A Momentary Lapse Of Reason

Station Management

Summary: Carlos receives some advice from one Steve Carlsberg, Cecil and Natalia bond over ink and station management threaten the life of everyone at the radio station.

"That's it. I can't take it any more."

Ellie looked up from her microscope. The clump of hair under it had come from, supposedly, one of the spiderwolves that had run through town last week on a drunken rampage.

"What's wrong, Carlos?" She asked.

"My hair. I'm getting it shorn. All of it has to go. I'm sick of it."

"Seriously?"

"It's been too long for at least a month. And I want it gone." He blew another strand of curly hair from his eyes.

Ellie just looked at him and said, completely deadpan, "Cecil will be devastated".

"Cecil does not get a say."

"But he'll be so upset."

"ELLIE."

She giggled and turned back to her hair sample. "You're gonna make him sob." She muttered with a smirk.

"There's a barber down southwest 5th street. Go there." Jeffries offered. "The guy who owns it gave me a great trim last Friday. His name's Telly."

"Thanks, Brent." Carlos glanced at Ellie. It was only half-angry.

"Right. That's settled. I've got that exploding jelly problem under control for now so....if it's okay I'll head there now?"

"Yeah, we're good here. We'll call you if there's anything."

Actually, there was one more thing that Carlos wanted to study today...but it would involve going somewhere he was still trying to avoid. He turned to the intern who was having a tea break in the corner of the room.

"Natalia, how do you fancy expanding your physics skills today?"

"Sure. What did you have in mind?"

~

Carlos' hair fell to the floor around him in curls. Natalia was giving him a curious expression.

"You okay?" Carlos said.
"Yeah. Just trying to get my head around the fact that after this, I'm going to be seeing a 'hovering cat'" She made air quotations.

Carlos chuckled. "Scientifically speaking, it's the best description for it."

"That cat couldn't be in a worse place." A man getting his hair cut on the other side of Carlos said suddenly.

"What?" Natalia said.

"The radio station is a conspiracy." He said very seriously.

"Sorry, who are you?" Natalia said, arching an eyebrow and jumping down from where she'd been sat by the mirror to walk over to him.

"Steve Carlsberg."

Natalia paused and furrowed her brow, as if she'd heard the name before somewhere.

"Why is it a conspiracy?" Carlos turned slightly to face him.

"There are dark forces there. And then there's my step-brother."

"Sorry, WHO?" Natalia said.

"Cecil. He's meant to be the voice of our community and all he does is tell government-fed lies to us!"

Carlos blinked.

Natalia just snorted. "Yeah, right. Cecil says some weird shit, sure, but c'mon, he seemed nice to me."