Chapter 3: Magical Aliens

Despite the generous use of air conditioning, Captain Tony Esposito wiped a pool of sweat from his brow as sheer frustration caused his body temperature to skyrocket. He tried his best to focus, but it was difficult with every phone in the station ringing nonstop, as well as both his personal and work cell. He loosened the collar of his white uniform and then ran his hands over the sides of his face before lowering them back down to his hips.

“Everyone,” he said. “Just shut the fuck up. Stop.”

He stood at the front of a large conference room in Midtown Precinct South. Eight of his best detectives, who had all been yammering amongst themselves, abruptly closed their mouths and turned to face him. Tony took a brief moment to meet each one of their gazes before shaking his head.

“Now, let me be perfectly clear with you guys, because I’m not gonna say this again. When I ask you morons for ideas, I mean things that are actually possible, okay? I kinda thought that went without saying, but apparently not, because here I am having to say it.”

“We’re trying our best, Captain,” said Detective Richard Bishop. He was an overweight, middle-aged man with grey, balding hair and a body odor that could make Satan cry. “Take it easy, all right?”

Despite being only five-and-a-half feet, Tony knew he had a quality about him that made him particularly intimidating, which while unintentional, was nevertheless something he used to his advantage when dealing with idiots. Even without raising his voice, people tended to stop and listen when he spoke to them with his no-nonsense, impatient tone. His rigid, confident posture likely contributed as well.

“You’re not trying your best,” Tony said. “If you were, you wouldn’t keep giving me this…this Harry Potter bullshit. This isn’t some X-Files episode, okay? This is the real world. So act like it.”

Tony had more to say, but before he could speak, another detective chimed in. “In Richie’s defense, Captain, his ‘aliens’ guess is as good as any right now. I mean, maybe we should at least consider the possibility that—”

“Stop. Just stop!”

Another drop of sweat pooled on Tony’s brow, and this one dripped over his nose before splashing down on the navy blue carpet between his feet. He wasn’t sure whether to snap at the two of them or give them some leeway. This was, after all, the single-most…“unique” situation Tony had ever faced in over fifteen years on the force. Never in his entire life had anything made him so confused and disoriented.

I just gotta get to the bottom of it, he told himself. Everything in this world has a rational explanation.

Less than two-and-a-half hours ago, something catastrophic might have happened. Yes, might. A profound and overwhelming national security disaster of historic proportions might have just taken place: an event of police misconduct so severe that it dwarfed anything in the department’s history. That was what could have just happened. But it also could not have happened. Why? Because, inexplicably, it wasn’t entirely clear that anything had happened at all—which was impossible, because it clearly had. Or hadn’t it?

“Let’s go over it again,” Tony said. “And then again after that. And again and again until someone comes up with something that doesn’t involve magic or aliens. This is literally our job. So stop fucking around and give me something I can actually use.”

He didn’t like having to treat his detectives like children, but his own ass was on the line since the “incident” that had just taken place had happened right on his precinct’s doorstep. The commissioner herself was grilling him for answers, and right now, he had none to offer. He needed to come up with something, anything. Even a working theory, no matter how farfetched, was better than offering his superiors nothing at all.

“Detective Bishop, walk us through everything again.”

Richard nodded. He looked uneasy, but Tony couldn’t blame him. Everyone was uneasy today. No one knew what in God’s name had just happened, and there were very few ideas of where they should begin searching in order to find out.

“So uh…like what’s been said already, we know that at about 2:37 p.m. earlier this afternoon, what appeared to be a fully outfitted swat team accompanied by a retinue of greater than thirty uniformed officers with helicopter support appeared seemingly out of thin air in front of Port Authority. This incident was witnessed by no less than five-hundred civilians, including several uniformed officers from our precinct. This is confirmed by multiple cell phone video recordings provided to us by witnesses as well as street cameras all along 42nd street. Additionally, voice recordings of the…suspects? Can we call them suspects? Or should we call them officers? I don’t really know what we should—”

“Just keep going,” Tony replied. “And for now, stick with persons of interest.”

Richard nodded. “Communications of the persons of interest broadcasted on our own frequencies that we picked up suggest that multiple parties were involved in some kind of hostage situation, even though none of the armed officers who were actually inside Port Authority at the time reported anything unusual at all taking place. And actually, Captain, every few minutes, I get another statement from someone on duty at the time, and they’re all saying the same shit: there was nothing at all going on inside PA at the time. If anything, they seem to say it was quieter and calmer than usual.”

It was at this point that a brief but stunning silence came upon the room, and Tony was sure that everyone present, including himself, felt the same sensation of disquiet in the pit of their bellies. This was the fifth time in an hour they’d gone over this part, and he’d felt a lump form in his throat each time.

“So, yeah, so…” Detective Bishop wet his lips. “So anyway, at 2:48 p.m., exactly eleven minutes and eight seconds after the appearance of these persons of interest, both video recordings and witness testimony all confirm that each and every person of interest completely vanished, along with their vehicles, weapons, and even the police helicopters patrolling above. This happened all at once and without any detectable pause in any of the videos taken or any appreciable flashes or distortions of light or scenery. They just…vanished.”

Yet another silence came upon the room. Tony decided to break the quiet before things became too uncomfortable and awkward.

“Look, guys,” he said to them. “I know this is fucking nuts. I do. Believe me—I do. But there’s a reason why things happen. There’s always a logical explanation. I don’t expect us to know much of anything for at least a while, but we have to think of something—at least something for now. The media is already demanding answers, and while this is only first starting to go viral social media, it’s only a matter of time before this thing gets out of control. The videos are just too insane. This will be a disaster for the entire department if we don’t get ahead of the narrative here. So give me something, guys. Anything.”

Tony lifted his hands in a gesture of desperation at the eight detectives, who sat at a long, oval-shaped glass table, which was covered in notes, documents, and laptops. Towards the back of the room, the youngest—and most promising—of his detectives decided to speak next. Despite being in her twenties, Detective Pricilla Ruiz had already solved more cases in her first three years than some of his older guys had solved in the last ten. When she decided to speak, Tony briefly felt something akin to hope arise within him.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Maybe this was some kinda really high-tech stunt,” Detective Ruiz said. “You know, like from those people…Improv Anywhere?”

“Improv Anywhere?” both Tony and the detective sitting to Ruiz's right asked in unison.

“Yeah,” she said. “You know? Those funny guys that get on the subway in their underpants every winter? They do flash mobs where they play pranks on New Yorkers. They’ve been doing it for years. They’re all over the internet. Just check YouTube and you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

Detective Richard Bishop raised his finger and nodded enthusiastically. “Oh yeah! I know who you’re talking about. Those guys that started singing in the middle of Grand Central? My wife loves those guys. They’re great. But wait, you think they could’ve done this?”

Priscilla shrugged. “No idea,” she said. “But they’ve done really impressive work in the past. Then again…I think those people are pretty um…I think they’re pretty big on not doing anything illegal or dangerous, and this doesn’t seem like the kind of thing they’d get up to.”

Tony felt his expression sour on his face. “Yeah, not a great theory,” he said. “I mean even if there is some kind of high-level stagecraft that could cause a swarm of people and vehicles to vanish in the blink of an eye, don’t forget there were several helicopters, too. Speaking of which, are we absolutely, one-hundred-percent sure we can rule out, with absolute, total certainty that no one from this precinct was involved in this shit?”

Detective Ruiz gave a firm nod. “Captain, I’ve quadruple checked. The only officer from our precinct on the scene was Officer Jason Brody, who according to both witness and video evidence, pulled up in his squad car two minutes before the vanishing took place, and he’s just as thrown off by this as we are. He claims to have been completely uninvolved, and there is no reason to doubt him, especially since he’s still…well, you know, ‘here’ with us.”

Tony wiped yet another bead of sweat from his face and then closed his eyes for just a moment. When he reopened them, he raised his arms in confusion. “This just doesn’t make any sense. I don’t even know…I mean I don’t even…where do we even start to look for an answer here? At what point do we need to call in a fucking scientist?”

None of his detectives—not even Detective Ruiz—managed to offer him any guidance. They simply looked back at him, some with a note of compassion, but most with a weakened expression and with the color drained from their face. This was really something spectacular and terrible all at the same time.

“Captain…?”

“Yes, Detective Bishop?”

“I know you’re gonna get pissed off, but please just—”

“No!” Tony snapped, pointing angrily at him. “I don’t want to hear about aliens or magic or any more supernatural bullshit. I’ve told you: enough of that!”

To Tony’s surprise, Richard snapped right back at him. “Well, I’m fuckin’ sorry, Captain, but I can’t pretend I didn’t see what I saw. We all saw what we saw. We all heard what we heard. Those weren’t our guys out there. Those weren’t our police helicopters. So I’m just trying to help, okay? I mean, shit! Unless you can think of any rational way that over forty fuckin’ people could just like…pop into existence and then vanish…I dunno, man, I just think we should put everything on the table.”

Of all things, Tony laughed out of pure, utter frustration. “Jesus,” he said. “The media is gonna be banging down our doors any second. This spectacle is already trending on Twitter. What am I supposed to tell the commissioner? What am I supposed to say to her?”

“I don’t know, Captain. I’m sorry.”

“Do we at least have any hits on facial or voice recognition yet?”

“Nothing on voice,” Richard said.

“What about the stuff they were talking about?”

Richard cocked an eyebrow. “You mean the ‘Xanax Crew’? Nah, Captain. We didn’t turn up anything on that.”

He spoke as if it were obvious—as if literally anything about this were obvious and open to natural assumption. The smugness he detected in Detective Bishop’s voice irritated him, but for the moment, he decided to ignore it. Instead, he refocused his attention on the visual side of things.

“What about facial recognition?”

At this, Detective Ruiz added her voice, though there was something odd in her tone, something…dark almost, and it became gradually darker as she spoke. “I actually just got a text from Alberto down in video forensics. They’re not going to be done for a while, but they have some preliminary data that…no, what? Hold on.”

She had her cell phone in her hand, which was slightly trembling, something he had never seen from her before. She shook her head and mouthed the word “no” followed by “what” as if in disbelief. She then moved her phone closer to her face as if to reread something on her screen a second or perhaps third time.

“Detective Ruiz? Priscilla? Hello? What’s going on? Speak, please.”

She lowered her phone. Her brow furrowed, she met his gaze, and then she said, “I’m not sure I’m understanding correctly or if this is a typo or something. So far there are no matches, but…and I don’t know if this…it’s possible maybe I’m not understanding what they’re trying to tell me, because if…let me just text them back and make sure I know what I’m—”

“Just spit it out, already,” Tony demanded. “What’s going on?”

“Okay. It appears, at least if I’m reading this correctly, that several of their faces changed, and that’s why they’re having such a difficult time with the recognition software. They’re gonna try using a different algorithm to match the—”

“Wait, wait!” Tony shot in. “Back up a damn second. Did you just say their faces changed? What does that even mean? What do you mean their faces changed? Explain.”

“I mean some of them had one face, and then a few minutes later, they had a different face. Like, that’s just what Alberto’s saying so…I’m just telling you.”

Absolutely baffled, Tony held his palms out at her. “Whoah, whoah. You’re not making sense. Are you saying that their face”—he pointed to his own face as if for reference—“actually changed. As in, I’m standing here as me, and then a few seconds later, I look like Detective Palo over there?”

“Captain, you should only be so lucky,” the detective in question quipped, barking out a laugh.

This earned him a few chuckles from some but mostly looks of annoyance as Detective Ruiz nodded in confirmation. “It’s just a text message, but that’s what they seem to be saying.”

Tony breathed a long, troubled sigh. Then he walked towards the oval table, pulled out a chair, and sat down, resting his forehead in his palms. “Detective Bishop,” he said, speaking only slightly above a whisper. “Tell me your theory again about the aliens.”

****

“Sir, I’m sure there’s no reason for the FBI to get involved,” Commissioner Fatima Mirza said, becoming more apprehensive by the second. Too much was happening at once, and it was a struggle just to keep up. What was supposed to be an easy, brief day before a much-deserved vacation had just turned into a nightmare from hell.

“I understand, sir. But why involve the FBI? We don’t even know yet if this was an attack or just some kind of prank or if it even—”

Just then, her office phone rang, and she blew a sigh of relief. “Please just hold on for one moment. One of my captains is calling me right now. Maybe I will have more information for you in a second.”

She spun around in her office chair so fast that her hijab nearly slipped off her head. “Captain Esposito. I was expecting your call ten minutes ago. Tell me what’s going on? This is spiraling out of control.”

“We…don’t know, Commissioner. We have no idea. I’m sorry.”

“What do you mean you have no idea? It’s your job to know!”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. We’re still working on it. I’ve got every available unit chasing leads and reviewing evidence. But we’ve got nothing right now. No explanation at all.”

“Not even a working theory? At least give me something plausible, Captain. It doesn’t have to be right: just plausible. A direction to go in. Something!”

“I’m sorry. I’ve…we’ve got nothing.”

“Then what should the department tell the press?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you’d better think of something, because I’m having you brief them.”

“Fatima!”

“Tony!”

“Do not throw me out there like bait.”

“Someone has to do it, and it can’t be me. Think that’s unfair, explaining this to the press? Do you think I have it any easier? I now have to explain to the Department of Homeland Security why untraceable, unidentifiable, helicopters bearing the NYPD insignia were flying over restricted airspace completely uninhibited using what, in their words, not mine, was ‘unprecedented stealth technology.’ Between the two of us, you have it easy. They think I let some kind of military attack helicopter from the future fly over Manhattan. So don’t complain to me, Tony.”

“But I don’t even know what to say. I literally have no idea what—”

Fatima hung up before the detective had finished speaking. She had no time or patience. Something inexplicable and dramatic had just taken place in her city, and with each passing second, the chorus of questions grew louder: from the press, from the government, and from people all around the world who were logging onto YouTube or Twitter and seeing something that, at least so far, no one could explain.