The XXX Files

1996, Early August- Washington, D.C.

Agent Balzac cursed and grunted as he tried to get his word processor to type in the proper field so he could finish his paperwork. After another damned beep signaled something was wrong he smashed a fist on his desk in frustration and yelled, “Fuck!” He’d gotten accustomed to using a typewriter and they worked just fine, so the department’s gradual shift to expensive word processors and computers and printers and all that sci-fi techno-silliness gave him headaches or heartburn. Sometimes both, as he opened a drawer and tried to decide between his bottle of aspirin and his roll of antacid tablets.

His partner, Agent Wang, strolled into their tiny office carrying a sheaf of manila folders. She smirked at the screen and asked, “Idiot box still giving you fits, Harry?” She passed him about half of the stack of papers as he popped one of his tablets into his mouth, grimacing.

“The television is the idiot box, Anita. Computers are some other kind of box. Geek box, maybe, or nerd processor.” Harry started glancing through the folders and asked, “Are these the new files they flagged for us?” In addition to a lot of other departmental mark-up, each folder the partners held included a cover sheet clipped to their contents indicating that the case had been referred to the FBI’s top-secret investigative branch that dealt with unusual sex crimes, especially those involving magic, psychic powers, or other unexplained phenomena. Ever since a TV show about paranormal FBI investigators debuted a few years ago, the people in the bureau had started stamping ‘XXX File’ on everything they sent to Harry and Anita.

“You know it,” she sighed as she flipped through them. “Let’s see here… I’ve got a missing persons report with suspected human trafficking by a hypnotist, a commune believed to be recruiting cultists by feeding them mind control , another missing persons report with suspected possession by demon or ghost, and a small town where people’s clothes keep disappearing off their bodies.” She sighed and beckoned her partner for an antacid tab of her own.

Harry grunted and tossed Anita the roll, then said, “This one looks fun: a small town in upstate New York where there’s a sudden upsurge in busty, blonde bimbos, cause unknown.” Anita rolled her eyes and snorted in disgust as she read her case files. Harry continued, “Ooh, and here’s a little hamlet in the UP with suspected werewolf activity.” He glanced at the calendar and said, “Looks like no rush on that one. And here’s one from just over in Virginia about a young woman who agreed to be photographed naked but then cried foul afterward; some kind of mind control is suspected. Well, duh!”

As Harry looked through the last file his eyebrows raised a little and said, “You wanna trade me one of those missing persons for this one? It’s from your old stomping grounds in San Fran. Suspected mind controller of some kind, recruiting girls for sex work.” Anita passed back one of the folders and the medicine and tossed her other files to the side to read about the activity centered in Chinatown, San Francisco, where she had been raised. She still had useful contacts in the area even after being transferred to the home office in DC, who might help crack the case if they got lucky.

Harry sighed and tossed the case files into his tray and turned his attention back to the leering screen of his computer, with its insolently blinking phosphorescent green cursor. “They should have called it a curser instead,” he muttered under his breath as the program beeped another denial at him. “One of these days, I’m either going to throw this stupid machine in the river, or throw myself in.”