In a bright pink room decorated with pictures of trucks, a young girl awoke in her white canopy bed.

She stretched and smiled.

It was going to be another perfect day.

Nightgown fluttering happily, she hopped out of bed and spun around a few times with pure joy.

In the corner, a strange contraption beeped, and the girl cooed happily and rushed over.

A compartment in the device opened, revealing a white and pink china plate with a wholesome breakfast of pancakes and sausage, a similarly decorated bowl filled with cereal, and a glass of orange juice on a truck-embellished tray.

It was exactly what she was in the mood for!

Singing happily to herself, she collected the tray and went over to a small white and pink bistro set decorated with a small vase of flowers and started to thoroughly enjoy another perfect meal.

It was perfect, perfectly perfect.

After her meal, she returned the tray and dishes to the food machine and walked over to her nightstand.

On it was a pink button decorated with hearts.

She pressed it, and one of the walls rolled down to reveal balls, balloons, motionless dogs and cats, and other toys and animals.

She looked at the display and pondered it for a few moments.

With a happy little giggle, she selected a beautiful butterfly.

Its eyes flashed red momentarily as she picked it up, and it came to “life” in her hands.

“😊”

“Good morning!” the little girl exclaimed as the butterfly fluttered into the air and perched on her head.

She paused to examine herself in the mirror.

Perfect!

Humming a happy little tune, she walked to another wall which rolled up at her approach, revealing an empty alleyway.

She hopped out onto the street, and the wall rolled down, revealing the back doors of a nondescript box truck.

Vroom!

“Good morning, Truck-Kun,” the girl said happily.

Vroom! VroomVroomVroom!

“Why thank you!” she replied. “You ready for another fun day?”

Vroom!

“Haha! C’mon, let’s go make some street pizza!”

Vroom!

The girl skipped out of the ally and down the sidewalk of the connecting street with the white box truck quietly stalking behind.

It was going to be another great day, just like every day that had come before.

***

In that same city, a very concerned parent peeked out of the window and into their backyard with, well… concern.

“What is she doing now,” a man asked as he sipped his morning coffee.

“She’s building… something,” the woman replied.

“Is Stank… um… Is Becky with her?” Tawdry’s father asked.

“Of course,” Tawdry’s mom replied, “She’s helping her build… whatever that is.”

Tawdry’s father walked over to the window.

“What is that?” he asked. “It looks like some sort of chimney but nothing else.”

“You don’t think she’s going to burn something, do you?”

“The question isn’t whether or not she is going to burn something,” Tawdry’s father chucked, “But rather what is she going to burn.”

“George,” Tawdry’s mother asked with a quiver in her voice, “what happened to our daughter?”

“I have no idea.”

The back door flew open, and Tawdry bounced in with Stankbush following her like a big, clumsy puppy.

“Hoo!” Tawdry yelled, “Breakfast time!!! What we eating?”

“Um, Pancakes and…” her mother started to answer.

“Pancakes!” Tawdry exclaimed and then started to sing, “Pancakes, pancakes, cakes of the pan… As flat as my rack and as nice in the hand…”

“Natasha!”

“Yes?” Tawdry asked innocently.

“Would you please not sing about… hands!”

“Okay!... Pancakes, pancakes, best in the South…”

“Natasha!!!”

“Sorry… sorry…” Tawdry replied as Stankbush giggled, “So what else are we having?”

Her mother looked at the sausages sizzling away and just sighed as Tawdry’s face lit up, and she inhaled happily.

“Don’t you dare!”

“Well, you’re no fun at all,” Tawdry said as she went to the refrigerator and poured two glasses of orange juice, presenting one to Stankbush.

“So… sweetheart…”Tawdry’s mom asked with forced nonchalance as Tawdry and Stankbush loaded up their plates, “What has you and Becky up so early this morning.”

“What the hell is that out back, and how dangerous is it?” her father asked a bit more honestly.

“George!”

“It is a furnace,” Tawdry replied as she put a forkful of pancakes in her mouth. “It’s not that dangerous.”

“Why in God’s green Earth do you want a furnace?”

“To furnace things!”

“What sorts of things?” her father asked dubiously. Though it had only been a few months since his daughter’s mysterious transformation, he had already learned to check.

“I need some parts,” Tawdry replied, “So I’m gonna make them!”

“I’m afraid to ask,” her father said as he took a calming sip of his coffee, “but exactly what parts do you ‘need’ and exactly how do you know how to make them?”

“Oh, I’ve been doing this for ye… um… I saw it on YouTube?” Tawdry replied, answering only the question she wanted to answer.

“And where, exactly, did you get the stuff to make the furnace?”

“I used stuff I found lying around,” Tawdry shrugged as she cut her sausage with a fork, “That reminds me, we’re out of kitty litter.”

“What?”

“We are out of kitty litter,” Tawdry repeated. “Hey! Can I get an anvil?”

“Why do you want an anvil?” her mother asked.

“To anvil things.”

Her mother sighed. It was going to be one of those days… again…

***

In yet another part of the city, a worn and haggard man sat alone at a cheap dinette set and poked at his microwave pancakes and sausage.

He took a drink of black coffee, not really tasting it, as he stared at a corkboard on the wall.

On it was a collection of maps, newspaper clippings, and blurry pictures of a white truck…

…and a little girl…

…who had been a little girl for years.

They were back. That “girl” and whoever drove that truck had left a string of bodies, mostly teens and young adults, across the entire planet.

They were, by far, the most prolific serial killers in history. Thousands were dead in dozens of countries, all victims of a hit and run by the same vehicle, a 1982 Freightliner cargo truck. They prowled the world, never ceasing in the hunt for another victim.

It was always the same. The “girl” (or whatever the hell it was) would dart into the street in front of the truck, causing the victim to try to save the “child” (or whatever the hell it was). The truck would always miss the girl and always hit the would-be rescuer…

…and then disappear.

No matter how hard he and the countless other detectives searched, no matter how many roads they blocked, no matter how wide or how narrow they cast the net, it didn’t matter.

The truck always won… always.

And now… it was back in his city, killing his people, just as it had so many times before.

He sighed, feeling the weight of the years he had spent chasing that murderous ghost.

As he shoved a tasteless, soggy mass of what was allegedly a pancake into his mouth, his phone beeped.

There was a message.

Ugh, a goddamn Fed showed up looking for him. It was the last thing he needed today.

He grimly swallowed and stood up.

Today was going to suck, just like the one before.

***

“It didn’t use to stink like this,” Tawdry gasped as she stepped away from the makeshift crucible.

“Yeah,” Stankbush said as she fiddled with her phone. “says here that we should be using ‘respirators’ or something.”

“And you decide to tell me this now?”

“I thought you knew what you were doing,” Stankbush shrugged.

“Well, I did,” Tawdry grumbled as she tried to stay upwind of the thick white smoke starting to drift over her (and her neighbor’s) yard.

“I think that’s zinc,” Stankbush said sagely as she looked at her phone.

“You think?” Tawdry said. “Let’s just get this poured before someone freaks out about the smell.”

Tawdry quickly put on a pair of thick welding gloves and grabbed a large, rusty pair of Channellock pliers.

“It says here...”

“I know what I’m doing...” Tawdry said confidently, “...I think,” she added with a bit less confidence. She had crafted items for years, but everything was so much harder now.

She grabbed the side of the makeshift crucible with the pliers, carefully pulled it out of the furnace, and managed to carry the crucible of molten brass to a wood-framed sand mold nearby.

She started to pour...

...and the brass started overfilling almost instantly.

“Shit!” she yelled as she desperately tried to fill the vents instead, spilling half of the brass across the top of the sand.

“(cough) That could have gone better...”

“Do you think it worked?” Stankbush asked excitedly.

“Nope,” Tawdry replied cheerfully.

She was right.

***

“Well, we’re going to need respirators,” Tawdry said as she opened the mold to reveal one of the worst castings she had ever made, even as a noob. “That shit is nasty.”

“It says here that it’s pretty toxic, too. So how are you going to make those?”

“I’m not,” Tawdry replied. “If I can’t pour a simple cast, there is no way in hell I’m going to try making safety gear. We are going to buy them.”

“How?”

“By busking in the park!” Tawdry replied cheerfully. “Come on, you can work on your singing.”

“Okay!”

***

“Well, this isn’t right,” the little girl said as she looked down at a mangled young man lying in front of her...

And the disembodied spirit floating just above it.

Vroom?

“You need to go,” the girl said urgently. “I’ll try to figure this out.”

Vroom.

The truck sped away.

“Are you okay?” the spirit asked the girl as it opened its eyes.

The girl didn’t answer. Instead, she pulled what looked like a candy ring pop from her pocket and put it on.

She fiddled with it, growing increasingly unhappy as she did so.

“Connection lost?” she asked herself.

“Little girl,” the spirit said as it floated towards her, “you should be more careful.”

“Uh-huh,” the girl replied, not looking up from her ring pop. “Don’t go anywhere. This should only take a second.”

“Hey!” the spirit said a bit more forcefully, “You almost got killed!”

“Hush,” the girl said as she fiddled with her ring some more. “Four oh four, universe not found? What the fuck?”

She rubbed the ring on her shirt and tried again.

“Hey!” the spirit said as it reached for her shoulder, and their hand passed right through.

The girl absently waved the spirit off as she stared at her ring.

“What?!?” the spirit exclaimed in shock. “What’s happening?”

He looked back towards the road.

“Oh my God!” he gasped as he saw his body. “Am I dead?!?”

“Yeah, totally dead,” the girl said absently as she reached into her pocket and pulled out what looked like a cell phone.

“I’m dead?!?”

“And you shouldn’t still be here,” the girl said as she poked at the screen.

Universe disconnected.

“Oh, that’s not good,” she muttered.

“I died?!?” the spirit shrieked.

The little girl looked up with annoyance.

“Yes!” she exclaimed, “You died, and you were supposed to be isekaied, but I can’t connect to the right universe.”

“Isekai?”

“Yeah, isekai,” the girl said in a matter-of-fact tone. “We were supposed to kill you and send your...”

“You killed me?!?”

“Well, technically, Truck-Kun killed you,” the girl replied, “I’m the bait. He’s the hook.”

“Why did you kill me?!?”

“So we could isekai you, duh. But it isn’t working for some reason, so it looks like you’re stuck.”

“Help! Somebody help!!!”

“They can’t hear you,” the girl said nonchalantly. “You’re a ghost. Technically you are a ‘disembodied spirit,’ but it’s pretty much the same thing. The distinction would be lost on you, I’m afraid.”

“HELP!” the spirit cried, “HELP! HELP ME!”

“Hey, Truck-Kun?” the girl said into the phone, “We’ve lost connection to Trixx, to the whole universe, actually... No. I don’t know how that happened... No. Everything is working fine on my end. It’s just that there is nothing on their end... I don’t know either, but I think we need to stop harvesting...”

“Harvesting?!?”

“I’m on the phone!” the girl admonished. “Rude... Like I was saying, I think we need to stop harvesting until we figure out what the hell is going on... I don’t know what to do either. I guess we need to hide out or something, but we got this disembodied spirit, and I don’t want to lose them. The boss was very clear about not leaving them wandering around. No, don’t run over him again...”

“Again?!?”

“If we waste this guy for real, his soul might go to some afterlife or something, and he could rat us out. We should grab him and...”

The spirit fled.

“Goddammit, we have a runner!” the little girl shouted as she gave chase. “No. You hold position. I’ll get them.”

***

“I don’t have time for this,” the grizzled detective grumbled.

“Well, you’re going to have to make time,” his chief shrugged.

“I need to be out there trying to catch this motherfucker, not spend the day spoon-feeding some goddamn Fed.”

“And how has that worked out for you?” a young woman asked as she approached.

She looked at the police chief.

“This him?”

“Agent Smythe,” the chief said, “This is Detective Gary Martin. He has been working the truck killer case for over fifteen years.”

“And I don’t need some kid slowing me up,” Detective Martin said with a snarl.

“And I don’t need fifteen years of failure weighing me down, but here we are,” Agent Smythe replied. “Now we can waste time measuring our dicks, or we can try to catch a killer. Which will it be?”

“...”

“Conference room six,” she said as she turned and walked away. “Bring everything you have on this,” she said over her shoulder as she departed.

“Please at least try to be professional, Gary,” the chief said. “She says that she has new information.”

“They always say that. She will just get in the way, and the truck killer will get away again.”

“I hate to say it,” the chief said, “but we both know they’ll probably get away with it again no matter what. Play along, cover your ass, and we can pin this on them when it all goes wrong. It will all be over in a few days.”

“You are a real piece of work, you know that?”

“Hey, thousands of cops all over the world have been trying for years to catch this guy...”

“And the girl.”

“Yes, Gary, and the girl,” the chief said, rolling his eyes. Gary was still clinging to that insane theory about the unaging kid. Maybe it was getting time for him to retire, after all. “Anyway, nobody has ever been able to stop them. At least we will be able to tell the Mayor’s office that the Feds were in charge.”

“I don’t give a shit about the Mayor!”

“Well, I have to,” the chief shot back. “and the press, and everyone else. Now, go to conference room six, and for the love of God, don’t give them a reason to blame us.”

“You really don’t care if we catch them or not, do you?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite hear you,” the chief said with an edge to his voice, “would you mind repeating that?”

“...”

“That’s what I thought. Room six. Now.”

***

Detective Martin paused at the door to the conference room, not wanting to go inside.

This was a waste of time.

It was always a waste of time, but at least if he was out there, he was doing something. The only thing worse than doing nothing was talking about doing something.

It drove him insane, not that it was a very long trip these days.

He opened the door.

Sitting there in front of a laptop was Agent Smythe.

“Close the door, please,” she said impassively.

He did, and as he was walking towards one of the chairs, she said, “Take a seat.”

For some reason, this really pissed him off. What the fuck did she think he was doing?

With only the faintest of twitches, he sat across from the bitch, glaring at her... for a second. Then, it turned into careful scrutiny.

There was something definitely “off” about this agent.

How old was she anyway? He called her a kid because that’s what he called everyone who could still sleep through the night and not wake up in pain. But, now that he really looked at her, she really was.

She couldn’t be much over twenty-one, and she was taking care to dress “old”. Everything from her hair to her shoes was carefully selected to create the illusion of age.

Then, he looked at her eyes and felt a chill. Those weren’t a kid’s eyes. Those eyes had seen some shit...

...and they were picking him apart piece by piece. He would be damned before he said that he was scared of a little girl, but every instinct he had told him to leave that room... immediately.

“We’re taking over all aspects of this investigation on a national level,” the girl said calmly. “All local law enforcement is off the case, effective immediately.”

“Now wait just one goddamn...”

“Normally, this is where I would demand all of your notes, thank you for your hard work, and send you off to write parking tickets or whatever the fuck it is that you do,” she said.

“Normally?” he asked, leaning forward.

“Normally,” Agent Smythe said. “However...”

She opened her briefcase, and he gasped as she pulled out a blurry photograph of a little girl chasing a kitten.

“What can you tell me about this little cunt?”

***

Tawdry and Stankbush strolled through a local park and sat near a particularly lovely fountain, Tawdry’s favorite busking spot.

She opened her battered guitar case and pulled out an old, badly scuffed acoustic guitar.

She smiled as she held it. It was a beautiful (to her) and high-quality instrument, no doubt previously owned by a professional musician (or at least someone who had played the hell out of it). When she saw it gathering dust in the corner of a local pawn shop, she simply had to have it.

Soon, she was playing and singing in front of an open guitar case while Stankbush played the tambourine. As usual, they drew a crowd.

As Tawdry sang, joked, and entertained, she watched her guitar case fill with a happy smile. She wasn’t exactly sure what a respirator cost, but that was a nice pile, and it wasn’t even lunch...

“Help! Somebody, please help me!”

Tawdry stopped playing and stood, looking around.

“Huh?” Stankbush asked as she stopped shaking her money maker. (The tambourine, you perverts. Seriously. She’s fifteen. You should be ashamed.)

“Don’t you hear that? Somebody’s calling for help!”

“I... I don’t hear anything, Tawdry.”

“Does anyone else hear...”

Suddenly, a translucent figure sprinted past, screaming their head off...

...pursued by...

“You!” Tawdry hissed as the little girl ran past. “Come back here, you little bitch!”

The money and crowd forgotten, Tawdry sprinted off in pursuit of the little girl chasing the ghost.

“Um... We’re going to take a break for a few minutes,” Stankbush said nervously as she gathered up Tawdry’s hastily discarded guitar, shoved it into the case, and snapped it shut.

“Why is she chasing that little girl?” one of the audience asked.

“Oh... She... She... She stole our money yesterday!” Stankbush lied. Stankbush was never a master bard, but a former bully was quite adept at both lying and justifying aggression at the drop of a hat. “She’s just going to catch the kid and call the cops.”

“Oh,” the audience member replied, both them and the rest of the crowd satisfied. “It’s just terrible that some people let their children run wild like that.”

“Yeah,” Stankbush replied, “It’s sad when a parent...”

VROOM

“Gooble!... Gooble!” a frantic voice shrieked as Tawdry sprinted back into view...

...pursued by a very angry cargo truck!

“Goooooble!” she shrieked as she ran past, the crowd scattering before her and the angrily revving truck that tore huge ruts in the park’s lush green lawn as it tried to flatten a desperately fleeing and dodging former bard.

Tawdry could no longer outpace and outlast a prize racehorse, and her voice could no longer literally give her wings...

...but it didn’t... okay... it did kind of matter right about then.

“Goooble!!!” she yelled as she ran off, the truck in hot pursuit.

The crowd all turned to Stankbush.

“Yeah, I got nothing,” she replied.

Clutching the guitar case, Stankbush ran, chasing the truck that was chasing Tawdry.

***

“...and that’s about as far as I have gotten,” Gary told Agent Smythe. “This ‘child’ has been recorded multiple times for over twenty years without aging a day. While most of the attacks have not been witnessed, the few witnesses we do have mention that the victim tried to save a small child from being struck by the truck and was killed instead. Both the truck and the child always disappear immediately thereafter.”

“This is very useful, thank you,” Smythe replied.

“Most people think I’m crazy,” he said. “You don’t. Why?”

Agent Claudia Smythe looked at him appraisingly with those haunted eyes of hers, causing Gary to shift uncomfortably under her gaze.

“You're not crazy. You're observant,” she said after a few moments.

“You... You believe me?”

“Detective! Detective!” a uniformed officer shouted as he barged in.

“Let me guess, they’ve found a body.”

“Yeah, but that’s not it. The truck is chasing a girl around Jenkins Park!!!”

They both leaped to their feet at the same time.

“Let’s go!”

***

“(gasp) HA!” Tawdry crowed triumphantly as she stood waist-deep in the duck pond. “(wheeze) What you gonna do now, you rusty old FUCK!”

Truck-Kun revved his engine angrily as he drove back and forth along the pond’s edge.

One of his wheels spun for a second.

“Care (cough) Careful now,” Tawdry laughed, “You wouldn’t want to get stuck, would you?”

Tawdry tried not to look at Stankbush, who was doing a very bad job of hiding behind a tree nearby.

“I sure hope nobody calls the cops!” she yelled, “If someone were to call the fucking cops... NOW... You sure would have a lot of explaining to do.”

Vroom...

“Yeah, motherfucker,” Tawdry said, “I wonder how long your precious little catalytic converter would last in impound!!! Your pretty little exhaust pipe won’t last fifteen minutes in the yard!”

Vroom.

With an angry grinding of the gears, Truck-Kun drove away just as sirens could be heard in the distance.

***

Detective Martin’s car screeched to a halt at the entrance to the park.

He popped the trunk and jumped out, with Agent Smythe exiting the car half a second later.

He quickly ran to the trunk and grabbed a compact fifty-caliber anti-material rifle.

“Dang,” Agent Smythe muttered.

“I’ve been hunting that goddamn truck for fifteen years,” he said as he chambered a round, "and it is NOT getting away!"

He charged into the park with a speed that belied his years.

Agent Smythe chuckled, pulled a massive revolver from her briefcase (one that could stop a truck), and sprinted after him.

Following the destruction and the frantic directions from the few people remaining in the park, the pair quickly arrived at the duck pond, where Tawdry and Stankbush were peacefully floating on their backs, admiring the clouds.

Tawdry smiled happily.

Certain (or at least highly likely) death sucked, but you couldn’t beat the afterglow.

“You two!” Agent Smythe shouted, “Out of the pond, now!”

“Nope.”

“That’s an order!”

“Bite me.”

“It’s safe,” Detective Martin called out, “the truck is gone.”

“You think the truck is gone. My soggy ass isn’t taking any chances.”

“You can come out, or we can send officers in there to get you out and then take you to jail.”

“Is the jail truck-proof?”

“(sigh) Would you at least swim a little closer so we can talk?”

Using the backstroke, Tawdry swam to the pond’s edge and then stood up.

“What do you know about the truck?” Agent Smythe demanded.

“I don’t talk to cops,” Tawdry replied.

“I don’t have time for this,” Agent Smythe growled, “Arrest them.”

“What for?” Tawdry laughed, “Is running for your life a crime, now?”

Agent Smythe pointed at a “No Swimming” sign.

Detective Martin snerked.

“Oh, you have to be fucking kidding me!” Tawdry yelled.

***

After Tawdry and Stankbush, along with an entire SWAT team, were safely en route back to the police station, Agent Smythe and Detective Martin surveyed the scene, trying to piece together what happened.

“The ruts start here,” Detective Martin said as they stood behind the public restroom. “There’s no sign of it entering the park, either. It just appears out of thin air and then disappears right back into it! Dammit!”

“Mmm-Hmm,” Agent Smythe muttered as she carefully placed her hand on the ground near the tracks. She then pulled a large magnifying glass from her briefcase and started examining the ground.

“See anything, Sherlock?”

“Not anything immediately useful,” she replied, not looking up. “Have this area cordoned off and let nobody, and I mean nobody, near. A team of our people will handle this area.”

“We can do that,” Detective Martin said as he groaned and sat heavily on a nearby bench, resting his rifle beside him.

“You can move pretty good for an old man,” Agent Smythe said as she sat down on the bench as well.

“And now I’m paying for it,” Detective Martin laughed. “This shit don’t get any easier the older you get.”

“Tell me about it,” Agent Smythe snorted, causing Detective Martin to look at her curiously. He decided not to ask about it.

“Excuse me, Detective?” a policewoman said as she approached with a middle-aged couple behind her. “They know the girl the truck was chasing.”

“Natasha Barnes or Rebecca Hale?”

“They both go to my school,” the man said, “The truck was chasing Tawdry... sorry. I mean Natasha.”

“Tawdry?” Agent Smythe asked in surprise.

“That’s what she’s calling herself these days, and I have to say it certainly fits,” the man said. “That girl is an intense and enduring pain in my ass.”

“Really?” Agent Smythe asked with intense interest, “How so?”

“I’m the principal of her high school,” the man said. “She’s a truly remarkable young woman, but she seems dedicated to using her immense talent to create chaos on a daily basis.”

“You said that she suddenly started calling herself Tawdry recently?” she asked.

“It happened last semester,” the principal replied. “Natasha just changed overnight. She was such a good girl.”

“Oh, such a nice girl,” the woman said. “She was in my English class when the... change... occurred. It was right after she was sent to the...”

The woman leaned in close to the agent and the detective.

“mental ward,” she whispered. “They say she tried to kill herself.”

“Kill herself?” Agent Smythe asked.

“Yes,” the woman whispered, “They say she threw herself into the street...”

“Hmm,” Agent Smythe said with a smile. “And this ‘Tawdry’ is in your high school?”

“Yes, and every time I hear the word ‘gooble’, my heartburn flares up,” the principal laughed.

“Wait.” Detective Martin said, “Did your school formerly employ Officer Long as your resource officer?”

“Yes,” the principal sighed. “Poor man. How is he?”

“Not sure,” the detective shrugged, “All I know is that he left town. Can’t blame him after what happened.”

“I am so sorry about all that,” the principal replied. “She can be a handful, but she isn’t usually vicious like that.”

“I’m not,” the detective replied. “So, what can you tell us about the incident...”

***

“Okay,” Tawdry said as she and Stankbush, both wrapped with towels, sat in an interrogation room. “The first and ONLY rule when dealing with the man is, ‘Never talk to the police.’ I mean it. Don’t tell them a goddamn thing.”

“But we haven’t done anything wrong.”

“All the more reason to keep your mouth shut,” Tawdry replied. “Just because we didn’t do anything wrong doesn’t mean that they won’t try their damnedest to pin something wrong on us.”

Like a fatal hit and run, Tawdry thought to herself. If that girl and that truck were here, someone went splat.

“Oh, my dad’s going to be so mad at me,” Stankbush wailed.

“Just keep quiet and let me do the talking,” Tawdry said reassuringly as she put her arm around Stankbush. “I’ve been in a tight spot or two before. You will be okay. I will see to that.”

“You have?” Stankbush asked, “When?”

Behind a two-way mirror, Agent Smythe smiled ruefully. She could think of a few times.

She turned to Detective Martin.

“This is about to get weird.”

“Weirder than it already is?” Detective Martin asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Significantly.”

“Wha?”

“I loathe the term ‘beyond your paygrade,’" she said, "But this is about to enter ‘state secret’ territory. If you were a sensible sort, you would leave right now...”

She smiled.

“However, I strongly suspect the sort of man who carries around a fifty-cal every day is not going to let this one go.”

“Goddam right, I won’t.”

“There’s no going back beyond this point,” she said. “Do you have any family?”

“Just an ex-wife that hates me and a son that hasn’t spoken to me in years.”

She nodded.

“Alright,” she said. “Come with me.”