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“Was anyone going to tell me we had an alien invasion, or do I have to get all my news from Twitter like a fucking influencer?”
Fadi doesn’t bother looking up from his screen, fingers flying over the keyboard. It’s Siobhan who sighs, stands up from her desk, and stretches, wincing a bit as her shoulder gives its usual pop before managing the slightest hint of a smile for Margo. “You were on vacation, and things were pretty chaotic. Figured we wouldn’t bother you until you got back. Plus, it was over about as soon as it started. I’ve had boyfriends last longer than that.”
Margo snorts - she can’t help herself - and heads to her desk, rolling her suitcase behind her. “I was in Tahiti, not on the moon. It was what, three days ago? You could’ve at least let me know .”
“What, and ruin your last three days of vacation? Nah, girl, we let you enjoy your mai tais before you hopped in the deep end with the rest of us.”
Fadi finally looks up. “Also, it was Todd’s decision,” he says simply. “He said your skills would be needed a little later and to let you rest while you could.”
“Oh.” Well. That bodes poorly. Not quite as poorly as a goddamn alien invasion , but still not great. She’s got a lot of smoothing things over in her future, but she’s not going to borrow that trouble just yet - she’ll hear it from Todd soon enough. She tries to roll her suitcase under her desk, huffs when it’s just a little bit too tall to fit - of course , that’s just her luck today - and leaves it beside her chair, heading instead towards Siobhan and Fadi’s desks. A quick catchup is in order before she gets down to business, especially since said catchup will likely tell her what the current business is .
Evidently Siobhan has the same idea, as she hasn’t taken her seat again. “How was Tahiti?”
“It’s a magical place. Amazing mai tais. A little rocky at the end, when my flight got rerouted to Vermont and I had to rent a car and drive five hours in traffic to get here, but that’s not Tahiti’s fault.” Or Vermont’s, but given that both of New York’s major airports were currently closed, the airlines were doing their best, and at least she’d had the foresight to not fly Southwest. She rolls her shoulders, sharply cracks her neck, ignores the wince from Fadi at the sound, and taps the edge of one of Siobhan’s monitors. “What are we looking at here? I saw the public reactions, but what do we actually have? Catch me up.”
So they do.
And Margo stares . Squeezes her eyes shut. Rubs her temples. Opens her eyes again and stares some more. She’d thought seeing public accounts would prepare her for the full explanation. She had been wrong. Holy shit .
She sighs, still trying to wrap her head around everything. “So we had an alien invasion.”
“Yep.”
“That came and went in a single day.”
“Yep.”
“And now we have an alien in the basement.”
“Holding cell three.”
“The basement , Fadi, nobody calls it that-”
“Yes. Okay. We have an alien in the basement.”
“That we only found because someone Miley Cyrus’d it. ”
Siobhan snorts. “Yep.”
“And it was under that wrecking ball for a day before we got it.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“And we haven’t fed it or watered it or anything for two days.”
“Yep.”
“And it has a chunk out of its head.”
“Looks that way.”
“And it’s alive?! ”
“And seemingly unaffected,” Fadi adds.
“Oh my god,” Margo mutters, putting her face in her hands. “I haven’t had enough coffee for this yet. Tell me there’s coffee on.”
“Third pot this afternoon, and it’s almost ready.”
“ Thank you.” Trust Siobhan to keep the caffeine coming. She still calls it her coparent, even though her daughter has long since graduated and moved out of state. (Much as Siobhan hates the distance, she’s probably grateful her kid isn’t anywhere near this mess right now.)
“Do you want to see it?”
Margo snaps her head up, staring at Fadi. “What?”
“I have the camera feed.” Fadi gestures at one of his monitors, where said camera feed is definitely not pulled up at the moment. “None of us are allowed in the holding cell, but we are still monitoring it. Do you want to see the alien?”
Margo blinks. Does she want to see the alien in the basement? What kind of question is that? “Well, yeah.”
“I thought so.” Fadi’s expression flickers - self-satisfaction? Anticipation? Margo can’t quite place it between jet lag and the aftereffects of a five-hour drive - and he presses a key on his keyboard. A window pops up, and Margo stares at the feed. There’s that same glass enclosure, the one that’s been there since before she was hired, except now there’s something in it. It looks like…a brain with tentacles. An oversized block of spam with absolutely heinous teeth. HR Geiger by way of Lisa Frank.
“Squid Satan,” Siobhan says next to her, shaking her head. “Thing’s been down there for two days and I’m still not used to it.”
“That…” Margo’s brain stutters and stops. She’s supposed to have words. Her whole career is based on having words. But Manhattan was ravaged, and this thing is the culprit, and it’s in the basement of her workplace, and she just has nothing . “That sure is a thing .”
“I am told,” Fadi says in a tone that is entirely too light (and it occurs to Margo that he’s probably been watching this feed for the past two days and might be used to the sight of this thing), “it is a virulent shade of pink.”
“Put on your color glasses, Fadi.”
“I refuse. They are for wiring work and when Margo wants me to see her daily outfit in its full glory. Not for the thing that tried to eat Manhattan.”
Margo looks down at the screen. “I mean, probably better you don’t have to see its real color. This thing is a Pepto-Bismol nightmare .”
“Yeah, if Pepto tore your stomach out instead of soothing it.”
“How could it- JESUS CHRIST!” Margo had looked from Siobhan back to the screen in time to see the alien sharpen an appendage and thrust it at the glass that held it, only to have it repelled, slamming into the glass with seemingly no effect. She stares at the video feed. “And you’re sure it can’t get out.”
“As sure as any of us can be in this situation, yes.”
“ Why? ”
“Because I designed that enclosure to hold mantis shrimp,” Todd says, closing the door behind him as he enters. All three of them look up at him, Siobhan giving him a lackadaisical wave. “It’s going to need to exert a lot more pressure than that to break out, and if it does, we’ll seal the room, evacuate, seal the building, and call in the big guns. I am not taking any risks with anyone’s security - not while that thing is in the building.” There’s a beat of silence as he looks at Margo. “And on that note, welcome back.”
“Thanks, boss.” She trusts the enclosure a little more now knowing it was Todd’s handiwork, but wrapping her head around the alien that’s taken up residence inside it is still going to take some work. “Siobhan and Fadi got me caught up. Need me for anything specific, or should I be backing up Siobhan?”
Todd pauses, taking a breath and letting it out slowly, and Margo bites the inside of her lip. That little breathing exercise is Todd taking space to measure his words and think before he says them, which means the answer is not going to be a good one. The alien behind a foot of glass should be what makes her nervous, but no, it’s Todd and that measured sigh.
“I need you to start on a slide deck,” he finally says. “We don’t have all the information, so outline for now and you can input the details as we get them. We might need to defend our funding soon.”
“What? Why? ”
“Because after what happened this week, I’m pretty sure Bishop is going to make a play for it.”
The way Todd says it, Margo is fairly certain the name is supposed to mean something, but whatever it is passes her by completely-
And, judging from the sharp intake of breath to her left, hits Fadi with its full weight. “ No .” It’s a single word, but his voice still shakes in the outburst. Her gaze snaps over to him, only to see him on his feet, both palms flat on his desk, staring intently at Todd, jaw clenched-
It’s fear . The thought sinks in slowly, cold adrenaline flowing down her spine at the delayed realization. It’s masquerading as anger, but Todd mentioned Bishop and now Fadi is afraid -
“You’re out of his reach regardless,” Todd says firmly, about the only calm left in the room in spite of the sudden twist in the conversation. “And you’re a citizen now.”
“I work at a black site,” Fadi replies, tone edged and voice still shaking. “Forgive me if I do not believe the US government cares about its citizens, especially the ones who look like me.”
“Fair point. Let me be clear, then: Bishop can have you over my dead body .” Todd’s calm does not waver, but the last phrase sharpens, pointed at a target not in the room.
Fadi stays silent, eyes still on Todd, searching him for - something, Margo doesn’t know what - before he closes his eyes and sighs, tension unwinding incrementally from his shoulders. Whatever he was looking for, evidently he’d found enough of it to be reassured, if only a little. “It has been a long time since I last visited Delhi.”
“And I’m sure your family would be happy to see you,” Todd says, the sharp edge disappearing the second it becomes unnecessary, “but hopefully it won’t come to that.”
Fadi nods. A silence settles, becalmed but with uneasy undertones that won’t disperse - not with the amount of unknowns in the air, in the basement, in their immediate future. Someone should say something to ease them back into conversation, pointed in a direction a little less fraught.
Unfortunately, right now, every direction is fucking fraught , and Margo needs to know who her opponent is in order to know how to angle her pitch to best counter him. She’ll be damned if she goes in unarmed against someone who scares Fadi that much. “Okay, I’m gonna be that person: who’s Bishop?”
Siobhan points at her in agreement, which surprises her - Siobhan usually seems to know damn near everything, so Margo had assumed she’d known this too. “Yeah, I’m also that person.”
There’s another measured breath from Todd - fuck, this Bishop person is that bad - before he speaks. “Bishop and I made conflicting pitches for this site at the same time. It was always going to be xenobiology focused; the question is whether the higher ups wanted its head to be from science or from defense. My pitch was based on observation and data gathering. We already knew there was a relatively high level of yokai activity in New York City, though we didn’t know they were called yokai at the time, and the theory was that there might be an epicenter of activity either in the city or nearby. I wanted to observe and track known entities, discover new ones, chart their movements and activities, and build a predictive model for behavior and potential hot spots. It would involve a good amount of surveillance and intel, but very little direct interaction, and the model could then be used to determine whether yokai activity was largely benign or whether we needed to start thinking of implementing defenses.
“Bishop is- well, last I’d heard, he was CIA, and his methods were more…let’s call it direct . He wanted detainment and interrogation of known entities, sample taking, and possible dissection and vivisection if the case arose. As far as he was concerned, yokai were a threat, full stop, and he wanted intel in order to defeat an enemy.” A pause, and then: “He also wanted detainment and interrogation for humans involved in yokai activity: people who knowingly interacted with yokai, mystic practitioners who were a little too accurate, or just…wrong place wrong time.”
“ Fuck ,” Margo breathes, forgetting herself entirely. “And he knows?”
Fadi sinks heavily into his computer chair. “I have been on his radar for years . If he will not forget me, then I prefer him powerless to act on it.”
“So far, he has been,” Todd says, taking the conversation back up and looking at Margo. “Evidently the United States government wasn’t interested in provoking a potential war against a stateside enemy for which we had very little actionable intel, in 2004.”
Siobhan chokes and Margo stares. “Yeah, I can see why that pitch worked.”
“Bishop couldn’t.” Todd raises an eyebrow in judgment. “But he went back into the woodwork after the higher-ups chose my pitch, and we’ve been successful enough as a site that a reevaluation hasn’t come up. I couldn’t keep tabs on him after that - he could be retired or dead for all I know, and I may be borrowing trouble, but I’d rather be prepared.”
“Makes sense. I’ll get it done.” She doesn’t know Bishop personally, but she doesn’t have to in order to be willing to take him down a peg, or take his face off entirely - not after that description. “Do we have any solid information, or is it all still chaos?”
“We haven’t gotten anything from the specimen - it screamed a few times when we brought it in but has otherwise remained silent. I figured we’d give it a few days to simmer and try again - if it can’t talk, we can figure out another method of communication.” Todd has moved away from angry to thoughtful, which is a relief. “But until - or unless - we can manage that, it’s all still just chaos. Fadi, Siobhan, can you catch Margo up in the interim, see if you have anything she can use?”
Siobhan nods and Fadi straightens up. “I have been archiving images and footage posted online,” he says, pulling up what already looks to be an impressive database. “I am also working on a trojan horse to automate the process; once it has access to the device the media was posted from, it will copy the media in question to a remote encrypted database and delete it and any backups it can access from the source device, leaving us with the only copy. Much of it needs to be viewed and cataloged, but we can focus on that after the initial triage is complete. Much of what I am finding is from personal devices; the EMP from the explosion disabled power in half the borough, and security systems running on backup generators will likely not upload their footage to cloud storage until main power is restored.”
“So we have a lot of info but we’re the only ones with that info, and we also might have a little time.”
“We will once my program is finished, yes.”
“Fadi, you’re a genius.” Finding something relevant might be a needle in a haystack, but at least it’ll be possible.
“Remember your words once we are swimming in shaky cell phone camera footage.”
“Hon, you won’t let any of us forget that.” Siobhan grins at Fadi, then winks at Margo and gestures to her monitors. “Same old same old for me - just a lot louder right about now. Social media’s losing its mind, and I’m just workin’ on damage control for the biggest sources. Feeding the bigger conspiracies that’re pretty far away from what we know, and poisoning the ones that’re getting a little too close to home. Had to make five new accounts this evening just to keep track with it - once you get settled, I might pass ‘em off to you for a bit and have you fill in all that pesky profile stuff so they look more like people.”
“Let me get an outline for the slide deck going and then I’ll hop on it.” It had always been easier to follow Siobhan’s lead when it came to misleading the masses on social media. Siobhan seemed to have the perfect touch, the exact right thing to say to send people down the path she wanted them to take, but Margo was the one who could make the dozens of accounts Siobhan used for the purpose look like actual people instead of one mastermind. The details didn’t have to be perfect - just enough not to look like a swarm of bots.
“Let me know when you have an outline in place, and I’ll fill in whatever other information I have by that point.” Todd unrolls a sleeve - God knows where his suit jacket had disappeared to - and rolls it back up. “Also, I want all of you out of here by six PM.”
“What?”
“Oh hell no.”
“I just got here!”
Todd lets their protests roll over him, the way he always does, unrolling and rerolling his other sleeve until they’re done. “Fadi and Siobhan have both been here since the invasion ended three days ago,” he says matter-of-factly. “Margo did just get here, after a long drive and a longer flight. Nobody is at their best right now. Take the next hour to wrap up what you have and transfer what you need to your laptops, and spend the night at home. Get some rest, only open your laptops if it’s an emergency, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow.”
Margo opens her mouth to ask how the aftermath of an alien invasion doesn’t count as an emergency , but Fadi beats her to the punch. “You have been here every bit as long as Siobhan and I,” he points out, and Margo can see it’s true. Fadi, normally neat and presentable, is dressed in sweats and slides; Siobhan has her curls tied up under a protective wrap and has the threadbare sweater dolman she refers to as her ‘fashion blanket’ thrown over her shoulders; and Todd, normally the picture of a Government Agent, is missing both suitcoat and tie, his normally neatly combed hair a mess; to say nothing of Margo’s travel clothes (as one does not wear yoga pants to the office unless one is having a particularly rough day). They’d all been living out of suitcases and sleeping in the break room, Todd included; if he was going to give them this break, then he needed to take it himself too.
“Yeah, when was the last time you called Joelle?” Siobhan joins in, and Margo hides a smile. This doesn’t look like a battle Todd can win.
“I’ve been texting her regularly-”
“She said called ,” Margo joins in, and Siobhan nods emphatically, demanding gaze locking onto Todd.
“She called me when she and Caroline made it home safely.”
“So three days ago.” Siobhan waits until Todd finally confirms with a nod, then lays into him. “ Call your wife , Todd. Talk to her and that sweet little girl of yours. Three days is too long, especially during all this nonsense.”
“It’s-”
Siobhan steamrollers the protest. “I ain’t leaving until you call your wife.”
“None of us are,” Fadi joins in. Margo just tilts her head slightly, watching. Todd’s going to realize his defeat in three, two, one-
Todd sighs, pulls his phone out of his pocket, and hits several buttons. The ring of Outgoing Call On Speakerphone echoes in the office, until a woman picks up on the other end. “Todd?”
“Hello, dear,” Todd says, and while there’s a definite note of beleagurement in his tone, it’s easy to miss it under the affection. “Siobhan insisted I call you.”
“Hey, Joelle,” Siobhan calls, grin audible in her voice.
“Well, she’s right ,” Joelle says. “Hey, Siobhan. Honey, take me off speaker and let’s talk.”
Todd raises an eyebrow at Siobhan, hits a button on the phone, and puts it to his ear as he heads back out the door.
Siobhan’s grin has become a smirk. “Gonna make him go home tomorrow.”
“Did you and Joelle plan this?”
“Nah, I’m just that good.” She shrugs, rolling her chair out from under her desk and taking a seat. “Plus, he’s probably gonna want to get home anyway and make sure they’re okay.”
Margo heads back to her desk, eyes still on Siobhan. “Wait, why wouldn’t they be?”
Siobhan and Fadi exchange a look , and Margo knows she hasn’t been completely caught up. Whatever piece is missing, she’d just stumbled over it. “They were in the city when the invasion happened,” Siobhan says when that long look ends. “Family trip to the botanical gardens and a musical.”
“ Phantom of the Opera , evidently,” is Fadi’s addition.
“Why is a ten-year-old watching Phantom of the Opera? ” And why the hell did she just ask that - “Hang on, they got out okay, right?”
“Yeah, they were staying in the Bronx. They wanted to be closer to the garden than the theater.” Siobhan shrugs. “When the goddamn hole in the sky opened up, he got ‘em an escort and got ‘em out, and then he went to ground zero like the lunatic he is.”
“ What? ”
“Yyyyyyep.” Siobhan draws it out, popping the p at the end.
“Traffic saved his life,” Fadi says archly. “It took him long enough to get there that he missed the incursion and the explosion. Police were already clearing the area when he did arrive, so he got a containment unit, obtained the - what did you call it? Squid Satan? - and brought it back here.”
“And he told you all that?”
“Under duress,” Siobhan says lightly.
“Well, thank you for getting it out of him.” A good old-fashioned Siobhan interrogation is nothing but duress. “And we’re sure he’s okay?”
“About as okay as any of us are right now.” Fadi has already opened up his laptop and started transferring files. “I do not think ‘actual alien invasion’ was on anyone’s bingo card.”
“Closest I had on mine was ‘yokai becomes reality star,’” Siobhan says airily.
“‘Mine was ‘public disguise malfunction.’”
“And mine was ‘yokai tour group gets too rowdy to hide,’” Fadi finishes. “Not even close.”
“Yeah, where’s Area 51 when you need them?”
“The boonies.”
“The desert, actually.”
“How is that any different?”
“More sand.”
“Still too far.”
“Especially when the airports are closed,” Margo grouses. “If I’d known I was going to keep living out of my suitcase, I would’ve packed something more office-appropriate.”
“What happened to your Airbnb?” Fadi looks up from his code, concerned.
“Guy decided he didn’t want to be in the city anymore and moved back to Albany. Can’t say I blame him, but now I need to figure out a place to live and pick up the Box Full Of My Stuff from him.” That had been a fun email to get when her flight landed.
“Oh, no, guess you gotta stay with me,”Siobhan grins. “Seeing as I have that spare room and all.”
It’s a tempting offer. “And you’re sure Ciara won’t want her room back?”
“She’s settled in Los Angeles, and I definitely don’t want her back here when we got Murder Spam in the basement.”
Margo can’t help but smile. “Okay, I’ll head over after I pick up my stuff. Romcoms and social profiles tonight?”
“You know it.”
Fadi, meanwhile, has fixed Siobhan with a level look. “Murder Spam.”
“Murder Spam, Squid Satan…” Siobhan shrugs. “Pretty sure I’ll have a few more by tomorrow.”
“If you are not going to call it the specimen, can we at least standardize a nickname?”
“I dunno, I think Squid Satan’s a keeper.”
“If we’re lucky, at some point we’ll have its name.” It would definitely be an easier thing to fill in on her slide deck. Much as Margo loves the nicknames, she’s pretty sure Squid Satan will not go over well with the top brass.
“If we are lucky, at some point it will be dead .”
Both Siobhan and Margo freeze and look at Fadi. This happens sometimes - a comment that’s a little dark for the current conversation - but it’s usually Fadi failing to read the room or adjust accordingly. Judging from the look on his face, this is not that.
“Jesus, Fadi, you okay?” Siobhan’s voice drops a few notches, leaving jokes behind in favor of empathy.
That level stare from Fadi does not move. “Part of Manhattan is impassible, the casualty count is still going up, and we might have Bishop to contend with, and it is all because of this creature . I would not mourn if it were to disappear off the face of the earth.”
The silence following that statement settles uncomfortably, uneasily, like a weight too heavy on one side to balance. He’s right . For all that they have a little distance - for all that they have jobs to do and and a world to keep hidden - there’s no escaping that things could have gone incredibly badly. That an alien invasion could’ve become more than an isolated explosion. That, if worse had come to worst, they could’ve had an apocalypse at hand. That the thing in their basement, shrieking and battering on the glass, was what had caused it. That they have no idea what it is or what it wants - only that it survived a wrecking ball to the face, that it’s missing a chunk out of its head, and that that doesn’t seem to have slowed it down any. That the glass is the only thing keeping it there.
All the jokes in the world will not hide the monster in the basement, or the fact that it’s their job to lie about it to the public. Yokai mostly keeping to themselves is one thing, and a little bit of mutant mayhem can be handled; this is entirely different.
And, as it stands, they have no idea what stopped the invasion. Just guesses, and a whole lot of triage to perform in the meantime.
Siobhan is the first person to break the silence, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, the way Todd does when things are bad. “I think maybe you should come by too tonight,” she says softly. “Pretty sure that samosa place is open late, and they’ll do a delivery if the order’s big enough.”
It’s a peace offering, and a bit of comfort, and an acknowledgement that Fadi lives alone, and maybe he shouldn’t be alone right now.
Fadi sighs. “Samosas do sound good right now.”
“Alright, sounds like a plan.” Siobhan settles back and opens her laptop. “Y’all just let me know when you’re ready to go and I’ll put an order in.”
“Got it.” Margo forgoes her desktop entirely - it’s not like she’d been doing anything on it this past week - and boots up her laptop instead. All she has to do is put together a slide deck as to why they should keep their funding, after an alien invasion, with minimal information, and then help Siobhan and Fadi keep the public from cottoning on to the fact that it had been an alien invasion in the first place. No big deal. Business as usual, right? She’s done crazier things. Lower stakes, sure - it’s hard to be higher stakes than alien invasion - but still crazier.
It’s been a long day, and it’s going to be a long night, but at least they’ll have samosas.