“What? Who? Who is? Wait, how do you know they’re, uh… ‘checking me out’?”
Unfortunately, the meme humor fell flat. A computer who doesn’t get dank memes and references was a sad sight indeed.
The computer droned out a list of coordinates but if you didn’t have a pen, paper, and your first language wasn’t code it was practically useless. It wouldn’t really matter though because its response was drowned out by a rather disturbing gurgling sound from afar. Seems like the computer wasn’t lying when it said that Carlos was being watched.
Carlos looked up and frowned. “Was that the Faceless Old Woman who Secretly Lives in Our Homes?” he asked aloud.
“–243.5324.23333.87676596969691337–”
The computer is stuck droning on the series of numbers to give ‘its location’ away. An old computer like it was a stubborn thing and stuck trying to complete a command before it could say anything else. Without a keyboard to override its behavior, it’d be hard to get it to behave.
The gurgling turned into a disgusting hacking sound coming from the bathroom before everything went quiet again. Carlos could either depend on the ‘selflessness’ of a deranged AI or risk getting himself involved in could be a Night Vale disaster.
“–555.555.555.555–”
The rattling off of numbers was so distracting that Carlos went back to looking for the location of ‘Lost and Found’ again. He grew closer to the source of the noise and found a closet.
“Are you in here?” he asked the Computer as he tried the door.
“–74828.” Finally, it shut up. If it was a laptop then this kind of thing wouldn’t happen– or if it wasn’t so clunky so it could be the perfect size to be thrown into a wall. The gurgling was only getting worse as Carlos went to go look for whatever half-baked attempt the Secret Police had tried this time to keep the banned item at bay.
“ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴜᴛᴇʀ WILL DETERMINE IF THIS IS THE CORRECT LOCATION… STAND BY.”
>Aᴄᴄᴇss ɴᴇᴀʀʙʏ ᴅᴇᴠɪᴄᴇ… … … Pᴀɪʀɪɴɢ… … … Cᴏɴɴᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ғᴏᴜɴᴅ.
>Rᴜɴɴɪɴɢ ᴘʀᴏɢʀᴀᴍ HᴇʟʟᴏNᴇɪɢʜʙᴏʀ.ᴇxᴇKCHUNK. Yet another hidden camera fell victim to the machine’s malware. Thankfully this one didn’t explode but from how it dangled loosely by a single wire it’d need to be replaced. It’s a good thing that Carlos has so much favor with Night Vale or else he would have been to blame. The camera was directly in front of the door though, so Carlos’ suspicion about where it may be was right.
The door had a hastily scribbled post-it on it that said ‘Nuh-uh, don’t you even’. Flawless security.
Carlos frowned at the note. He rolled his eyes and started to whistle (though not really because he couldn’t whistle that well). As he whistled, he brought a hand up to scratch at the back of his head. However, his hand ‘accidentally’ hit the note and the paper was unstuck. It harmlessly fluttered to the floor face-down.
Carlos immediately put his hand on the doorknob and turned it, opening the closet.
There were some boxes labeled ‘writing utensils’ at his feet and just looking at them gave Carlos a lurch of longing in his heart.
No… he had plenty of totally-not-writing-utensils at home. He didn’t need to convert more.
The Perfect Scientist 