“Sorry about the cups. Haven’t finished the dishes since getting the last one off to school this morning.” Mrs. Joy set out tea with a thin smile and took a seat by her husband. The cup looked well-loved, more chips than paint. Sao picked it up delicately and sipped the strong blend while Rai just eyed his cup like it had insulted him.

A faded folder was sitting on the table marked with Sigma’s name in old cursive, along with a date range. Sao was surprised. 225 Judgment had admitted them so easily, to such thorough preparation, that he supposed Rai had reason to be suspicious (beyond the lack of coffee).

The morning’s surprises didn’t stop there. Sao felt somewhat rude that his eyes kept straying from the files to Rai’s outfit. Rai was trying very hard to ignore him.

“Thank you for calling ahead, Investigator,” Mrs. Joy said. “As promised, we’ve prepared what we have on Sigma. I think you’ll find everything in order.”

The file contained a summary of contents that were also reflected in the police database. Rai gave them a second leafing-through. “What were your impressions of Sigma as a kid, personally?”

“It’s been a long time. Not to mention, he hasn’t been by recently, and kids change.” Mr. Joy pondered. He sat with remarkably straight posture and delivery. Even as he fiddled with his thoughts, every sound he made sounded like a declaration. “But Sigma, aha, Sigma. Far as I can remember, he wasn’t any trouble.”

“Really,” Rai said. “I kinda recall Mrs. Joy saying he might be troubled to the point of untrustworthiness.”

“We were thinking it over after you visited yesterday,” Mrs. Joy said. “I was a bit overly disparaging out of nerves; we were running a half-hour late to the after-school activities signup and I panicked. Really, when I think clearly, Sigma was not any more trouble than anybody else. He had some learning difficulties at first and fell back a grade, but a lot of them do. He caught up fine. And Sigma came from Central, not a warzone. He got along fine in terms of culture, the struggles ended by the time he was sixteen. He had a growth spurt, he became popular. He really grew into his own by the time he was off to college-”

“Any violent impulses?”

Sao thought he saw a snort. Mr. Joy shook his head. “Sigma? Violent?”

Apparently he and Mrs. Joy thought this was sufficient.

Rai picked up the cup for examination. “Did you also discuss the question I asked about how many children live here?”

Mrs. Joy’s face was pinched. “Twelve. That’s as many as we can handle.”

Sao put his cup down; Rai was looking at him as if this thread had been for his benefit. “They’re assigned to you?”

“That is how it works. We’d never say no.”

Sao took a glance around the house. It was a faded place, everything seemed drained of color, dried out by sun or overuse, paint chipping and floors made patchy by many scrubbings with bleach. Par for the course when it came to that many children, he supposed. There was a timeless charm to places that were lived-in, but the Judgment residence seemed a bit too lived-in: hollowed out, the kind of place that had worn frail with such constant use it never had time to recuperate. The view from the window was, admittedly, dismal. It also smelled strongly of urine.

“Did Sigma ever talk about the Bell aliens while he was staying with you?”

There was an echoing sigh from both. “You know how many reporters have asked us that since he started that hotel of his?” Mr. Joy wheezed, somewhat painfully. Sao wondered if he was a smoker. It was not something he could pick out over the prevailing smells. “Sigma and three - no, four - of the other children started talking about it after that camping trip. You can probably find the story online.”

“Do you think the story he tells people about them is true?”

“It’s not my place to tell people what to believe or not. It’s like a religion, right? It’s not something we practice here but if he’s doing good for himself and not hurting anyone, what’s the problem?” Mr. Joy folded his arms and leaned back, heavily. “He did a lot better than some of the other kids who come out of Judgment.”

Sao pondered the phrase and wondered what the hell the city or the army had been thinking, naming the place Judgment. It made even the most haphazard content feel sermonical.

“Not that he’s ever bothered to come back, or even talk about us. We’re just ‘the fosters’ when you hear him in interviews. And you know what, maybe it’s better that way. We’ve got enough on our plate without tabloids and UFO chasers swarming all over. What are you hoping to find here that you can’t just ask of Sigma himself?”

Sao felt that their conversation had become more questions than answers. “We’re actually hoping to learn more about the disappearance of Desmond A______.”

A ripple passed through the couple, shaking the filmy air. 

Mrs. Joy picked at the ends of her hair. “What happened to him was horrible. Just made it worse that he had some of the kids along with him at the time. Not… blaming the poor man for anything. You just never know, with some people. It was a tragedy.”

“That he was abducted by aliens called the Greys?”

The ethereal ripple had passed and the couple were looking at him as if he were the alien.

“Investigator,” Mr. Joy said slowly, in a tone one would normally use on a very small child, “religion is allegory. Sigma may believe in this alien story, and that makes it true to him. If other people believe it, that’s their choice. But you police don’t need to take things so literally.”

“I see. What about the other children who were on the camping trip? Their individual experiences of the Greys and Bells seem to match.”

Mr. Joy blew air, venting imaginary smoke. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned after years of watching them run wild: kids are capable of more than you think. You got any kids?”

“No.” Rai smacked a hand down beside the untouched cup. “The fact of the matter here is that Desmond’s body and his car were never found. The military proprietors of Judgment District even organized the search.”

“That’s what makes it a tragedy. He clearly didn’t want to be found. Suicide, Investigator, there’s no easy solution. Desmond was once a special operative in the military. Their work makes our life look easy. He had a brave face, but...” 

Mr. Joy clasped his wife’s hand. A gesture, Sao thought, reminiscent of Sigma. But there was something imperfect to the Joys, and their grip was not for show but a way of holding a fragmenting image together. Their expressions, also fragmented, weren’t quite as practiced as Sigma’s.

“It’s best to let some things go, Investigator. If you ask around the neighborhood today, no matter how much we miss old Mr. D, we don’t want to see the body anymore. And I imagine Sigma doesn’t either, even in his memories. Sigma was always a soft boy, timid and harmless. Interested in nothing but spaceships and old movies. Whatever happened, if he saw anything, must have taken a toll on him. Definitely matured him. So in terms of truth, well, I imagine those Bell aliens - or the belief in them - really do protect him.”

Sao said nothing. Rai was still frowning into his cup.

---

“They were way, way too prepared.”

“I think they told us enough of what they knew.”

“Really? I feel like they had too much time to agree on a story to give, and what details to hide.” Rai kept fastening and unfastening his jacket button. Sao smiled and tried to refrain from asking why Rai for whatever reason he had chosen to wear his navy tailored jacket out to work that morning. He looked very modern, very tasteful, and most of all grossly uncomfortable. 

Rai jammed his hands into his pockets. “Mrs. Joy was in a frenzy yesterday when the kids were around.”

“She said she had to rush them off to a class or activity, you said? Sounds like she may not have been panicked about your inquiry on Sigma, per se.” Sao rubbed his eyes. “Handling children can be more of a hassle than you’d expect. Twelve children under that roof. Unbelievable.”

“Speaking of,” Rai said, “sounds like Sigma thought he was worse of a kid than he really was. All that talk about being a violent asshole to both kids and adults. What did his parents call him? A ‘soft boy’? Really?”

“Some people can be very critical of themselves in retrospect.”

“I still feel like the Joys weren’t telling us the whole story.”

Sao strolled down the sidewalk. “Let’s see if we can get some second opinions.”

He thought Rai was overly cautious in their approach of two elderly men who sat sunbathing on lawn chairs. The pair of loungers waved lazily, inspecting their guests behind twin sunglasses. Sao wondered if they were brothers. He took a seat on a neighboring plastic chair and asked about the weather; the recent rain; the housing situation. About the kids who they’d seen come and go from 225 Judgment. The twins (as he came to think of them) had lived there for thirty years, been disappointed by civic developments, hated the rain, and had seen a ‘healthy’ number of the kids who filtered through 225. 

“Including that famous one.”

“What’s his name? The actor. He’s got a little cult over in the city.”

“Sigma.” Sao turned to check on Rai, who had been awfully quiet. “What was he like? Any strangeness that showed you he was destined for the stars?”

“A little fussy when he first came, but they all are. Now, stars! There’s a throwback. Kid was a stargazer. Kept talking about UFOs. Of course his hobby really picked up after that camping trip, where, you know.” A bony hand waved the details off.

Sao tilted his head. “Sigma talked about aliens before the camping trip?”

“Not loud-talk, but he definitely had an interest. Walked to and from the sitter with these kiddy books about spaceships and planets. A good-looking teenage boy walking around with kindy books! Well, kids need something to get them started. Wonder where he got those pricey hardcovers though. Think I even saw him with some little figurines once...”

“I bet Desmond bought ‘em for him. The Joys never bought that stuff. And saying the kid was slow to learn to read: how do you learn when you got no books?”

Guffaws all around. Sao saw a revolver tucked into the waistband of one twin’s tropical-print shorts. Bananas and pineapples on neon green. They put him in mind of the final act to Wings of Steel, gun included.

“In your honest appraisal, what was Desmond A______ like?” Sao asked politely.

Smiles wavered. “Guy was alright. Doesn’t feel great to talk about him now, since, you know, he went missing. He was kind of a loner; not a shut-in but just didn’t have a ton of friends. Spent his time babysitting or reading up on old cars. Kids liked him, but that’s probably because any distraction was welcome when the alternative was being cooped up with the Joys all day.”

“The Joys ain’t that bad.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” 

“Sigma claims Desmond was abducted by aliens,” Sao said.

Guffaws again, but with less bombast than before. “Gotta wonder what they did see. Maybe it was UFOs, or Desmond tricked ‘em into thinking that. Sounded like shit from a kids’ imagination, I mean it was kids telling it so yeah, but all of them told the same story. One of the kids was eight, too. Getting an eight-year-old in on a kooky lie? Do you know how hard it is to get an eight-year-old to do what you want? Just ask the Joys.”

“One or two of them ended up in jail, later down the line too.” Twin #2 coughed as if he’d said something he shouldn’t. “Great time to spill some beans, get a plea deal, but nope. Hey -- think they were replaced with lil’ alien clones?”

“You’re thinking of faeries, not aliens,” snorted twin #1. “Oh, but wait, can’t talk shit like that anymore. We’ve got faeries living right across the highway.”

“So do you suspect there might be a grain of truth to the childens’ recollection of what happened to Desmond…?” Sao asked, unsure what he was hoping for.

“Nah. Whatever the kids think, Des walked or drove into the woods with no intention of coming back out. PTSD, a breakdown, long-standing depression, the like. It’s not uncommon among our folk, if you know what I mean. Not a brand new story for Judgment Southside.”

Sao couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Des had it rough, too. Me and him…”  - One twin pointed at another and Sao smiled at how they avoided speaking each others’ names - “We were combat in the North conflict, nothing to be proud of when you think about it now, but Des was in special ops. They’re a different breed.”

“Magic?” Rai asked, materializing behind Sao.

“Not just boom, fireballs, but the rare shit, the specialties that does stuff that machines can’t. Des must have been someone pretty special because he was - and I mean this nicest way possible - a sissy. Stickman, drip, whatever - no muscle at all - not a combat guy. He himself said he failed basic training. So he must have had some crazy tricks up his sleeve instead. Something useful for special ops...”

“What exactly does special ops do?” Rai had drifted closer.

One of the twins reached out to push him back. “Calm down, champ, you’re blocking the sun. Look, we can’t know for sure, but you’ve probably heard the reports, the scandals… they were calling special ops a torture squad.”

Rai finally stepped back.

“Des never talked about the stuff personally. Although, maybe he should have, eh? Doesn’t help to think about it now.”

The twins’ eyes, hidden behind the black panes of their sunglasses, were inscrutable.

“You never know when someone’s lost the will to live.”

With that ultimatum, the twins made a synchronized fall back onto their sunbeds.

---

“Alright. No, don’t mention my name. He already knows.” Rai carefully placed the phone into his jacket’s slim pocket. “HQ has Raph chained to a desk. No doubt he’s sharpening some spears to stick into me the next time I’m there.”

“I take it calling the Bell visit a ‘personal excursion’ didn’t work out for him.”

Rai only grimaced and hunkered down over the cooler of ice cream.

They had dropped into a convenience store, one block east of Judgment; Sao for some more flavorful tea to try to purge the lingering scent of urine he’d picked up in the Joys’ home, and Rai to take his phone call. It was a tiny, stuffy enclosure, the walls pale and cracked as the rest of Judgment South behind a layer of colorful snacks, drinks and medicines. There were an exceptional number of medicines.

Pallid as the walls, nearly to the point of translucency, was the young man standing behind the register. Sao smiled at him and his face reddened, though in a worrying manner; the redness seemed to pool around his eyes and nose.

The cashier’s name tag read ALF.

“Did you grow up around here?” Sao asked. They were the only customers, and the man looked about to fall asleep.

“That obvious, huh.”

“I just thought, from the name.”

“Oh.” The cashier Alf distractedly rubbed the tag. “Yeah. Alpha. First letter. Doesn't mean anything though. I was just a replacement for the last Alpha, and they got a new one after I left.”

“Ah. The names remind me - you’re familiar with the local celebrity?” Sao rifled through his wallet. “Sigma. The actor?”

“Familiar?” A faint spark glimmered in Alf’s reddened eyes. “I was a friend of his when he lived here.”

“A friend! Rai, did you hear that? Please - tell me more.”

The spark fizzled out but the redness deepened. “Uh, I just lived in the same house as him. He was a couple years older than me. He was… kind of weird at first, but later he became a really good guy. We looked up to him. He never comes around anymore, though.”

There was a tinge of bitterness in those last words. “Still, it’s quite cool to say that you knew someone before they made it big.”

“I guess so. Good for him, though. I wish I’d thought of a way to spin the alien thing to make money.”

Rai arrived, throwing down an iced coffee and an armful of ice cream cups. “You saw the aliens too?”

“Kinda.”

Rai looked like he was going to leap over the counter and wring out answers. Sao stood between them and maintained his smile. “My friend here is something of a UFO chaser.”

“Well, don’t go chasing them. You don’t know what kind of alien it’s going to be - it could be one of the real bad ones. And anyway, we weren’t looking for them. They came to us.” Alf pulled out a plastic bag for the groceries, but just held it in front of him, crinkling the plastic. “It was just once... the Grey things attacked us first, then the Bells stopped them. I didn’t really get what the Bells looked like or what they did, but the Greys...” He shuddered. “Sigma talked about all of it on TV a couple times.”

Rai snapped his fingers, obscenely loud for fingers covered in gloves. “You mean the camping trip. You were there.”

The redness had consumed Alf’s face. “First of all, it’s not just a story. Everyone I meet tells me that we made it up, and it’s okay if we made it up - like they know something we don’t, even though they weren’t there. I know it sounds… kind of crazy...”

Rai stroked the lapel of his silky jacket. “You were kids then. People shouldn’t have expected scientific proof.”

“Yeah. I was like… eight.”

“So what happened? I wanna hear it from you.”

“Me? It’s been so long, nobody ever asks me...” But he was clearly pleased to have an audience. “I mean, you probably heard it all. We fell asleep in our tents and woke up somewhere else, somewhere among the stars. They were so bright it was hard to see, but the light was blocked in the middle by this big dark shadow, kind of person-shaped but when it reached down it was grabbing all of us-” He slowly pressed a clawed hand to his arm. “It was painful, like something getting through clothes and skin.” He dug in. Alf’s fingertips were so white the nails were invisible. The redness gathering under his sheer skin made it seem as if his fingers really were digging through, “I couldn’t hear anything or see much beyond total light and total dark. It was hard to breathe. It was almost like…”

Alf’s voice faded and his papery features damped slightly.

“I don’t know. Anyway. While this was all happening, I got the sense Sigma was yelling something, somewhere nearby. Makes sense, he knew the Bells before the camping trip. They must have come to save him. There was a huge explosion and the light went orange and red and I started coughing - when I opened my eyes again, we were back at the campsite. No - a couple of feet away from the site. The four of us and Sigma. Sigma was pretty messed up, the front of his shirt was burned and he was holding the little rock things that turned out to be the bodies of the Bells.”

Sao and Rai were rapt over the product scanner. Alf let the last of his story trickle off, and blushed. “Sigma explained a bit about the Bells then, but we were kind of distracted. The guy who drove us there was gone, and so was his van. We waited until morning, then walked to the road. When the cops came, I told them the same story, and they laughed.” Alf shrugged. “Cops.”

“Yeah,” Rai said.

“That’s one intense memory.” Sao moved a few bills over the counter, a move that seemed to confuse Alf, who had his hand out to receive the payment that was now sliding underneath. “The clarity with which you remember it certainly says a lot.”

“Not enough, apparently. Me and the other guys just get laughed at, if it’s not laughing then it’s mopey poor-you whispers because they think we saw Mr. D kill himself.  Whatever we saw, it wasn’t that. And if everyone else is so sure, where’s the fucking body then?”

A bleep from the door alerted them that another customer had come in. Alf lowered his head.

“Only Sigma gets taken seriously, but that’s because he got famous. I believe in the Bells, but I’m not so sure about his mission. The Bells looked pretty dead to me, but then, they never talked to me. They talked to Sigma. And if Sigma really manages to pull off reviving them, I hope he really does get to travel with them, like he wants to.” Alf scooped Rai’s ice cream cups into the bag. The redness had retracted back into small patches around his eyes which seemed to magnify them. “Maybe he’ll find Mr. D and bring him back. Even if it’s just a body.”

“That would be some definitive proof,” Sao said. Through the corner of his eye, he saw Rai raise an eyebrow.

“Yeah.”

“Sigma wants to go to space with the Bells?” Rai asked.

“He talks about interplanetary peace now, but back at the house, he cared more about reviving the Bells so they could go on a trip to see the universe, or something. Sigma’s escape plan was one of the crazier ones, but it wasn’t completely unusual. For a lot of the kids, getting out of Judgment was top priority. The Joys aren’t the worst there ever was, but that house was just… there was never enough food, rooms, stuff. The whole neighborhood is kind of like that.”

“You’re still here,” Rai said absently, breezing past Sao’s mortified reaction. Alf grinned, weakly.

“With monsters like the Greys out there?” He shuddered, shook his head, and pushed the plastic bag full of ice cream across the counter. “I’m good. Seeya, guys. Next customer?”