The Desert Sands Towing and Automotive front lot was deserted when Chief Martinez turned in off the highway. All of the repair bays were open, revealing an empty bay, O’Connor’s black Crown Victoria, and a dented white Honda Civic with the hood up. The chief thought the place looked abandoned. A light breeze lifted a thin whorl of fine white dust to dance across the desolate driveway as the chief, Sgt. O’Connor and Mr. Paulson stepped from the air-conditioned interior to the sweltering midday heat. Banda music played faintly from the far corner of the first bay. Stepping into the shade of the garage, Chief Martinez spotted a pair of guys in the corner, sitting in lawn chairs with their lunches in their laps. Further in the back, he heard the rhythmic cranking of a ratchet, but there was nobody in the front office. O’Connor walked around front through the mechanic’s bays, to spread out the chief assumed, but watched the sergeant open the passenger side door of his cruiser and pull out the Arroyo Grande case file, also clearly marked “Top Secret” in a bold red print.

O’Connor shrugged. “Sorry, Chief.”

The chief wandered into the garage through the side door, taking a moment to check out the welding rigs and various metalworking tools that were a complete mystery to him. He was at least hopeful that somebody who worked there might know what to do about the ceramic denture partially implanted in that meteorite.

One of the guys got up from the back, short and heavy in the middle, he was dark-skinned and had rugged Southern Mexican features. He had a hard look about him as he strode across the lot, like a man who had spent some time on the wrong side of the law and knew a cop when he saw one. “¿Que pasa?” he said, teeth slightly clenched and his salt and pepper mustache bristling. By his tone, Martinez could tell that he had spent some time on the streets of LA somewhere.

“Hey,” Martinez stammered, “uh, hola.” He knew a few phrases in Spanish, but only enough to fool his Anglo coworkers. “¿Jack esta aqui?” The words were out of his mouth before he knew what he was saying.

The man with the salt and pepper mustache nodded, giving Martinez a quick once over “Oye, Jack!” the man called into the backlot. “Tienes un visitor!” he yelled.

The ratchet handle clanked against something steel, sounding like a muted gong followed by some muttered cussing. “Quit fuckin’ around, Manny.” Jack came out from the back wiping his hands on a rag. He was tall and thin with Latino features, but too young to be the owner. He might be the owner’s son or nephew.

“I noticed you had a torch and welder there. I was looking for a little metalwork.” Martinez said, quietly wondering if there was a better way to ask someone to cut a set of dentures from a three-hundred-pound metallic meatball.

Jack glanced over at his welding rig with a mock surprise. “Well, look at that.”

“Do you have a guy that can cut up a big chunk of metal?”

Jack glanced over at the two Mexican guys in the corner and shook his head at them. “I can take a look at it.” Noticing Sgt. O’Connor for the first time, Jack lost his hang-dog attitude and smirked. “Officer Moondoggie!” he nodded at O’Connor. “And how’s Gidget doin’ now, then?”

“Still on radio silence,” the sergeant said.

“Seeing the sites?”

“You make it sound like a long list,” O’Connor grumbled.

Jack finished wiping his hands on the rag and tossed it on the handlebars of a sleek, glittering green motorcycle with a fat rear tire.

“That your chopper?” O’Connor asked.

“It’s not a chopper,” Jack said flatly. “It’s a bobber.”

“I’ve been thinking about getting myself a Harley.” He glanced over at the chief. “Mary’s not a big fan yet, but I’m sure once she gets on it, she’ll love it.” O’Connor leaned back against a tarp-covered speed boat that rested up against the fence.

The chief hooked his thumbs in his waistline as if he still wore a gun belt, unconsciously countering the sergeant shooting the shit like they’d just stopped by for a beer. “So, you want to take a look at this thing?” The chief interjected, glaring at O’Connor. He stood up straight and hooked his thumbs on the waistline of his board shorts, assuming a cop stance, but in casual attire. When he tucked the neglected top-secret file into his armpit, Martinez resolved to have a serious protocol review as soon as they returned to Phoenix.

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Jack nodded. “Let’s see this metal thing you need cut up.”

Jack and O’Connor followed the chief back to the Chevy Tahoe, leaning horribly to the back left after the meteor shifted going over a dust berm. Mr. Paulson stood near the hood with his briefcase open. He had a handheld device that looked like it had been cobbled together from a few personal gaming devices. Mr. Paulson swept it around, watching blinking lights on the console. Martinez gritted his teeth. There was no easy way to explain why he needed a set of porcelain falsies removed from a ball of melted metal. The chief lifted the back hatch to show Jack the ball of metal slag.

Jack inspected it, tracing superficial rarer elements that had bent and twisted in the heating and cooling to become chaotic veins tangled on the surface. While the chief only saw a ball of metal, Jack saw knots of bundled wires and the negative spaces left by plastic components that had burned out. “Industrial accident of some sort?” Jack queried.

That suited the chief just fine. “Yeah, yeah,” he agreed.

“What line of work are you in?” Jack asked casually.

“Insurance.” The chief answered, falling back on his planned lie again and regretting it instantly. “Explosion on an oil rig. Just doing some minor follow-up investigative work.” Mr. Paulson strolled back, pointing his device at the ball of slag. The little green LEDs blinked rhythmically. Mr. Paulson shrugged at Martinez and continued to scan objects on the front lot, the gas pumps, an oil display, and the soda vending machine.

Jack didn’t seem to care. “So,” he slapped the surface of the ball with a flat palm, making a slightly suggestive spanking noise, “You just want me to crack this thing in half like a geode, or did you have something sculptural in mind?”

“Well,” the chief started, hoping that Jack’s complete lack of curiosity continued, “I need a little help with a tooth extraction.”

Austin and Jynx pulled into the parking lot just as the cops loaded into their newly re-leveled Tahoe and pulled out onto the highway headed south. That suited Jeremiah just fine. It was probably best to keep the kids with guilty consciences away from the overzealous X files cops with shitty cover stories.

For a super-secret alien investigation group, officer Moondoggie and his crew weren’t terribly bright. Jeremiah felt a strange pity listening to the Martinez guy go on about a deep-sea oil rig welding accident. He let the poor officer carry on with a long, poorly thought-out explanation of an explosion at depth and the resulting pressure at seven atmospheres, etc. Jeremiah didn’t particularly care to argue the physical impossibilities of smelting an entire sub-aquatic oil rig component at depth; he just figured that his discretion would undoubtedly be worth a few dollars. So, an oil rig accident and extracting teeth for dental identification at a truck stop mechanic shop in the middle of the California desert. Yeah, sure. That seemed legit. Jeremiah owed thousands of dollars to pad the police department's coffers for what should have been a reckless speed infraction and a punitive slap on the wrist. He didn’t mind allowing the Keystone Cops of extraterrestrial investigation to cover his ongoing victim restitution payments – especially given the fact that in his accident, the only damage was just he and the Mantis, and the police department wasn't about to pay him back for anything.

Jeremiah tossed a rag over the metal ball, now tucked under his welding table on a tiny pallet. Covering the teeth wasn’t a professional courtesy to the secret agents, he just didn’t want to answer questions from a curious tourist who happened to wander through the shop while waiting for a radiator refill.

Austin pulled the cut aluminum patch from his truck bed, checking the edges as he strolled across to present it to Jeremiah. If he was still a little upset about the beer, he didn’t show it, doggedly offering the strangely shaped sheet for inspection. Jeremiah thought it best just to let it go. Jynx, on the other hand, bounced over to the cracked plastic chair in the shade and threw her feet up on the old concrete ashtray by the front door, just as cool as if she did it every day.

“What’s up, Jynx?” Jeremiah smiled.

She nodded, looking artificially cool. “Sup,” she said, poking at the metal shingle in her lap.

Jeremiah was content that he didn’t spook her anymore. “Let’s see what you got.” He held out his hand for the patch.

Austin hesitated, apparently still reluctant to let Jeremiah start welding random pieces to the find. Jeremiah took the patch and checked Austin’s Sharpie scrawled tracing marks. A few light passes on the English wheel should give it a gentle curve. He scrutinized the half-inch lead along the edge, deciding if it was enough to tack the panel to the disk.

“I just don’t think we should mess around with it too much,” Austin said, hovering nervously nearby like he might snatch the panel back.

“Alright, that’s your vote.” Jeremiah glanced up from the sheet of aluminum. “Jynx?”

“What?” she asked, stunned that he’d addressed her.

“It’s your toy. Mind if I play with it?”

She smiled, and tilted down her pink sunglasses to look at Austin directly over the rims, repeating Jeremiah’s oft-stated thesis: “If it can be broken, it can be fixed.”