Fairy Tales Can Come True

A well-dressed man with chiseled features carrying a leather briefcase eases into the lobby of the Collinwood Building. Flashing a business card, he smiles congenially at Lon Lynch, the husky security guard quaffing a Big Mac at the front desk.

“Hmm. Falstaff Advertising. I’ve heard of being a good employee, but you’re going the extra mile,” Lon jokes. “Your office won’t be open for another two months. In fact, none of the offices are open yet.”

The man sets his briefcase down next to the desk and asks, in a refined tone, “How many people are in the building now?”

“A couple hundred people are working on finishing the offices, but that’s about it.”

“Tell them to leave.”

Lon chuckles nervously. “Did Evelyn of Rockville Design put you up to this? She said she’d get even with me for flirting with her.”

The man looks at his watch. “It’s eleven-fifty-five. You have five minutes to evacuate the building before it explodes.”

“WHAT?”

Flashing a pleasant smile, the man heads toward the door.

“Wait! Is this a joke?”

The man’s calm, cultured voice echoes throughout the barren lobby.

“You’ll find out in five minutes.”

Lon vaults out of his comfortable chair to chase after the man, accidentally kicking the briefcase.

His hands shake as he reaches for it.

“Here’s a chance to be a hero or a zero,” he says, opening it.

It contains a single sheet of paper with a message.

YOU NOW HAVE FOUR MINUTES. MOVE!

Lon sets off the fire alarm, yelling into the intercom, “EVACUATE! EVERYBODY OUT OF THE BUILDING, NOW!”

Fire trucks, police cruisers, and unmarked F.B.I. cars quickly surround the building.

A robot bomb detector moves toward the front entrance.

Standing on the corner two blocks away, the man looks at his watch.

A deafening explosion shocks the passing pedestrians. Fearing a terrorist attack, they dive for the pavement.

With a horrific roar, the building collapses into itself.

The man smiles proudly at the nearby CCTV monitor, then confidently strides down the street through a cloud of grey ash.

                                               ***

Manhattan F.B.I Director Rashod Bateman addresses the assemblage of anxious agents. Short and squat, the hard-bitten Bateman is hellbent on bringing the bomber to justice.

“The initial report from the bomb squad indicates this was a deliberate attack.”

“Was this an act of terrorism?” an agent asks.

“It’s a working theory,” Bateman growls. “The security guard thought the bomb was in the briefcase the suspect left at the desk. It was a sick delay tactic. The bomb squad determined that a dozen bombs had been planted in strategic areas in the building the night before. We’re lucky he didn’t wait a few more months to strike when thousands of people would be in the building.”

“Anything on CCTV?” an agent inquires.

“A camera two blocks from the scene captured a man posing for the camera. It was like he wanted to be seen.”

                                               ***

Bateman calls Agent Kelly Kwan into his office. A sinewy 5’ 7” Asian American with a bowl haircut and dark, probing eyes, Kelly is known and respected for bringing down the Wo Yung Yee, a ruthless drug-dealing gang working out of Chinatown that dabbled in the occult.

“There’s someone here I want you to meet,” Bateman smirks.

Bateman points to a young, gangly man waiting by Kelly's desk in beige corduroy pants, a wrinkled checkerboard shirt, and granny glasses.

“Who’s that geek?”

“Your new partner, Cosmo George,” Bateman replies.

“Aw, come on, Rashod. What did I do to you to deserve this?”

“He’s with the Extraordinary Bureau of Investigation.”

“The E.B.I. are a bunch of nut bags wearing tin foil hats who think the world leaders are aliens.”

“Judging by the state the world is in, they may be right,” Bateman replies.

“Can’t one of the junior agents squire him around?”

“I thought you’d want to. He says he knows who the bomber is.”

                                               ***

Looking at the photo taken from CCV TV, Cosmo declares, “He goes by the name of Thunder.”  

“Single-named people are so narcissistic. So where can we find him?”

“He used to be with the Tazians.”

“Is that some sort of cult?”

“You could say that. Thunder was a mathematician and a scientist. Everything was black or white to him. Joy, sadness, violence, and love were all foreign to him. He couldn’t process being exposed to so many emotions at once. He began having violent thoughts, so he was supposed to be sent home, but he ran away. He’s on his own now.”

“Sounds like you studied him.”

“While the Tazians were studying us, we studied them.”

“Who are the Tazians?”

“The Tazians have been among us since the dawn of humanity, observing us. They’re a gentle race and have helped humanity anonymously whenever possible.”

“Okay, I need a good laugh. Let’s say they’ve been around longer than Jesus. How come no one’s ever encountered one?”

Cosmo hesitates to respond, sensing Kelly’s skepticism. “They can disguise themselves to look like humans. It’s like a form of hypnotism. They look like your Uncle Frank, but their real appearance is reptilian.”

“I don’t have an Uncle Frank,” Kelly replies. “You I.B.E. spooks and your far-out beliefs are hilarious. I need to conduct a real investigation, Cosmo, because next time Thunder strikes, he may not give a polite warning and kill someone.”

“You need to understand he’s an exception to the type of criminals you normally deal with. We wouldn’t know who the Tazians are at all if one of them, Lana Turner, hadn’t been mugged in Chelsea three years ago. When she was brought to the hospital in a coma, she had no pulse, her breathing was shallow, and in place of blood was a substance resembling sap.”

Kelly folds his arms. “And I’m the sap for listening to you. Lana Turner, who was her doctor, Al Pacino? So, where’s your phony alien woman now? Is she in the Museum of Alien History?”

“Aw, you’re pulling my leg. There’s no such thing,” Cosmo replies. “Lana was also highly radioactive. Fortunately, her type of radioactivity isn’t harmful to humans. She quickly emerged from a coma within a few hours that should have left her a vegetable for the rest of her life. A day later, she seemed completely healthy…”

“Except she was radioactive enough to power a nuclear submarine,” Kelly taunts.

“Lana told the police she was a Tazian and that she and her people were here to study us.”

“That should have earned her a ticket to Bellevue’s psych ward.”

“She would have been sent there, but one of her doctors believed her and contacted us. But disappeared before we could interview her.”

“Of course. Any other deathless information about the Tazians?” Kelly asks.

“They don’t like mirrors. It cancels their illusion of being human and shows their true appearance. One more thing. This is classified E.B.I. information. Don’t tell anyone.”

“Don’t worry, Skywalker. Your secret is safe with me.”

“You’re not taking me seriously,” Cosmo says.

“If you were talking to anyone else in this office, they’d make sure you got Lana’s bed in Bellevue. My Grandmother used to tell me stories about the Eight Immortals, a group of ancient heroes who fought against evil. Your Thunder even sounds like Li Tieguai. He was considered to be mentally disturbed, but he was an expert in medicine and went around easing the suffering of the sick and needy. But the Eight Immortals are fiction. What we do here is serious. Thanks for entertaining me, Cosmo. Maybe your kids will appreciate your fairy tales about the Tazians, but I haven’t got time for them.”

  ***

Thunder approaches a security guard on the dock having a smoke near the cruise ship Brittanica.

“Wow, that’s one impressive vessel.”

“Over two thousand feet long. It’s the largest ocean liner in the world.”

“So, where’s the fuel kept on a ship like this?” Thunder asks in a courteous tone.

“Near the engine room. Why do you want to know?”

“So, I can destroy the ship.”

The guard reaches for his walky-talky. “Calling for backup! Brett, Alan, Stevie… Come to the pier!”

“I don’t want to kill you to get on board, but I will,” Thunder says.

The guard reaches for his pistol. Before he can raise it, Thunder snatches it from him. Dropping it, he crushes it under his shoe.

By the time the trio of guards reaches the dock, the other guard’s dead body lies on the pier, his head nearly twisted off his shoulders.

Within half an hour, the Brittanica is ablaze from bow to stern.

Asleep in his apartment twenty blocks away, Kelly is awakened when the ship explodes.

                                               ***

“Thanks for asking me to come back,” Cosmo says as he and Kelly review the dockside security footage.

Lifting security guard Brett Winters over his head, Thunder snaps his back, oblivious to Alan O’Dell hitting him in the stomach while Stevie Stone pulls at him from behind.

Tossing Winters’s broken body in the water, Thunder repels O’Dell, shoving him so far backward that he disappears from the screen. Thunder’s move to grab Stone by the neck happens so quickly that the camera can’t detect it. All Kelly and Cosmo can see is Thunder squeezing Stone’s head in the crook of his arm, cracking it like a walnut. As Stone falls to the dock, Thunder smiles, stalking O’Dell, who is killed away from the camera’s eye.

“He’s escalating. He’s willing to kill now,” Cosmo notes.

“Wouldn’t that be against the Tazian’s beliefs?”

Cosmo removes his granny glasses, nervously wiping them clean with his sleeve. “It’s against everyone’s beliefs, isn’t it?”

                                               ***

Cosmo is startled to find Dawn DeSica and Heath Hunter, two fellow agents from the E.B.I., waiting for him in his apartment.

“You should know better than anyone else that Thunder can’t be stopped using conventional methods,” Dawn says.

“The F.B.I. will interrogate Thunder and put him on trial, starting an alien invasion panic. I think involving them was a mistake. But there is a way you can still control the narrative.”

Heath gives Cosmo a small device slightly bigger than a TV remote control.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a tracking device made from Tazian and American technology. Good hunting.”

                                               ***

Kelly looks questioningly at Cosmo’s device. 

“Are you trying to call home, E.T.?”

“It’s a tracker. It can locate Thunder’s radioactive signature.”

Kelly looks warily at Cosmo.

“Don’t be paranoid; there’s no setting for humans… At least not yet. And this is the only device in existence.”

“So, how did you wind up with it? Did you win it in a poker game with a Klingon?”

“It was Lana’s. It was with the belongings she left behind when she escaped from the hospital,” Cosmo replies. “The device can’t pinpoint his location if he’s indoors or in a car, but I assure you it works.”

“So where is he?”

“I picked up his signature this morning when he was in the parking lot of the Radisson Hotel in Lower Manhattan. His next location was a truck rental company on West 34^th Street.”

“So, he either stole or rented a truck,” Kelly surmises.

“His last location was the Pump You Up Helium Company on East 60^th Street.”

“Let’s see if he’s still there.”

***  

Kelly taps Art Airey on the shoulder. The corpulent owner of Pump You Up Helium is frantically filling tanks with helium and is sweating through his ill-fitting Motley Crew T-Shirt.

“Busy day, it’s the Macy’s Day Parade, you know. I’ve got to get these tanks to the vendors selling balloons.”

Kelly flashes his badge, showing Airey a picture of Thunder.

“Dapper Dan? Yeah, he was here about half an hour ago.”

“For helium?” Kelly asks.

Airey takes in Cosmo’s nerdish appearance.

Astonished, he asks, “You work for the Feds?”

Kelly waves the picture in Airey’s face. “Focus. Answer the man’s question.”

“No. He bought hydrogen. I tried to tell him that it was dangerous to fill a huge balloon with hydrogen, that it could explode, but he shrugged it off.”

                                               ***

Kelly presses his foot down on the accelerator.

“I feel we’re playing ‘Where’s Waldo.’ He’s always a few minutes ahead of us.”

A red light on top of the tracking device begins to blink.

Cosmo checks the reading. “You were right. He’s on 77^th Street near the American Museum of Natural History. But why?”

“That’s where they fill up the balloons for the parade,” Kelly replies. “My instincts tell me he’s going to fill one with hydrogen and blow it up in the middle of Manhattan.”

                                               ***

Kelly and Cosmo rush past massive balloons depicting Donald Duck, Bart Simpson, and dozens of other cartoon characters. Reaching the end of the line, Kelly points at a group of men filling up an alligator balloon.

“Who paid you to add this balloon to the parade?” Kelly shouts at a wide-eyed man with a Fu Manchu mustache.

He points at a dashing man smoking a cigarette a few feet away.

“He did,” Fu Manchu says.

Thunder turns around, flicking the cigarette at the balloon. He takes off running.

Kelly dives for the cigarette, catching it before it hits the balloon.

Kelly rises from the pavement, tossing Cosmo the car keys. “I’ll chase him on foot. You catch up!”

Calling Director Bateman, Kelly gives his location and requests backup as he chases after Thunder.

Pedestrians gasp admiringly at Thunder and Kelly’s blinding speed as they zip past them. Turning a corner too sharply, Thunder slams into an old woman selling flowers, knocking her to the pavement and scattering her buckets of daisies.

Bouncing to his feet, Thunder helps the woman up and brushes her off. Reaching for his wallet, he puts a hundred-dollar bill in her hand.

“That should cover the damages. Pardon me!”

Seconds later, Kelly pauses to look at the daisy carnage.

“Which way?” he asks, breathless.

“Straight ahead. Good luck. He’s a real track star.”

Cosmo pulls up in the car, and Kelly jumps into the passenger seat.

Thunder sprits down the street, his figure a blur.

Kelly checks the speedometer as they blow through a red light, trying to catch up to Thunder.

“If we’re driving fifty miles per hour, how fast is he running?”

“Believe in the Tazian’s now?”

“And the Eight Immortals. I guess fairy tales can come true.”

A trio of F.B.I. agents round the corner, blocking Thunder’s path. Thunder knocks them aside like bowling pins. One agent manages to latch onto his jacket. Thunder drags him for another block before the officer loses his grip, careening into a garbage can.

A child skips out of a bodega. Thunder slams into the girl, bouncing her diminutive body across the pavement.

Holding her skinned knee, the girl cries out in pain.

Kneeling, Thunder comforts her.

Cosmo pulls the car onto the sidewalk, blocking Thunder’s path. He rushes to Thunder’s side. Pulling out a small hand mirror, he holds it in front of Thunder, who shies away.

Kelly leaps from the car, pointing his service revolver at Thunder’s head. Seconds later, a phalanx of F.B.I. agents surround Thunder, who rocks the girl in his arms until she stops crying.

Kelly stuffs Thunder in the back seat of the sedan.

“Don’t hurt him!” the girl cries.

The radio squawks. An agent on the other end requests an update.

Kelly sits down in the driver’s seat to answer the call. He glances at the rear-view mirror as he informs the agent that the situation is under control.

A green-skinned reptile with jagged teeth and bottomless eyes looks up at him.

Bounding out of the seat, Kelly looks in the back seat.

He sees Thunder’s handsome features again, his eyes reflecting defeat.

A large SUV with tinted windows arrives on the scene. Dawn DeSica and Heath Hunter exit, striding toward Kelly.

“We’ll take it from here. Come with us, Cosmo.”

“Who are you clowns? He’s my collar!” Kelly protests. “Where are you taking him?”

Dawn shoves her E.B.I. badge in Kelly’s face.

“The man said we’ll take care of this. Thunder is going to be a guest at E.B.I. Headquarters.”

Kelly fumes as Heath, Dawn, Thunder, and Cosmo drive off.

                                               ***

Kelly’s car screeches to a halt in E.B.I.’s parking lot. He shows his I.D. to the woman at the front desk, quietly entering the interrogation room.

He’s momentarily distracted by the large full-length mirror in the corner of the room.

His mind registers that agents DeSica and Hunter are talking to a pair of green-skinned reptiles.

Unconcerned with Kelly’s presence, Cosmo turns Thunder toward the mirror.

“He comforted that little girl,” Dawn notes. “That has to count for something.”

“It doesn’t make up for the four lives he took,” Cosmo says.

Thunder manages a kindly smile. “It’s all right, Cosmo. I wanted these people to pay for ruining their world. Instead of being the solution, I became the problem. Seeing that girl in pain made me realize it.”

Cosmo presses his hand against the back of Thunder’s head. Thunder mews with resignation as his reptilian body begins to fade, disappearing.

“What just happened?” Kelly asks Cosmo.

“Tazian justice,” Cosmo replies.

“And you’re one of them.”

“The mission’s leader,” Cosmo replies, moving to shake Kelly’s hand. “Sorry for the deception, but we needed your help to catch Thunder. We’re suspending our research. I believe the phrase ‘Goodbye for now’ sums it up.”

Cosmo faces the mirror. Kelly glances at Cosmo’s reptilian image, preferring to look at his human illusion.

Cosmo enters the mirror. A webbed, green hand pokes back out, dropping Cosmo’s granny glasses on the floor before being sucked in.

Frost forms on the glass. It cracks, leaving shards of glass on the floor and an empty frame.

“What do I tell my boss?” Kelly asks. “What do we tell the world?”

“Case closed,” Dawn says.