“Can I help you?” a young police officer said as the pair entered the station.
“I’m Agent Black. This is Agent McCoy.” He held up his badge. “FBI. We’re here to talk to the young men responsible for the incident at Fowler’s Field.”
“And a woman,” the officer said.
“The report said only three people were involved,” Agent Black said, taking a sheet of paper from a folder and looking at it. “Tim Lar, Paul Yellowstone, and Jack McMire.” Agent McCoy just raised an eyebrow.
“That’s right, but Jack’s a woman. Well, a girl. A tomboy, really. Her full name is Jaqueline, but we all call her Jack.”
Black frowned. “You might want to put her full name down on future reports.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, sir.”
There was a long pause.
“Well?” Black said.
“Oh, right. They’re in the interview room, just back there.” He pointed to a door at the back of the station. “Surprised to see feds out here for some high school prank.”
“When you stop using acres and start using square miles, it’s not a high school prank anymore.”
Three miserable looking teens, fourteen years old at most, sat on one side of the table. Their heads raised in unison as the agents walked in the room. A moment of confusion passed before the kids realized what strangers in suits meant.
“We didn’t do anything!” one of them said, standing up. This had to be Jack, Agent Black thought. She only looked feminine in contrast to her companions. If you put her with a bunch of girls, most people would probably mistake her for a boy.
“Sit down,” McCoy told her. She obeyed instantly.
“Does that make you the good cop?” one of the boys said, looking hopefully at Agent Black.
“We’re FBI, not cops,” he said. “We don’t do the good cop, bad cop routine. We’re actually here to help you.”
“Yeah, right,” the other boy said.
“Are you Tim or Paul?” Black asked.
The teen tried to stare defiantly, but he trembled a bit too much. “Tim. Why?”
“Because, Tim, when I tell you to take the chip off your shoulder, I want to know who I’m talking to. We didn’t come down here to throw a few delinquents in juvie. So I’ll make you a deal. If you actually managed to do this, just tell me how you pulled it off, and my partner and I will walk out that door. We won’t tell anyone what you said, and you can go back to dealing with Deputy Barney out there.”
Tim blinked uncomprehendingly at him.
“Reference’s too old,” McCoy said.
“Yeah, I get it,” Black snapped back. “The point is, you’ll have one less thing to deal with. So what happened last night?”
“I don’t know, man,” Tim said. “I just woke up in the middle of Fowler’s Field with Paul and…” He trailed off, his cheeks flushing as he looked at Jack. Her face also turned red and she gave a murderous look at Tim.
McCoy’s pen scratched loudly on his notepad in the silence. “Woke up, naked, in corn field,” he muttered to himself as he wrote.
Black had to fight not to smirk. “Were you drinking the night before?”
“No way!” Tim said.
“I’m not going to report you if you were.”
“No alcohol. No drugs. Nothing, man.”
Black looked at the other two for any reaction. They looked frightened, but not particularly guilty, and he found himself believing them.
“Were you together the night before?”
“Together like, together together?” Paul asked, his face still red. Jack punched him in the arm.
“Let’s do this the simple way,” McCoy said, not looking up from his notepad. He pointed at Paul with his pen. “You. What’s the last thing you remember from the night before the incident?”
“I dunno.”
“Try harder.”
Paul frowned in concentration. “I remember eating dinner, cause Mom was mad at Johnny – that’s my brother – for playing video games when he should’ve been doing his homework.”
“That’s a start,” Agent Black said. “What happened after that?”
“I went up to my room, and studied for the test… I think… I remember looking out the window.”
“What did you see?”
He closed his eyes. “I… I don’t know. I don’t even remember what made me look out the window in the first place.”
“Hey,” Jack said, suddenly, “I did, too… I think. I was studying, and there was… a noise or a light or something…”
“How about you, Tim?” Black asked.
Tim shook his head. “I don’t remember anything like that.”
“Well, it’s something,” Black said, more to himself than the kids. A thought struck him. “I don’t suppose any of you have heard of All-Tech?”
“Who?” Paul asked.
“Nevermind.”
McCoy let out a quiet chuckle. “Couldn’t be that simple.”
“Had to try,” Black said with a shrug. He turned back to the teenagers. “Think. Did you notice anything unusual that night.”
“You don’t think it was aliens, do you?” Jack asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.
“I don’t have enough information to speculate at this point.”
“That’s not a ‘no’, is it?” she said, staring down at the table.
“I’m sorry, but until I find a way that three teenagers could flatten that much corn in a single night, I can’t rule anything out.”
“What happens to us now?” Paul asked.
“I’ll see about getting you three released so you can go home. It looks like we’ll be investigating here a while.” He slid a card to each of the teens. “Call me if you remember anything else.”
Once the agents had left the police station, Black turned to his partner.
“It couldn’t really be aliens, could it? We’ve seen some weird stuff, but… aliens?”
“Well, we know one thing,” McCoy said.
“Oh?”
“If it is aliens, they’re remarkably cliché.”
Promptly Writing 