MIDNIGHT_DISPATCH.EXE (Part 1)
It is night. You are driving.
> look
It seems like nobody’s cleaned out the truck in a while. Fat yellow wedges of light flicker over old coffee cups, a pair of work gloves on the passenger seat, and a rusty tool kit on the floor of the cab.
> look out windshield
Yeah, you’d better pay attention to what you’re doing. It’s pretty dark out there though.
> turn on high beams
Light from your headlamps glimmers off the icy road. Beyond their bright circle, the highway’s two lanes fade rapidly into the blackness. Noticing the centerline flitting beneath your tires, you correct course with a nudge of the steering wheel.
> look dashboard
The needle on the speedometer hovers just under 65. The odometer’s glowing green counter slowly ticks up towards the 200,000 mile mark. This old but reliable 4-door utility pickup has some years on her, but she still runs okay.
The dashboard itself has the boxy, molded plastic look common to trucks of this vintage. Additions made by the station mechanics include a control box for the top-mounted emergency lights and sirens, and the 2-way radio in place of a normal AM/FM set.
A small digital clock above the dash reads 6:59 PM.
> turn on lights and sirens
While that sounds amusing, you’re not currently responding to an emergency, which would constitute a violation of local ordinance 62799 § 03-22-81.
> pick up radio handset
You lift the handset. To talk, you can press the button marked “push to talk...”
> push to talk
...after you dial in a frequency. Perhaps you want to speak to Dispatch?
> tune radio to dispatch frequency
Done.
> push to talk
You give your call sign and wait for someone to come back. A crackle of static resolves into the familiar voice of Denise, the dispatcher.
> say hi to Denise
“Hi yourself.” she responds. “You make it over to Woodlawn yet?”
> ask Denise about Woodlawn
“Lost again, huh rookie? You’re making me glad I turned down Mitch’s bet earlier.”
> ask Denise about bet
“5 would’ve got me 10 if you had made it all the way there without calling in, but I ain’t that kind of sucker!” she laughs.
> ask Denise where Woodlawn is
She reads out directions to Woodlawn fire station, where you’re supposed to be headed. “Now, look here darlin', just tell me that the chief's little thank-you gift is still intact."
> ask Denise about gift
“El jefe told me to tell you he stuck a tracking device on that booze, in case you get any funny ideas...”
> inventory
You are carrying:
wallet
cell phone
pack of Wrigley’s Doublemint gum
folded-up piece of paper
> look paper
You reach inside your pocket and take out the piece of paper, unfolding it against the steering wheel as you drive. On it are written concise directions to the Woodlawn fire station. (Those would have saved you a little embarassment a few moments ago!)
> look for booze
Where do you want to look?
> open glove compartment
You open the glove box. An assortment of small items - notepads, pens, old maps, packets of instant hand-warmer - falls out as your truck goes over a bump in the road.
> look under seat
You feel around under the seat. Your hand touches what feels like an old McDonald’s bag; there’s something inside that could be wrinkled-up french fries, but you don’t really want to investigate.
> look in back seat
Craning your neck around, you see two packages nestled against each other in the back seat. One is a greasy cardboard box that contains the spare pump the chief had to beg off Woodlawn’s captain last week, when Engine 2-1’s impeller shaft finally wore down. You’re supposed to be returning it, along with the second, smaller box, which contains fine brown liquor.
Denise is on the radio again, beginning to sound nervous. “Quit playing, now, the truck ain’t that big - come on back?”
> confirm possession of booze
The radio exhales an exaggerated, metallic sigh. “Thank heaven for small favors. All right, kid, buzz off. I got a stack of reports to sign off on or you know who’s neck’ll be in the ringer.”
> tell dirty joke to Denise
You make an inappropriate remark about ringers and other anatomical features that are apt to get caught therein. Denise snorts back a chuckle for your benefit. “Let me remind you of rule number one, my friend: official channels are for official business only, elsewise the business is what you’ll get!”
> invite Denise to ditch work come drink booze
“That's a negative copy, ” she replies. “You’re breakin’ up. I think we got some kinda lunar flare activity messing with the reception. Midnight sunspots and what have you. You call us when you’re on the way back, kay? Should be cleared up by then - Dispatch out.”
Denise is all right. Ever since you moved here to take this post three months ago, you sort of both took a shine to one another, which made fitting in a whole lot easier. It was nice to find someone you could be comfortable around right off the bat.
>drive to Woodlawn
You drum your fingers on the wheel as you cruise, tires slipping soundlessly over a ribbon of empty blacktop. Your sense of motion comes mainly from the glow of streetlights smeared against the windows; otherwise you might as well be floating, another bright dot fixed against the night sky, one more tiny constellation making its slow turn through the void.
Suddenly the radio wakes up with a sharp burst of static. Denise is back on, but her playful tone is gone, flattened between the blunt edges of brevity codes.
“Utility 2, Dispatch, 10-10, over.”
> answer radio
You give your location as requested. Immediately she comes back, “Reported 10-21 near Lakeview Airport. Can you check it out?”
10-21 means a brush fire, which in this case might be the first indication of a plane crash. You just passed the little airport a mile or so back. It’s technically closed after dark, but they leave the tower beacon and runway lights on all night for emergency landings.
You're just driving the station's little utility pickup, but there's a full trauma kit in the back. Out here in the middle of nowhere, you’re bound to be the nearest unit around.
> drive to airport
You key the mike and identify yourself as responding to the call.
“10-4,” Denise responds, as you flip on the lights, brake, and pull a 180 on the dark deserted road, then gun the engine and speed off into the night.
> ask Denise about fire
“Got a phone call from someone who lives near the lake,” she replies. “Something about a bright light in the hills. Might be a light aircraft botched an emergency landing, or somebody ran out of gas. Tower frequency is 103.5, but doubtful they’d be staffed at this hour. Can you see anything yet?”
Rounding a turn, you spot the beacon of the little tower, green and white strobes glancing off the dark snowy plains and the flat, black mirror of the lake. No other lights, no fires that you can see.
> report nothing in sight
Just as Denise acknowledges, you hear a flurry of tiny trills in the background, like every phone in the office is going off at once. “Wait a sec there, amigo,” she tells you.
A moment later, the radio’s alive in your ear again. This time you’re merely a footnote to a litany of units. “10-60 to Whitcomb Air Force base. A military aircraft crashed north of the shoreline. Probable high casualty, possible release of hazardous material.” Denise’s voice is controlled, but tense. The airbase sits only a mile or so from the little private airport, but on the opposite side of the lake, the northernmost tip of which curves around a series of high rolling hills, shrouding it from your view.
“Utility 2, Dispatch, you copy that?”
> drive to airbase
You inform dispatch that you’re on your way to the crash site. The response is immediate. "Utility 2, Dispatch. Recommend you 10-2.” Denise is telling you to head back to the station. “This is a probable HAZMAT situation, you don’t have gear.”
> tell Denise no
You promise Denise you’ll keep back from any actual crash site, but having a pair of eyes on the scene, even at a distance, could prove useful to the mob of rescue vehicles now en route.
“Utility 2, 10-4, and watch yourself out there.”
As you gun the accelerator, the radio chirps and sputters with responses from other units. This kind of thing could go to a general alarm in a hurry. For a HAZMAT situation, the whole South Lake rescue zone is bound to get activated.
The low rumble of some distant sound begins to claw its way over the background hum of your engine. Something’s approaching your truck, and about to overtake you.
> look in mirror
There are three red lights hovering in the frame of your rear-view mirror. They seem to be getting closer, and the noise increases in volume as the lights draw nearer.
> roll down window
You frantically work the lever with your left hand as the thudding roar reaches a crescendo. You stick your head out, the chill night wind catching you full in the face, and twist your neck up just in time to see a flight of three helicopters buzz your truck. Their dark outlines hug the ground as they churn through the blackness. You pull your head back inside, and watch a trio of red tail lights winking in concert with the thrumming of the rotor blades, as the choppers fade like phantoms back into the night.
> follow helicopters
You can’t see them anymore, but they appeared to be following the same highway you’re already on, leading to the base.
> drive to base
There seems to be nobody else on the highway, so you gun the old V-8 as hard as you can, whipping past the little airport onto the road that runs round the lake and over the hills towards the base.
Suddenly the radio breaks in again, but this time it's all hisses and whispers, a cacophany of strange voices.
> answer radio
The voices are not saying anything that you can understand.
> change frequencies
You switch to the dispatch’s secondary frequency, but can only pick up an awful howl like rushing wind, which grows louder, then cuts out all at once. You fiddle with the knob, trying to to keep your eyes on the road, but you can’t seem to resolve a signal.
Outside, the blackness seems to be deepening, closing in around you. The beams of your headlights stab out into the night, revealing nothing before they falter and fade, consumed by the dark. Just then a single road sign catches your eye, and - shit! you've almost missed your exit.
> decelerate
You slam on the brakes, feeling the old truck shudder with the sudden reversal of inertia. It seems to barely respond no matter how hard your feet stamp down. Fucking piece of junk! you think, radio doesn't work for shit and the brakes are shot.
> take exit
You take the turnoff at the last possible instant. Rounding the bend in the lakeside road, you begin to climb the small hilly path that leads to the base. Over the dim outline of its slope, you can just barely make out a whisper of light. It might be a fire in the distance, but instead of an orange glow, it looks almost cool, a white-blue fog licking the backs of the dark mountains.
You hear Denise’s voice come over the radio. She’s asking you to pick up. But she sounds strange - her voice is almost pleading, and that same howling sound echoes faintly the background.
> answer radio
You tell Denise that you think the crash site is coming into view. Might be a pretty big chemical fire; it looks like something's burning a weird color. You inquire as to how far behind the other units are.
There is no response.
> repeat
You give your observations again, demanding more stridently this time to know where the hell everybody is.
Denise finally comes back, but something about her still doesn’t sound right. Her voice is off, but in a different way this time. Flat, disaffected, far beyond the range of crisis professionalism.
> ask Denise about crash
In a voice as calm as concrete, she tells you that it was all a mistake. The military claims it was a false alarm. The alert has been called off; all units stand down.
For a minute, your brain locks up in confusion, thoughts overridden by the hissing of tires on snow.
> tell Denise about blue light
The situation is resolved, comes the atonal reply. Military units are en route. Acknowledge that you will 10-2 immediately. This time there's no doubt - her voice is definitely wrong. She sounds - sluggish? That isn’t quite the right word. Glitched out, is more like it. A bad feeling starts slithering around in your stomach.
> ask Denise about helicopters
There’s a long, venomous silence. Disregard. Report ETA.
The road ahead forks, the left hand path taking you back around the lake, and the right going over the hills in front of you, towards the source of the light.
> go right
You watch the glow on the horizon vanish as you take the ascent, burying your truck in the shadow of the incline.
> dial tower frequency
Desperate for information, you dial the ATC frequency for the little airport, now a mile or two behind you, and demand to know if there's been a crash. You’re surprised to get anybody on the line this late at night, but the controller tells you - in yet another voice caged by brittle, digital static - that there is no emergency.
> tell ATC about crash
You explain through gritted teeth about the alert, the fire, the HAZMAT roll-out. The controller tells you that he needs to keep this frequency clear for communicating with aircraft. He gives you a phone number to call if you have any other questions, biting off his syllables in jagged shards.
You tell him you're going to call the tower at the military base and see what they have to say. The controller doesn't respond for a minute. When he does, his tone is low, growling, interference crawling over it like a nest of roaches. He advises you in the strongest possible terms not to do that. The radio clicks off.
> dial airbase frequency
Unfortunately, you have no idea what that is, and Dispatch doesn’t seem likely to provide you with that information at present.
Suddenly you're over the rise. You can now see the hillside bathed in light, and a blue, unearthly radiance emanating from the surface of the lake. You can't quite make out the source, but it looks like it's moving. Wobbling in place, somehow. The dim line of the horizon seems to pulse and bend like the back of a breathing animal.
> stop truck
You brake to a halt in the middle of the highway. Just then, the light begins to gyrate rapidly, intensifies, strobes and shadows throwing into relief the outline of the grass field beneath it. You realize that it's both much closer and much larger than you thought.
Whatever it is gets brighter, and the air starts to feel hot - you hold up one arm to shield your face - and then in an instant the light and heat vanish in a gust of wind. A deep rumble resonates from the ground up through your boots to ring in the hollow of your chest.
> look light
You look around, then up into the sky, trying to see where it went, but there is nothing.
> take out cell phone
You are holding your phone, which, surprisingly, also seems to be dead. You’re sure the battery was charged up when you left the station, but...
> wait
You sit, surrounded by darkness and silence. Even the lake is hard to make out now, not much less than an afterimage. You scan around for the lights of the air base in the valley below, the control tower, the city that should be easily visible in the distance beyond, but can't make anything out. You start to shiver. That crawling unease has solidified into a definite but nameless fear, slowly uncurling in your belly.
> leave area
You go to put the truck in reverse, only to find the engine has died and will no longer turn over.
> exit truck
You open the door and step out into the night. The world is so still and utterly black that you feel disoriented, floating, bounding from one step to the next like a diver on the floor of the ocean.
> look
The hills around you have turned silent and dark. The ghost of a breeze stirs the pebbles by your feet. Turning to look back the way you came, you’re startled to see that path is blocked by a huge, white fire truck parked across the road.
> walk to firetruck
Your footsteps are soundless as you approach. It looks brand new, almost perfectly clean; not a speck of dirt or scratch is visible. It also has no markings, no insignia, like it was just driven out of the factory, except that it's definitely not a new model, either. From the round lights and smoothed-over angles of the chassis, you'd guess it was easily fifty years old.
> examine fire truck
It’s hard to see any more from this distance. You’ll have to get closer.
> walk closer and look inside fire truck
You cautiously step up on the running board and peer through the windows, but there’s nobody inside.
Just then, a voice addresses you by name.
> look voice
You jump back and see there's a man sitting atop the long white ladder stowed on the top of the truck. He's wearing the trousers and boots from a set of turnout gear, dark grey nomex with reflective yellow highlights, red suspenders over a plain black t-shirt.
> greet man
You raise a hand in a tentative wave, trying not to look as startled as you feel. He nods at you, hooking his thumbs under the suspenders. His hair is jet black, swept back from a prominent widow's peak. His skin is extraordinarily pale and his eyes are like two stones of polished mica, aquamarine and liquid.
He swings around on his perch and descends the side of the truck. You can see how tall he is, spindly legs and arms working the rungs as he climbs down. After a few seconds he is standing in front of you, looking directly into your eyes.
He speaks with a slow, strained cadence, his lips stretching carefully around each syllable, like a tourist stumbling over unfamiliar words in a phrasebook.
"Got a vehicle problem? I could give you a lift."
> talk to man
You can use the SAY or ASK commands to interact directly with the characters in the story. (Just sayin’.)
> ask man What are you doing here?
He nods toward you and your whole getup. “Same as you, I expect.” His face is a strange confluence of angles: a boxy jaw sloping into sallow, sunken cheeks, a harsh nose with flared nostrils, thin lips, and wisps of greasy, jet-black hair that glint in the light of a moon that doesn't exist. His voice, though low in tone, has a strange, lilting quality, like he's making up a song.
> say Did you see the light?
“Dunno what you mean, friend.” You start to get upset again, but the way he just hovers there, leaning weightless against the bulk of the firetruck, is unnerving. He reaches into the pocket of his uniform, pulls out a cigarette. He offers it to you.
> refuse
He shrugs and lights up. The sting of tobacco smoke pierces the cold night air. The ember at the tip glows as he draws and exhales, a cloud of blue smoke hanging between you in the silent dark.
> ask What precinct are you from?
He smiles at you, his eyes strangely luminous. He tosses the cigarette aside, stamping it out with the heel of his boot. “I’m with special branch,” he says, reaching inside his coveralls to produce a folded leather wallet, which he hands to you.
> take wallet
You have the wallet.
> open wallet
The slick black case is cold to the touch. It contains some form of ID, although you...somehow you can’t make it out. It’s certainly a lot more...substantial than the laminated paper card you carry around in your own wallet.
> look ID
It’s funny, but whenever you look at the ID, nothing really registers, though you have the distinct feeling that what you saw confirmed the man’s words and your suspicions were relieved. You can even remember the general arrangement of symbols on the document: a picture, an embossed sort of card with personal details, an official seal of some sort. But as soon as you look away, the details seem to evaporate from your mind.
> give wallet back to man
“You hang on to that for a bit,” he says, and stretches his long, spindly arms as if just waking from a night’s sleep. “Man oh man, what a night. I could go for some coffee, he says. How about you? I know a good place not too far from here.”
> say yes
“Hop on in,” he replies, already climbing into the cab.
> enter fire truck
You pull open the door and haul yourself up into the passenger’s seat. As you settle into the chair, listening to the diesel-rich murmurning of the engine, a strange feeling begins to overtake you. You’re aware of motion, but not its origin or duration; the night closes in around you like a tunnel as the man pulls out on the highway. The constant yellow centerline begins to dim, until it seems like the truck is gliding over an endless sheet of black ice.
> look stars
Trying to regain your bearings, you peer up at an empty vault of infinite black. Not a single star is in view.
> ask Where are we going?
“Coffee,” replies a bodiless voice like snakes writhing, scale hissing against scale...
posted May 07, 2021
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