The pasta was perfect. It had golden cheese sprinkled on top, melted to perfection. The pasta was al dente, just firm enough to reach perfection. Thick, red sauce globbed all around it— smelling of real tomatoes and garlic. Timothy adored garlic.

Timothy also adored his own hair. He cared for it faithfully each morning. It was a deep, melodious brown with hints of blonde. He made sure it was well trimmed and used a special conditioner for it.

Right now he wore it in a bun. He had a special scrunchie he used. It was bright blue, with purple spots. His younger sister compared it to Blue’s fur in Blue’s Clues. His younger sister was, in his opinion, a very strange person.

But back to the pasta. It was sitting on his table when he got back from work. He’d been craving pasta all day, and it was exactly this kind of pasta he’d been thinking of. His stomach growled.

He knew he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t eat the magically appearing pasta. It was a bad idea.

He ate the magically appearing pasta. The perfect pasta. The delicious pasta.

Leaning back, he rubbed his full stomach, sighing. He tried to rise, to toddle off to bed and sleep it off. Instead, he felt slow paralysis creep over his body.

“Yeea—!” he said, then was compelled to silence.

Coming in through the window was an imposing figure in a masquerade mask, and pajamas. She stepped down into the room. She had a razor in her hand.

If Timothy could speak, he would have screamed like a little girl.

Slowly, she approached him. She lifted the razor. Then she shaved all the beautiful hair from his head.

“There’s a baldness epidemic,” the loud man said, looking nervously from Glass to Ninja. Glass had contractor status and a temporary clearance for classified information. “We have a serial shaver. Even worse, she feeds them some chemical that makes it impossible for their hair to regrow.”

“Gasp,” Ninja said. “That’s terrible.”

The loud man looked at her suspiciously. “Are you being sarcastic?”

“No, actually,” she said, feeling her head. “That sounds awful.”

Glass nodded, eyeing the hair that had fallen over her face in messy gold waves.

“Is there any kind of pattern to the victims? Any similarities?” Ninja asked.

“Well, they all had great hair, and they were all very proud of it.”

“How did it happen?” Glass asked.

“They came home to mysterious food, apparently.” He looked at his notes. “Very good food. One victim described it as ‘heavenly, almost worth losing his hair.’ After they consumed the miracle food, they were paralyzed, and a woman in black came, wearing a carnival mask, and shaved their heads. And their hair has simply not regrown.”

“Do we have a radius for the attacks?” Ninja asked.

“Well, they’re all in Washington, but other than that… Actually, one was in Oregon. But they’re all around the Washington area.”

Glass was unimpressed— or, actually, impressed by the serial shaver. “Is that all we have?”

“No,” he said defensively. “We have a description and a mock-up of the shaver. We have no fingerprints, and no sale of hair on the black market, and no apparent reason for the hair thievery, or the need to make them permanently bald. But we do have samples of the food.”

“I’m not that hungry,” Ninja said.

Part of Glass ached to try the food, but she restrained herself. “Have the samples been chemically analyzed?” she asked.

“Yes, most of it is regular ingredients, but there are certain… unidentifiable chemicals.” He shuffled his papers. “One might even say, alien.”

“I don’t believe in aliens,” Ninja said, trying to exchange a skeptical glance with Glass.

But Glass looked dead serious. “Foreign, how?” she asked.

“Like nothing we’ve seen,” he said. “It uses carbon as its base, but it’s arranged in such a way that’s never been seen on earth.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

A slow grin spread over Glass’ face. “Aliens,” she said. “We meet again!”

Ninja eyed her temporary partner, half amused.

“So,” Ninja summed up. “We have a serial shaver in cahoots with an alien.” She smirked. “This is too good.”

As they had no solid suspects, the best they could do was catch the perpetrator red-handed. They had to find someone with fabulous hair.

They interviewed a series of people with good hair, and finally settled on Alisha, a girl with magnificent platinum blonde waves. Her hair went down to her behind. She had it in thick braids, tied with silk ribbons. It was a wonder that she hadn’t been attacked already.

They asked her permission to stay in her house that night. Ninja would stay in the house with the potential victim, and Glass would prowl outside.

This is what I was made for, Glass told Ninja mentally, when the night came, Prowling in the dark in search of aliens.

Well, according to the reports, she’s human.

She could just be humanoid, Glass responded.

She might not even come tonight.

What if she’s not even a she? Glass thought all of a sudden. Maybe in her species, the boys look like girls? Maybe they bear the children, like sea horses— wait, if they bear the children, does that make them female? How do you tell the difference between genders if you don’t define it by who has the children— wait, how do they tell with seahorses?

Maybe scientists have looked at their gametes.

Ninja knocked on the door to the house.

Alisha opened the door, her face pale. “It’s here,” she said. “The sea horses I’ve been craving all day.”

“You’ve been craving seahorses?” Ninja asked incredulously, but her thoughts didn’t lie.

Alisha blushed. “It’s that time of the month, okay? I crave weird things.”

“Right,” Ninja said. “Let me see the seahorses.”

The dish looked splendid, despite the fact that it was a bizarre entree.

Seahorses are a delicacy in East Asia, Glass commented from outside when Ninja sent her a mental image of the dish.

This isn’t East Asia. This is Washington.

Glass prowled around the house invisibly. I see someone, she thought to Ninja. In a car. With a carnival mask. I think this is her. She looks like a good cook. Making me hungry.

Is she making any move to enter the house?

She’s spying on the house with binoculars. She’s turning on the car to leave. I’ve got her license plate number, but she’s gone.

She probably saw us. She doesn’t want anyone in the way. Very precise.

I respect it, Glass thought. We should make her cook for us when we catch her.

I don’t think that’s a good idea.

“Thank you very much,” Ninja said to Alisha. “We’ll be leaving now.”

“You haven’t done anything yet. And where are you taking me?”

“Sorry,” Ninja said, “I meant I’m leaving now. But actually,” she scraped the tantalizing dish into the garbage. “There. Job done. Good night.”

In the morning, they ran the plates.

“Sorry,” Al0rFred said. “But those plates aren’t in the system. The car must be unlicensed.”

Ninja sighed. “Try running a search through the local cameras.”

Glass grinned and rubbed her hands together. “I’ve been wanting to use this legally.”

AlorFred looked at her adoringly.

She frowned. “Well, go on and use the system.”

“Right.”

They ran a description—a brown 2017 chevy bolt, license number MAN6664— through the system of cameras. They got one hit near Eddington, but nothing else.

Ninja sighed again. “Looks like she knows where most of the blind spots are.”

“Shall we to Eddington go?” Glass asked.

“Let’s send the description ahead to the police so they can be on a lookout for it.”

“Tally ho!” Glass said.

“Aye aye captain!” FredorAl said.

She eyed him suspiciously.

He’s not the shaver, Ninja assured her.

Hmph, she thought back.

They went to Eddington.