The interrogation room at Tides PD had never felt smaller. Kyla sat in one of the hard plastic chairs, still wearing the maintenance uniform, watching the clock on the wall tick past midnight. They'd been here for three hours, and Chen had barely let them speak.
Josh sat next to her, also quiet. Every time he tried to explain about the portal or the fragments, Chen held up a hand and told him to wait. They'd given statements separately first—standard procedure—and now they were together, waiting for Chen to decide what to do with them.
The door finally opened. Chen walked in carrying a thick folder and two cups of coffee that he set down in front of them. He looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes and his tie loosened.
"Okay," he said, sitting down across from them. "I've talked to the Messenger—real name Vincent Cross, by the way. I've talked to Dr. Edmund Price. I've talked to the mayor, building security, and about fifteen other people. And you know what? Nobody's story makes any sense."
"Sir, we can explain—" Josh started.
"Can you?" Chen cut him off. "Because Cross is claiming you two assaulted him and destroyed valuable scientific equipment. Price is rambling about dimensional physics and alien invasions. And you two are saying you stopped some kind of portal to another world from opening." He leaned back in his chair. "Do you understand how this sounds?"
"Crazy," Kyla admitted. "It sounds completely crazy."
"Yeah. It does." Chen opened the folder and pulled out photos—pictures of the basement room, the dead fragments, the symbols on the floor. "But here's the thing. I've been a cop for twenty years. I've seen a lot of weird stuff in this city. And I've learned to trust my gut. And my gut says you two aren't lying."
Kyla felt a flicker of hope. "You believe us?"
"I didn't say that. I said my gut thinks you're not lying. Big difference." Chen pulled out another photo—this one showed the moment the portal had been opening, captured on a security camera. The image was grainy and distorted, but you could clearly see the tear in reality, the blue energy crackling around it. "Security footage from the mechanical room. The cameras mostly failed when whatever that thing was appeared, but we got a few frames. That's not something you can fake."
Josh leaned forward to look at the photo. "So what happens now?"
"Now? Now I have a decision to make." Chen set down the photo. "I can file official reports about what happened tonight. Detail how two of my officers broke into City Hall, assaulted security personnel, and destroyed property. You'd both lose your badges, probably face criminal charges."
Kyla's stomach dropped. Everything they'd done to save the world, and they were going to lose their jobs anyway.
"Or," Chen continued, "I can write this up as a successful undercover operation that led to the arrest of Vincent Cross and Edmund Price on charges of trespassing, conspiracy, and possession of stolen property. The glowing rocks become evidence in an ongoing investigation. The weird portal thing becomes classified due to national security concerns."
"You'd do that?" Josh asked, surprised.
"If—and this is a big if—you two can convince me that what you did was necessary. That there was no other way to stop whatever was happening." Chen folded his hands on the table. "So convince me. Start from the beginning. And this time, don't leave anything out."
So they told him everything. The burglaries, finding the first fragment, Webb's confession, discovering Dr. Price's journal, tracking down Professor Hoffman, the plan to stop the portal. All of it. Chen listened without interrupting, his expression unreadable.
When they finished, the room was silent for a long moment.
"Professor Sarah Hoffman," Chen said finally. "The geology professor who disappeared last year. She's alive?"
"Yes, sir. She's been in hiding, researching the fragments." Kyla pulled out her phone. "I have her contact information. She has years of research that backs up everything we've told you."
Chen took the phone, looking at the number. "I'm going to need to talk to her. Officially." He stood up. "Wait here."
He left, taking Kyla's phone with him. She and Josh sat in silence, too tired and anxious to talk. Through the door, they could hear Chen making phone calls, his voice muffled but clearly agitated.
"Think he'll really help us?" Kyla asked quietly.
"I don't know. But at least he's listening." Josh reached over and squeezed her hand. "Whatever happens, we did the right thing."
Kyla squeezed back. "Yeah. We did."
Twenty minutes later, Chen returned. He set Kyla's phone on the table and sat down again, looking even more tired than before.
"I just had a very interesting conversation with Professor Hoffman. She confirmed your story, sent me some of her research data." He rubbed his face. "I also called in some favors with people who work in... let's call them specialized government departments. People who deal with things that don't make it into normal police reports."
"Like interdimensional invasions?" Josh said.
"Like unexplained phenomena. Turns out there's a whole division that handles this kind of stuff. They're very interested in what happened tonight." Chen looked at them seriously. "Here's what's going to happen. Cross and Price are being transferred to federal custody. The fragments—what's left of them—are being collected by specialists. This whole incident is being classified."
"And us?" Kyla asked.
"You two are being given a choice. You can go back to regular patrol, pretend tonight never happened, and never speak of this again. Or..." Chen paused. "Or you can join a special task force. A unit that investigates cases like this. The weird ones. The ones that don't fit into normal categories."
Kyla and Josh looked at each other, surprised.
"A special task force?" Josh repeated. "For supernatural stuff?"
"Not just supernatural. Unexplained. There's a difference." Chen pulled out two folders from his briefcase. "Turns out Tides has a history with this kind of thing. Strange disappearances, impossible occurrences, cases that went cold because they couldn't be explained with normal logic. Someone needs to investigate them. And after what you two pulled off tonight, someone thinks you'd be good at it."
"Someone?" Kyla asked.
"People above my pay grade. People who don't officially exist." Chen pushed the folders toward them. "You don't have to decide right now. Take these home, read them over, think about it. But I need an answer by tomorrow afternoon."
Josh opened his folder, scanning the contents. His eyes widened. "These are real cases?"
"Every one of them. Unsolved. Filed away because nobody could explain what happened." Chen stood up. "Look, I'm not going to lie to you. This job would be dangerous. Probably more dangerous than what you faced tonight. And you'd have to keep it secret from almost everyone. But you'd also be helping people, stopping threats that nobody else even knows exist."
Kyla looked at the folder in front of her, then at Josh. He looked excited and nervous at the same time, the same way she felt.
"Can we talk about it?" she asked Chen. "Just the two of us?"
"Of course. Take all the time you need." Chen headed for the door, then paused. "For what it's worth, you two did good work tonight. Unconventional, reckless, and completely against protocol. But good. The city owes you, even if they'll never know it."
After Chen left, Kyla opened her folder. The first case file was about a woman who claimed her reflection started moving on its own. The second was about a house where time seemed to run backwards. The third was about shadows that moved when no one was looking.
"This is insane," she said.
"Yeah." Josh was reading his own files, equally bizarre cases. "But also kind of amazing? We'd be investigating real mysteries. Helping people with problems nobody else would take seriously."
"We'd also be putting our lives on the line constantly. Tonight could have gone so wrong. We could have died, Josh."
"But we didn't. And we saved a lot of people." Josh closed his folder. "I know it's scary. But isn't this why you became a cop? To help people? To make a difference?"
Kyla thought about her father, about the stories he used to tell about helping people, making the city safer. Would he be proud of what she'd done tonight? She thought he would be.
"I need air," she said, standing up.
They left the interrogation room and made their way to the roof of the police station—a spot officers sometimes used for breaks. The city spread out before them, lights twinkling in the darkness. Somewhere down there, people were sleeping peacefully, unaware of what had almost happened.
"It's beautiful," Kyla said, leaning against the railing. "The city, I mean. When you're up here, it's easy to forget about all the bad stuff."
"But the bad stuff is still there." Josh stood next to her. "That's kind of the point, isn't it? Someone has to deal with it so everyone else can sleep peacefully."
"Very philosophical for one in the morning."
"I have my moments." Josh was quiet for a second, then said, "I'm going to say yes. To the task force. I know we just met a week ago, and this is moving fast, but... I can't go back to normal patrol after tonight. Not knowing what I know now."
Kyla had been thinking the same thing. How could she go back to giving parking tickets and responding to noise complaints after fighting an interdimensional invasion? How could she pretend she didn't know there were things in the world that science couldn't explain?
"We'd be partners?" she asked. "On this task force?"
"I'd hope so. You're the only person who's seen what I've seen. Plus, you're really good at tackling people." Josh smiled. "And I meant what I said earlier. About dinner. About wanting to... I don't know, see where this goes. Us. If you're interested."
Kyla's heart did that weird little flip again. "Even though we'd be working together? Partners and dating sounds complicated."
"Everything about our lives is already complicated. What's one more complication?" Josh turned to face her fully. "Look, I know the timing is weird. We barely know each other, we just saved the world, and now we're deciding whether to hunt supernatural threats for a living. But I really like you, Kyla. And life's too short to not take chances on things that feel right."
He was right. Life was too short. She'd seen that tonight, seen how quickly everything could end. If they hadn't succeeded, if the portal had stayed open, if the invasion had happened... there might not have been a tomorrow to take chances in.
"Okay," she said. "Yes to the task force. And yes to dinner. And yes to seeing where this goes."
Josh's face lit up with the biggest smile she'd ever seen from him. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." Kyla felt herself smiling too. "But we take things slow, okay? We've only known each other a week. Let's at least make it to week two before we do anything crazy."
"Crazier than stopping an alien invasion?"
"Much crazier."
Josh laughed, and Kyla found herself laughing too. Despite everything—the exhaustion, the fear, the uncertainty about what came next—she felt happy. Actually happy, in a way she hadn't felt in a long time.
They stayed on the roof for another hour, talking about everything and nothing. Josh told her more stories about his uncle the locksmith. Kyla talked about her mom and how she'd react if she knew what her daughter had really been doing tonight. They made plans for their date—Saturday night, a nice restaurant downtown, no takeout allowed.
Eventually they had to go back inside. Chen was waiting in his office with paperwork for them to sign—non-disclosure agreements, mostly, promising not to talk about what had happened. They signed, officially becoming part of something bigger and stranger than normal police work.
"You start Monday," Chen told them. "That gives you the weekend to rest and get your heads straight. Your new office is in the basement. It's not much, but it's private. And you'll have access to case files dating back fifty years."
"What about our regular duties?" Josh asked.
"Officially, you're still patrol officers. But you'll have a lot of freedom to investigate cases as needed. Think of yourselves as specialists." Chen handed them each a business card with a phone number. "This is your new supervisor. She'll brief you on Monday about how the task force works."
After leaving Chen's office, Kyla and Josh walked to the parking lot together. The sun was starting to rise, painting the sky in shades of pink and orange. They'd been up all night, fighting impossible threats and making life-changing decisions.
"I should get home," Kyla said. "Try to sleep for a few hours before my brain explodes from information overload."
"Same." Josh unlocked his car, then hesitated. "Hey, Kyla? Thanks. For being an amazing partner. For having my back tonight. For saying yes to all of this."
"Right back at you." Kyla smiled. "See you Monday, partner."
"See you Monday."
Kyla drove home as the city woke up around her. Morning commuters filled the roads, people grabbed coffee, kids waited at bus stops. Normal life continuing like nothing had happened. Because for them, nothing had happened. They'd never know how close they'd come to disaster.
But Kyla knew. And Josh knew. And now they had a job to do—protecting people from threats they couldn't see coming.
Back at her apartment, Kyla fell into bed still wearing her clothes, too tired to even shower. Her last thought before sleep took her was about the folder Chen had given her, about all those unsolved cases waiting to be investigated.
They had a lot of work ahead of them.
But for now, they'd saved the world. And that was enough.
End of Chapter 11