge of the water it'll notice there's a solid thing to stand on about halfway up, which might make it slightly less confusing.

When it notices the bottom and edge, it hops out, and nudges into the edge from all around, then hops into and out of the water a few more times. It gets out, then tilts its top prism at him and the rest of his water.

(He can feel some crystals or something starting to grow in his larger collection of water.)

Well that is frustrating because he wanted a useful source of water all for himself and this feels like he might be killing some children or something if he tries to get rid of them.

He tries to get them to stop growing by separating the water into smaller groups. Also, if that doesn't help, he makes the whole water stick in place, unmoving with quite high precision.

They continue growing when the water is separated, but stop once the water is unable to move at all.

He thinks he will keep the water around the crystals solid, then extract the rest of the water from around them, removing the impurities as he does so.

Ew.

The separated impurities form a glowing blue goop, with some tiny specks that feel a little bit like the beginnings of more crystals, although they don't seem to be growing.

The stack-thing tilts toward the little crystals, and the separated water, and chirps again.

Tyler doesn't understand, he's afraid. And if the stack thing wants them recombined, he'd rather not, thank you.

The stack thing hops back and forth and tilts at the crystals and goop and clear water, then buzzes and hops back onto its seat.

Tyler moves the crystals and goop and a small amount of the clear water towards the other pool for the stack thing.

It hops back down. A thin sliver of one of its middle prisms curls out and pokes at the clear water, then at the goop.

The stack-thing trills and jumps onto the goop.

Yay for the stack thing.

Tide's just gonna wait here quietly and, like, leave stuff for the stack-thing to play with.

It jumps around in the goop and water, then pokes some more at all of the substances. After about ten minutes, it stops, chirps at him, and hops back onto its seat.

He'll leave the stuff there in case it wants it later.

Does it do anything interesting back in its seat?

It stands still for about ten minutes, then hops to the front of the car, by the window. After about five minutes, it hops past him to the back of the car.

Aww. It's almost cute.

He'll go play around on his phone some more then. Ugh. He can't even properly relax because he has to be aware for if the stupid subway car does something he's not expecting that he needs to react to.

Oh well.

The car keeps going through nothingness. After fifteen more minutes, the stack-thing buzzes and hops back to its earlier seat.

Still almost cute.

He watches it for a short bit, then gets back to his phone.

It sits in its seat. After another ten minutes it spins some of its prisms completely around, and buzzes sort of melodically for a few minutes, then stops and holds still again.

The darkness outside the car seems - closer? It's still impossible to see out of, but it seems like it might be moving.

… That's curious enough that he decides he will watch the darkness instead of his phone.

Despite still being just utter empty blackness, there is a definite impression that the darkness is crawling, or dripping around the windows.

The stack-thing buzzes and hops up to him, uncurling a ribbon of its side and leaning toward him.

Aww.

He keeps some water near him just in case he needs to defend himself.

There is a distinct impression that the darkness is infecting something, getting inside of things and turning them into more of the crawling darkness. Perhaps it's a good thing that the doors are so difficult to open.

The stack-thing leans into him, and curls a few of its ribbons around a pole.

… He keeps his collections of water on-hand, prepared to direct them against something if necessary.

Weird darkness giving him a weird impression of infection. He's pretty sure darkness doesn't do that normally even if it is infecting things.

A sense of wrongness, of contamination, the darkness seeping into everything within it, pressing against the seams near the windows and doors, but not finding an entrance.

It seems to stop, and settle around the car, unmoving.

After about half an hour, there is an impression of darkness dripping away, running down the windows and falling past the car.

Well at least this weird subway car seems airtight, albeit extremely weird and also bizarrely difficult to damage.

After a few more minutes, it feels like they're out of the contaminating darkness, and back in the boring empty darkness.

The stack-thing relaxes its wrap around the pole, but continues leaning against him.

Well it's nice that the darkness is gone. How kind of it.

(Cute stack-thing. He really hopes he doesn't have to spear you, that'd be sad.)

After about twenty minutes, the subway car emerges into dim blue light.

The surrounding landscape seems to be the bottom of a vast cave, with spiraling stalactites and stalagmites stretching from the ceiling and floor, and some merging together to form pillars. There's a hole, somewhere high up, letting light filter down to reflect from the tiny glittering blue and white crystals covering every surface.

The doors slide open with a chime.

Pretty.

And if he steps outside the subway car, tentatively, does he die from breathing in something immediately toxic?

No. The air seems to be breathable, although it's cold enough that his breath fogs and his fingers sting.

The stack-thing follows him out of the car.

Any water around or is he going to have to deal with his current quantity? Plus the weird goop.

There might be traces of water in some of the crystals coating everything. There's a bit of water in the air from his breath, and some moisture somewhere above the roof of the cave.

He can't do much with the moisture in his breath unless he wants to form a very small haze, but it's useful to know there are traces around him.

He walks around a bit. Observes the kinda-cute stack-thing.

The ground is uneven, and some of the rocky crystals coating everything crunch underfoot, but others do not.

The stack-thing is following close behind him. It seems a little wobbly on the ground. His footsteps and the stack-thing's hops echo.

After about a minute he'll walk back to the subway car. He hasn't seen anything novel and interesting, just a bizarre cave, and he's still holding out hope he might get back somewhere recognizable.

He wonders who would be able to build something like this, the subway. Or who would.

It doesn't really feel like the sort of thing that would constitute a 'disaster'.

The stack-thing hops on a few of the stalagmites, breaking off the ends, which are vaguely visible inside its middle segments.

It hurries to follow him back to the car when it notices that he's ahead.

It does look like a subway humans might construct, although most don't travel like it does.

Yeah, he hasn't really had much experience with subways going through weird voids to other planets. It's just – it doesn't seem like something someone would get out of a power, it doesn't seem quite like the typical genre of 'disasters' they get in his world, it just looks like a weird supernatural event that's occurred.

Then again, the powers and the supernatural disasters didn't start until a few years ago, so perhaps this is just part of the next step.

He stands near the door to the subway car and waits for the stack thing.

The stack thing hops around breaking off a few more chunks of stalagmite, picks some of them up with three ribbons from its sides, and follows him into the car.

Well that's curious. Tyler will grab a bit of rock too with some pointy water – it can get quite sharp with hydrokinesis, how nice – and transport it to the subway car.

The stack thing buzzes a bit when he takes the rocks with the water, but it follows him back into the car.

Now to sit patiently until it goes.

Are the rocks different on closer inspection, or just bits of blue and white?

The doors close and the car is surrounded in darkness.

The rocks are just sparkly and cold bits of blue and white. The white ones seem to be dissolving a little bit in the water.

Well he'll separate the white ones from the blue ones in case they turn out to do weird things together but keep them handy in case he finds some sort of laboratory next and these turn out to be special in some way.

Or something.

He's not really sure what he's doing, here. Hoping, apparently, that he'll get somewhere useful.

The white crystals continue to slowly dissolve in the water, and the blue ones don't seem to be doing anything.

After ten minutes in the dark, the stack thing hops onto a seat where it can lean against him. If he doesn't obviously object or move away, it continues to lean, and stops moving.

He allows it to lean against him again.

Learning to communicate with it sometime might be useful, seeing as it's not getting off as early as the previous orb.

Well, it's holding mostly still right now, and doesn't seem to be making any communicative noise, and the dark band around its top segment has contracted to a thin line.

Perhaps that means something.

He thinks he might sleep, or at least nap. It's getting kinda late, so he'll do that unless something happens.

The stack thing adjusts itself to continue leaning on him when he moves, but is otherwise still.

Darkness continues to go monotonously past the car's windows.

Tyler will, unless interrupted, sleep for about ninety minutes before waking up.

The stack thing sits up when he does, and the dark band around its top segment expands again.

It's still completely dark around the car.

Tyler goes up to one of the windows and tries to peer out below and above the subway car.

Above is only darkness. Below is -something, with a barely visible stripe, oh no that's just the side of the car. Also darkness.

Sigh.

Tyler turns back to the stack thing. "We should probably try to develop some method of communication."

It chirps and hops over to him.

He holds up a finger and says, "One."

It clicks and wraps a ribbon around his finger.

… He puts up a second finger and says, "Two."

The stack thing bounces and chirps a little, then unwinds its ribbon from his finger.

It touches his first finger and then holds up its ribbon and clicks, then touches both of his fingers and folds the ribbon at a right angle and makes a slightly higher-pitched click.

Fold maybe means two.

He doesn't suppose he can make the clicks properly.

How about three fingers?

Another right-angled fold, making a sort of squarish shape, along with a chord made up of the higher- and lower-pitched click.

No way he can do those clicks.

He goes through the rest of the numbers, up to ten! Also zero.

At five, it begins folding another four-sided square and repeating the first four clicks with a lower buzzing tone, and at eight, right before finishing the second square, it relaxes the ribbon and holds up another ribbon, and makes a chirping-buzz. Nine and ten are the second ribbon and chirp-buzz, accompanied by the line and folds and clicks of one and two. Zero is a curled ribbon, with a soft humming-buzz.

… Base eight number system, huh.

He points at himself and says, "Tyler."

It leans toward him and produces a trill-buzz that sounds a tiny bit like "Tyler". Then a sort of whirring click, and it wraps a ribbon loosely around his wrist.

"… I think I might just call you Click."

It chirps, then buzzes and wraps several ribbons around one of the poles as there is a sudden feeling of weightlessness. A large grey disk passes very quickly from above the window to below it, followed by shiny metallic blurs.

Tyler also grabs one of the poles, then tries to get a look out the window at the disk.

From so far below, it actually looks like the moon, light gray and glowing and cratered.

Some bright green lights zoom past the window, and then the car is enveloped in a cloud.

It would be inconvenient if they crashed.

It looks like they might be about to do just that. The car leaves the cloud and zooms past more green lights, and helicopters, and a tower topped with a blinking red light, past houses and cars and the surface of the ground, and darkness.

They don't seem to be impacting the ground, just passing through it. There's a push downward, and then the car is stopped. The ground shakes, and the windows look out onto a fairly normal subway entrance. The car is abruptly full of fruit flies.

Well Tyler is a little frazzled. Little bit. A water shield did in fact spring up around him partway through as he really hoped he could survive the crash and decided to try to make that more likely.

Fortunately unnecessary, and now he's just – a little frazzled.

Does the subway entrance look like the one he came in or are there some differences?

The doors ding and open, and the flies all swarm out. There are a few bored-looking humans standing around in the waiting area. Most of them look up and start heading over.

The subway station floor is tiled in red and orange bricks, laid out in zigzagging stripes. The benches are cheap wood with black plastic cushions. It's similarly laid out to the entrance he came in by, but could not be mistaken for the same one.

He moves to the doors. "Hello?" he tries, in English.

"Hey," says one of the people entering the car, "What's up? How is it?"

"… Do you know where I am, by any chance? I'm a bit lost."

"Sure, you're in the subway station at Third and Main, across from the Convention Center, next to the East Mall and Big Rico's. Oh! Um, it's 2013." She goes to sit by the window.

"Are you used to this subway? This is suspiciously like but not actually where I started off, and it's also not when I started off."

"No, the subways're new. I think with mass transit like this, you're supposed to usually wind up somewhere else unless you go through the whole route? Hopefully it'll help cut down traffic though!"

"… Is a time-traveling subway that goes through a dark void a sort of common occurrence around here? Because that's what this subway seems to be."

"No, we've never had a subway before, usually you only get subways in really big cities. And time-travel was only recently decriminalized, maybe that's how they built the stations so quickly?"

"… Right."

He thinks he's going to get off the subway at least briefly here. Does stack thing – Click – want to follow him?

It leans curiously at some of the other people entering the subway, but follows him out the door. It gets a few odd looks, but nobody says anything.

Nobody comments on the water either? Or the pieces of rock? … Polite of them.

Most of them seem to have genuinely not noticed, focusing on the subway. A few people seem to be deliberately averting their eyes, and a teen in a purple shirt catches sight of his water and Click and changes paths to walk toward the car along the far side of the room.

Tide is rather confused about all the people just walking onto the subway so nonchalantly.

Does anybody look inclined to talk to him were he to try to ask them for information?

Everybody is on the subway; there weren't many people to begin with. The person he talked to earlier waves to him from her spot by the window as the doors close.

… Oops.

Well he hopes it returns at some point if he needs it but right now he's not desperate enough to try breaking in or anything, especially seeing as he's in some place that is at least recognizably Earth.

He goes towards the entrance to the subway station.

At the entrance, there is a short flight of stairs leading to a door, opening onto the sidewalk at a somewhat busy intersection. The air is warm and dry. There is a lot covered in rubble and wood across the street to his left, a large building with a sign saying "Downtown Convention Center" across the street to his right, and a few shops across both streets in front of him.

Anybody about for him to ask about the local geography?

… Or how about he just takes off, into the air, and surveys the area briefly.

In front of him, there's a mall, a very tall black building with a poorly maintained lawn and garden of tulips, a large, slightly burnt-looking rectangular building, a radio tower, a trailer park, and a factory in the distance. To his left, there are buildings, a college, a fenced in patch of incredibly dead looking land, a small forest, and some empty desert. To his right are more buildings, some warehouses, an airport, a hospital, and some structures off in the hills.

Behind him, just… the subway station?

The subway station, and behind it a pizza place, and some long buildings with mysterious metal antennae reaching into the sky, some residential-looking neighborhoods, and an area full of old-fashioned stucco and wood buildings. Off in the distance, there is an empty sandy area, dotted with scraggly bushes.

If he returns to the ground and produces a small circular disc of water near the stack thing and indicates that it should jump onto it, does it perhaps do as such?

It takes a bit to get the idea, but it hops onto the disk once it figures out what he wants.

Then the disc turns into a bubble and it flies up into the air with him. (It may be a bit scary. Poor stack thing.)

He goes towards the hospital.

The stack thing folds around itself until it's curled into sort of a loose ball, but seems to be looking around at the buildings beneath them.

A few people look up at them, then look away. The black and blue helicopters they pass don't noticeably react to them.

The hospital is long and blocky, about three stories tall, and covered in creamy brown stucco. Its sign reads "Night Vale General Hospital".

Tyler lands and lets the stack thing out, waiting a moment to check it's okay.

It uncurls and hops off of the disk, then leans into him for a few seconds.

No point saying anything – it won't understand – but he is in fact slightly sorry about that.

After it's done leaning (assuming it finishes), he walks into the hospital, with his floating balls of water near his hands. He leaves the bits of rock outside the entrance.

It follows him into the building.

The area inside the doors is clean, with a thin gray carpet and tan walls. There are a few empty chairs near the doors, and a set of advertising pamphlets in a holder on the reception desk. The area behind the desk is harder to see into, full of a partially-transparent haze.

… Tyler walks up to the reception desk and meanwhile tries to ascertain if there is water in the partially-transparent haze.

There is water in the partially-transparent haze. It shifts around as the haze asks "Hello, what are you here for today?"

"I wanted to report a subway that travels through dimensions. And also ask why this looks suspiciously like my planet but has no Relay and do you know of a way for me to possibly get back?"

Pause. "Also – are partially-transparent hazes composed of water that speak common around here? Because, apologies if that's a rude question, but I don't think I've ever encountered one before."

"Uh, this is a hospital, we don't really file reports of things like that. I heard that we're getting a new subway on the radio, but I hadn't tried it yet, is it good? I'm not sure why this planet looks like yours, if you're from a different one, it could be an alternate universe version of it, or just at a different time, or a weird coincidence or something. If you're here for the Blood-Space War, it's cancelled. If you want to file a missing person report, you probably want the Sheriff's Secret Police, but they're really backlogged right now and it sounds like who you're looking for might not be here?"

"Sentient patch of haze, and no, we're a minority here because it's so dry."

Pause. "I was mainly asking here since I'm totally lost and I thought a hospital might know where to go next, but everyone's acting weirdly like this is just an everyday occurrence. So. Probably the alternate universe idea."

"Okay. Welcome to town? If you're terrified and confused and want to become a citizen, there's paperwork and pamphlets for that at City Hall."

"– Just, hold on a sec, you called them the Sheriff's Secret Police? Uh, why…?"

"Because that's what they're called? Or- oh, because they're a secret, if that's what you meant?"

"… Yeah."

"Why are they a secret? I think a few decades ago we noticed that the police weren't secure the way they were, and so they were declared a secret and their cars were changed? Nothing else really changed, but we're all safer."

"… I'm confused how they're a secret just by adding that to their name. And – well, I guess different cars would help, but that's sorta just like undercover cops?"

"No, like, someone coulda done something with the information they were there, or the assumption they were. But unless someone's actually been here, they usually wouldn't guess we wouldn't have them."

"… Sorry, I don't think I caught that," he says. "They added 'secret' to the name so… people from out of town think you have them?"

"No, so we don't have a non-secret police that people from out of town would expect, but still have someone to keep us safe."

Pause. "They're labeled secret so you don't tell people they exist and so they can keep you safe while being secret? Because that's safer than them not being so."

"Yeah." It does not say 'duh', but it is clearly present in the tone of voice

"… Are they taking other steps to make themselves secret?"

"They wear masks? And sometimes hide, but the important thing is that they are the secret police."

"Right." Pause. "I think I'll just try City Hall."

"... Okay. Do you need directions?"

"That would be nice."

"So, out that door, you go south until the next intersection, then west, south, west, south past the first intersection then east on the next until you're right in front of the building. You can't miss it."

"Does the building have clear signage that might be visible from the air or distinguishing features…?"

"Uh- it's really tall and black, and it has some plants in front of it? The colorful round kind."

"Thanks."

He goes back outside, and then sets off: southwest a ton then East. Tall black building with round plants.

Click follows him outside from its place behind him.

It might be that really tall and slightly shimmery black building with a dying patch of tulips and a bunched up pile of black velvet out front, over there.

… Uh-huh.

He goes towards it and makes to land, unless something interrupts him from doing so.

He can land unimpeded.

He puts Click down, gently, and then walks into the building. He leaves the water outside, nearby.

There's someone - possibly a guard - just inside the arched entrance. A solid black mask covers his head, from his neck to his forehead. He does not noticeably react to their presence.

Tyler walks past the guard and looks for a reception desk.

There is a reception desk! It has a bowl of individually wrapped peppermints, a cobweb-covered swivel chair, and a bell labeled "Ring for Assistance". The bell seems to be made of cardboard and aluminum foil.

… Assuming nobody appears as he walks up to the desk, Tyler will try ringing the bell anyway. Despite it being unlikely it'll work.

... The clapper doesn't even depress. It bends a little, and the foil makes a sad, quiet, crumpling noise.

And if he waits a moment to check nobody's coming?

There sure doesn't seem to be any response.

Does the masked person react if Tyler goes up to them and asks how he might get assistance?

No. He continues standing there, without any movement, aside from breathing.

"… Is this place weird intentionally?"

The masked man does not noticeably react to the question.

Is there an entrance if he wants to go further into the building, perhaps, going past the unmanned reception desk?

There's a hallway behind the desk, with a few doors, and a staircase to a higher floor.

No people? He'll go up a floor, sure.

Click follows him up the stairs. The first door from the stairwell has an electronic lock, and a padlock, and a placard labeling it "PROPHECY".

The second is labeled "NEW CITIZENS", and the third, barely visible from the second landing, is "MAYOR".

Prophecy! Gosh. If he touches the padlock does it reveal itself to be made of aluminum foil?

Nope! It feels like solid metal. It is very cold, and the bones of his fingers touching it begin to feel like they are buzzing.

He stops touching it, hoping the feeling will abate.

What's behind door number two?

Once he lets go, his fingers begin to return to normal.

Door number two actually opens! There is an unattended plastic desk with a display of pamphlets and a box of something orange, with a label saying "Take one!"

Does the something orange… look more like candy or a toy?

It looks like a pile of fabric! Kind of cheap looking, but very brightly dyed orange fabric.

Sure, okay, he'll take a brightly dyed orange fabric. Is it a welcome t-shirt or something?

It is a poncho. It isn't marked, but it is presumably a welcome poncho.

Welcome poncho, okay. Sure, he'll take a welcome poncho.

"Hello?"

There is no response.

Sigh.

How's Click doing? Still following him?

It followed him up the stairs, but seems to have decided to wait outside the door.

(Still cute.)

He thinks he's going to go knock on the door for the Mayor.

The door opens at his touch, onto a dim hallway, releasing a puff of air that smells like burnt hair and chalk dust.

There's a partially open door halfway down the hall, with a placard reading "CITY COUNCIL MEETING ROOM", and a set of five stairs leading to a door labeled "MAYOR'S OFFICE".

"Hello?" he calls.

There is a loud crunching noise, followed by a few snaps, from the meeting room, but no response.

He's there in just a few seconds and knocking on the door. "Hello? Do you need help?"

A man in a suit and slotted shades, carrying a black case, answers the door. Many voices inside the dark room speak in unison with his, "We have this covered, thanks. If you have an appointment, please wait your turn."

He turns and closes the door, without waiting for a response.

Blink.

He does not have an appointment.

He knocks on the door again.

After about half a minute, a similarly attired person opens the door. They give his orange poncho a pointed look, roll their eyes, and say (along with several other voices in the room) "We're busy. Go downstairs for new citizen paperwork."

There is a distinctly prickly and cold feeling that he should walk away from the door, as it slams closed again.

He stumbles back a little, stopping and shaking his head when he's a few feet away.

… Okay, downstairs for new citizen paperwork, sure.

The feeling dissipates as Click follows him back down the stairs.

The New Citizen help-desk is still abandoned, but there might be something in the pamphlets and brochures, or behind the desk?

He looks around, not caring if he's not supposed to do this.

He is going to do as he's told and if it doesn't achieve desired results he is going to go back and tell them he's not happy with their handling of new citizens and they should fix themselves. He is without the rock he had earlier, he realizes – must have left it at the hospital – but he still has the water if he needs a weapon.

The pamphlets on the desk seem to be mostly recommendations of restaurants to eat at, neighborhoods to consider moving into, and places to go for fun. Behind the desk, there is a locked desktop, and a set of desk-drawers labeled "Welcome Packets", "Milk", "Forms", and "Misc.".

… Milk?

The drawer seems to be full of almost-simmering fluid, presumably milk.

Uh-huh.

He shuts it. What's in Misc?

There is an instruction manual for a printer, instructions for assembling the desk and drawers, printouts of some emails about someone coming to clean the velvet, a bag containing a plastic necklace coated with blue slime (labeled with a sticky-note saying "someone left this - bring to lost and found if extant?", a few glow-sticks, and several sheets of tiny alphabet stickers.

He thinks he'd like to shut that drawer, now, and look in Welcome Packets.

It is full of many clear and outwardly-identical plastic folders, each of which is labeled "New Citizen Welcome Packet". They look to contain many pages of white paper, and a few of colorful card-stock.

He takes one and then checks that there's nothing important in Forms.

Tax guides, new citizen statement of agreement to follow laws and customs, temporary and secret citizen statement of agreement to follow laws and customs, forms for divorce upon discovering that current spouse is a citizen, forms for divorce upon discovering that current spouse is not a citizen, license-obtaining instructions for various home-construction equipment and behavior, a packet for if someone prefers not to be taken to the hospital if they are found injured and/or dying, and a form for requesting refunds for airplane tickets purchased in error out of confusion about how airplanes work.

… Secret citizen? And – does it specify why one might divorce a spouse when finding they're a citizen? … Also the airplanes thing, is that particularly common, are there a lot of these forms.

The temporary/secret citizen forms seem to have very similar boxes, bubbles, and signature lines to the new citizen ones, but often have boxes asking for explanations or credentials below the same questions, and ask for additional forms to be attached. The sub-reasons for divorce seem to be things like living in a rival city, wanting to live elsewhere and not wanting to deal with commute, religious reasons, philosophical reasons, inability to live by local law, believing themselves to be married to a person of the same description but with a different hometown and life-history, and "Other (please specify): _____".  Apparently a great many people at some point purchased airplane tickets while under the mistaken impression that airplanes would take them to a different place than they departed from. There is a substantial stack of the forms clipped together, but by their texture and ink sharpness, they seem older than some of the other paperwork here.

… Mistaken impression…?

He does not think he's going to get many answers in response to his complete and utter bewilderment here. He puts the forms back in the drawers, except for the welcome packet he took, and then starts to make his way out of the building with Click.

Does the welcome packet help clarify anything?

Well, there's a stylized map, a coupon for 25% off his first pizza order, an incomplete list of local laws, a few sheets of small alphabet stickers, a desert safety reminder sheet, a neon-pink brochure for upcoming events, a small origami bird, a list of locations for getting various licenses obtained in other places renewed or transferred, a list of residential areas with phone numbers and addresses, and a blank name tag sticker, reading "HI, I'M ______, AND I LIVE HERE NOW!".

He would like to read the desert safety sheet in case there are non-obvious dangers in the desert. (Giant scorpions, sun that is horrifyingly radioactive, desert-dwelling superzombies…? He is guessing no to all of these but does not have high expectations for the desert.)

The sheet does not warn about any of those. Instead, it seems to mostly contain advice for outdoor activities like "wear sunscreen of at least SPF 50, reapplying every few hours!", "be sure to check your shoes for venomous insects, rather than poisonous ones!", "avoid arroyos and ditches, especially if it seems likely to rain!", "bring flares or signalling devices if you are going into the scrublands and the sand wastes and might get stuck in a loop!", and "watch your step! cacti are a beautiful and important part of the desert ecosystem, and can be hurt by careless feet!"

… Stuck in a loop?

What about the list of local laws?

The safety sheet doesn't have anything more specific about loops.

According to the list of laws, some things are dangerous here that may not be dangerous in other places! It is very important to follow the laws, because otherwise you might be endangering yourself and everyone around you! Here is a list of banned objects (pocket calculators, martini glasses, writing utensils, bar code scanners, thesauruses, ...), and activities (publicly describing the moon, falsely acknowledging the theoretical existence and/or hierarchical structure of angels, failing to follow directions from a city official, dreaming about horses, attempting to transmit dangerous information, ...), along with reminders to be sure to fulfill normal civic duties like taxes, voting, participating in announced citywide events, keeping a dream journal, and getting a license and training before doing large-scale things that might be annoying or dangerous to people nearby. There's a typewritten piece of paper taped to the bottom of the list, adding "wheat and wheat byproducts" to the list of banned objects and "murder" to the list of banned activities.

… He does not know if a mobile phone counts to violate the various banned objects and he doesn't know enough to safely avoid some of the activities, and he would like to know what country he is in and what the relevant laws are in case they differ drastically enough to warrant the addition of 'murder' to the local laws.

Why is everybody so unhelpful and mysterious. He does not like this state of affairs. Is there anybody less unhelpful and mysterious on his way back out of the building or outside the building. He would like to talk to someone hopefully with less in the way of those attributes.

Click follows him, but at least has a consistent amount of those attributes.

There's a tall woman wearing a tunic over what looks like a wetsuit and leather gloves, walking down the street. She seems to be talking to someone through a flip-phone pinched between her ear and shoulder.

… He waves at her to try to get her attention.

She waves back amiably and keeps walking.

"-just keep trying and I'm sure you'll get it. What? No, of course not, they were new too, once. Well, probably anyway," she tells her phone.

… That sounds weirdly applicable but he's going to try looking for someone else on account of her continuing to walk.

Nobody else is in sight, but there are a few parked cars in the parking lot at the strip mall across the street, and a few more driving on the two roads perpendicular to this one.

Strip mall! Presumably there are accordingly people inside that he can try talking to?

There are several businesses, and some look to have people inside. There are a few people visible in the Pinkberry's and Dust Hut, but the windows of the Applebee's are too dark to tell, and the barber's shop seems to be closed.

He would like to try the Pinkberry's.

"Hello?"

It's a very pastel place, with pale orange and blue walls, and green and white accents. There are giant signs with flavors and toppings, and a few different tub sizes. A few other people are eating at the tables, but there's no line.

"Hello, and welcome to Pinkberry's!" says the teenager at the counter.

"Hi!" he says. "I'm new to this part of the world, quite suddenly, and I wanted to know… what part of the world it actually was."

"Oh, congratulations. Night Vale is in the desert, in Southwestern America. On Earth."

"That is a useful description!" says Tyler. "Thanks. I tried City Hall and got spooked by mysterious figures, plus it was basically empty."

"Thanks, I'm studying communication and journalism!" He winces slightly. "Yeah, new citizenship is a bit of a hassle, and I think the subways are taking much longer than everyone expected. I was expecting my shift manager back like an hour ago? Oh! I can take your order if you're ready."

A few people at the tables are listening with interest and varying subtlety.

"I – was mostly looking for people, as opposed to specifically froyo. If that's not a problem."

Indecisive look. "I guess as long as it's not too busy. Can I get you a glass of water and if my manager gets back and asks, you're trying to decide what to get or waiting for somebody?"

"That'd be nice, thanks."

Little plastic cup of water, with a few hollow ice cubes from the soda machine.

"And your - companion? - can come in for water too, if they'd like. Unless they disperse common allergens." he adds, looking through the glass door at Click.

"I only met him recently and don't have any common allergies so I don't exactly have confirmation, but I have no reason to expect him to…"

"That... should be fine, then. He can wait here with you."

Tyler waves Click in.

"So – to put it bluntly… what's up with this place?"