In the last episode, Jack Carter, Eureka’s Sheriff and the star of our show, discovered where Dr. Jennifer Connery, the supposed creator of the robot called Ross, had been hiding. Jack reported this to Henry and the others.

And then the information that Dr. Charles Grant brought, plus what Fargo and the rest unearthed, showed that the robot was after the secrets of Section Five, and was being helped by Dr. Connery, who was, in fact, yet another robot...

And now, the continuation...

- - - - -

Jack and Allison were sleeping soundly. They were pretty tired, having only gotten to bed around four AM since their shift to watch over Ross the Robot was from eleven PM to two.

Before going to bed, Jack decided to trigger a morph so that he didn’t need to worry about it in the morning.

As predicted, the morph was a repeat. He had turned into his Megan Foxworth morph again. Oh, well. At least, he wasn’t a blonde again.

And then they went to sleep.

But in less than four hours, both of them were woken up by an alarm.

Jack sat up, instantly alert.

“Sarah!” he called as he sat up. Sarah was the AI system of the smarthouse. “What’s wrong?”

Allison also sat up, worried.

“Something’s wrong, Jack,” Sarah said in her new, faintly Australian voice. “My filters have detected massive quantities of EZ-four in the atmosphere.”

“What’s EZ-4?”

“It’s an anesthetic gas,” Allison said, “developed by Dr. Parrish’s NOLWEP Team. You know? Non-lethal weapons?”

“Ahhh.” Jack remembered the angry bees from before.

“Anyway,” Allison said, “Unlike all previous sleep gases, EZ-4 has no dangerous depressive effects on respiration or other effects. The reason sleep gas isn’t used is because people are liable to stop breathing or have heart attacks.

“All EZ-4 does is make people go to sleep for up to twenty-four hours, and the only side-effect is a wicked hangover afterwards. And even at twenty parts per million, it would still be effective.”

Jack nodded. “Are we safe inside, Sarah?”

“Totally safe, Jack. The smarthouse is hermetically sealed. And I have switched from outside air to my internal air supply.”

“Where is the gas coming from?”

“Unknown. But based on wind direction, its point of dispersion is somewhere downtown.”

Jack and Allison looked at each other. They remembered the air tanks in Jennifer Connery’s cave.

“Sarah, call Andy. Now!”

“What’s wrong, Jack?”

“Just call Andy!” He turned to Allison. “I have to go!”

Allison nodded. “All right. I can be ready in five.”

“No.”

Before she could protest, he put a finger on her lips.

“No, Allison. If something happens to me, someone has to be awake to take care of things. Do you understand?”

“Jack, I...”

He held her by the shoulders. “Do you understand, Allison!”

She looked into his eyes. Despite the female face, she could see her Jack in the eyes. And her Jack was worried for the town, but also for her.

“I understand, Jack,” she said, subdued.

Jack leaned forward and gave her a kiss.

“I’ll wear a body-cam if you want, and you can follow what happens to me. And if something does happen to me, it’s your turn. Okay?”

“Okay...”

“Jack,” Sarah interrupted.

“Yes, Sarah.”

“I can’t reach Andy. But I was able to reach one of Jo’s people, a Sergeant Dalton. He’s on-line now.”

“Thanks. Sergeant Dalton?”

“Sheriff Carter, yes, this is the Sarge. We found Dr. Connery, but she managed to deactivate Andy somehow and was able to escape. I’m afraid we lost her in the woods.”

“I know where she is. She’s in town, and she’s released sleeping gas...”

Dalton turned away from the mic for a second. “Corporal! Gas masks! Chemical gas attack drill!” He took out his own gas mask and pulled it on.

“Apologies, Sheriff Carter,” he said. “Please continue.” The mask muffled his voice a little.

Jack nodded. “No worries, Sarge. I will be getting ready in a moment. What’s your ETA?”

“We can be on Main Street in about thirty minutes, sir.”

“Good. See you then.” They heard the click as Dalton hung up.

“Are you sure you don’t want company?” Allison said. She had gotten up by then and had gone to Jack’s “wardrobe room,” which used to be the smarthouse’s guest room.

Jack followed.

“I’m sure. Would I need to wear a gas mask as well?”

“Probably not. EZ-4 breaks down in about twenty minutes after inducing sleep. That was part of the specs when it was formulated. By the time you get to town, it should be safe.”

As they were talking, Allison quickly stripped him of his nightie and started dressing him up.

“But what about just outside?” Jack asked.

“Oh, right. I guess you do need one.” Allison pulled up a pair of dark-brown tights over his legs and hips and then got his feet into a pair of white hiker boots. The clothes that she picked came from the clothes that Pilar originally bought instead of from the fit-anyone clothes.

“Sarah?”

“I will have a gas mask ready by the door, Jack.”

“Thanks!”

Allison soon had him in a T-shirt bra, blouse, gloves and a woolly jacket – all from the old stuff Pilar got.

“There!” Allison huffed. “Not only fashionable, but all set for the early morning ¬temperature.” She got a brush out and started brushing his hair. His Megan Foxworth morph had reddish-brown hair up to the middle of his back, and it needed a brush. Talk about bed hair.

“How cold is it outside anyway?” Jack asked.

“About thirty degrees,” Sarah responded.

As they walked downstairs, Allison continued brushing his long hair, and by the time they got to the door, his hair had been tamed and was now shining with a glossy sheen.

Jack saw himself in the mirror. “Wow!” he exclaimed. “Thanks, Allison!”

“You’re welcome, my brave and beautiful sheriff,” she said, and gave him a deep and thorough kiss.

Jack was surprised to say the least.

“Well...” he started to say.

“No, no, no,” Allison giggled. “We have no time for that. You have work to do.”

“All right.” Jack put on his gun belt, pinned his badge to his tweedy coat and grabbed the mask on the table by the door.

“See you later, Allison,” he said.

He slipped on the mask, pulled the door open and closed it behind him right away, minimizing the amount of gas that seeped inside. He was sure Sarah could filter out what got in before it affected Allison.

He then climbed up the stairs and stepped out into the open air. Rushing to his patrol car, he got in. He switched on the ventilators and waited for the gas to be cleared from inside the GD-modified police car. He then pulled off the mask, switched on his lights and siren, and started for town.

On the way, he had to dodge several cars on the road whose drivers were overcome by the sleep gas. It was the height of Eureka’s morning commute, if ten cars on a two-lane asphalt road constituted a “commute.”

The damage was worse on Main Street. A few cars had some minor collisions, and over thirty people were scattered on the road and on the sidewalk. Jack decided to pull over otherwise he might run over someone.

He stepped out and started to gingerly step over people sleeping.

“Is that you, Sheriff?” someone called. He looked up and saw Sergeant Dalton.

“Sarge!” Jack called. “Help me pull these people off the street.”

Following her example, Dalton and his team took off their masks, and, together, had everyone off the road and onto the sidewalk.

“Thanks, Sarge,” Jack huffed, and gave the others a nod of thanks. They saluted.

“Okay, it’s time to find Dr. Connery.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dalton handed him the same kind of high-tech shotgun he used that time when they encountered Ross near GD’s main entrance. Jack took point and they started making their way up the street. Near the end of Main Street, they saw her in ripped clothes. Clearly, she’d been having a rough time hiding out. But she still looked as pretty as she did the first time Jack saw her.

On her back was some kind of jury-rigged backpack connected to a rifle-thing in her hand via a thick power cable.

“Doctor Connery!” Jack called from behind a car. “You are both outgunned and out-numbered! You better give yourself up and avoid all this nonsense!”

The human-looking robot stood up and fired her weapon. Several blue bolts of electric lightning shot out of the end of her weapon, making Jack and his people dive for cover.

Several cars nearby were hit by the lightning, and all of them exploded. Jack looked and, thankfully, none of them were occupied.

Obviously, the robot was outnumbered but not outgunned.

“I suggest that it is you who has to back off, Sheriff,” she said. “This is patterned after the Tesla sidearm that they use in Warehouse 13, so you know this is pretty dangerous.”

Jack had heard about Warehouse 13, but he didn’t know what a “tesla” was. In any case, Jack and his people stood their ground.

“You are the sheriff, right?” she asked after firing a second time.

“How did you know I’m the sheriff?” Jack replied.

“Oh, I’ve been monitoring your calls,” she said. “Besides, you’re wearing Sheriff Carter’s badge.”

Ooops! Jack thought. He signaled to Dalton, and he ran over to him crouched.

“Sarge,” he said, “I’m going to rush the robot. And then I’m going to run diagonally to the right and get its attention. When it targets me, I want you to target that backpack and use up your clip.”

“Sheriff, how sure are you that person is a robot?”

“Pretty sure. Anyway. Are you set?”

“All set, sir.”

“Okay, here I go.”

Jack stood up, firing his super-shotgun. Connery stood up and started taking a bead. Jack’s shots hit her on the chest and shoulder but, aside from messing up her shot, it didn’t even faze her, or rather, “it.”

Because of the imprecise nature of the “Tesla” she had to concentrate on Jack and ignored Dalton, and Dalton was able to fire at her backpack, firing in full automatic.

In moments, Connery’s backpack exploded, showering everything nearby with fire and sparks. The explosion smashed her down into the pavement, and the backpack burst into flames.

Jack ran to the robot and, using his brand-new boots, kicked the backpack away with as much strength as he could muster.

He trusted the fire-resistant nature of his clothes and got even closer. He kicked the pack again, and it seemed that the fire had burned the straps enough that he was able to finally kick it away.

Once it was off, Jack got his cuffs and cuffed the robot’s wrists behind her back.

The others got closer and Jack waved them in.

“Give me another pair of cuffs,” he said. One of Dalton’s people gave him his, and Jack slapped them onto her wrists as well, double-cuffing her.

“Cuff her by the ankles, too,” Dalton said, and she was double-cuffed there as well.

They noticed that the clothes on her back had burned through, and the skin on her back seemed to have melted away, showing a lot of metal parts, wires and tubes.

Dalton grabbed her by the upper right arm and flipped her over.

The previously gorgeous brunette wasn’t gorgeous anymore. Her artificial nose was crushed, and multiple gashes on her right cheek had the skin hanging. The metal upper and lower jaws were exposed, and one of the artificial eyeballs was hanging by a wire.

“Goddammit!” one of the commandos said, “and I thought she was so pretty, too.”

“Guys,” Jack said, “I’d like to introduce you to the Collaborative and Autonomous Robotic Emulated Entity, or CO.N.A.R.E.E. for short. She is also designated JC-1.”

The robot turned to Jack and it seemed to smile, although it was hard to be sure given its torn and ruined face.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” it said, turning back to Dalton and his people. Its voice module was obviously broken since the previously pleasant voice sounded like it was warbling now, and coming from within a tin can, and with damaged mouth, it was having hard time pronouncing things. “Pleased to meet you all again.” And then it promptly died. If that could be said about something that had never been alive.

- - - - -

Jack found that all of their phones and radios were deactivated somehow, so he and “his” commando team drove back to GD instead, with the dead CnAREE robot isolated in the back of one of their trucks, and with Andy in another truck. Dalton and seven of his displaced SWAT people crowded into Jack’s jeep, - Dalton in the passenger seat, three in the back seat, and four in the back. It was a tight fit but it wasn’t too long a drive.

The rest of Dalton’s people stayed behind to move all of the people they found on the street to the sidewalk and see about turning off stoves or cars or whatever.

As they arrived in GD, they noticed dozens of people asleep as well. It seems many of the gates and doors were stuck open because of bodies blocking them, and so a lot of the gas was able to get in. Henry, Grace and Grant were some of those that were gassed. Jo and Zane were safe, though, and they were able to coordinate operations and keep the building running.

Whatever the radio-like device was that Dr. Connery took with her and triggered was essentially an EMP generator that could direct its electromagnetic pulse. It had many similarities to the DED device that the Department of Defense had commissioned GD to make five years ago.

When Connery fired her version of the DED device, all communications in the whole of GD died, but because of their experience with the DED, Zane and the people in GD knew how to recover from such a disaster, even if it took a couple of hours to do that.

Clearly, with her EMP thing and the sleep gas, the Dr. Connery robot wanted to break back into GD and Section Ten, but she didn’t count on Jack’s intervention.

In any case, Zane and some of the other scientists were able to reset most of the systems in the compound. Zane told Jack they should be able to get some phones running in a couple of hours.

Jack had Dalton’s people park the ruined CoNAREE robot in Section Ten, and, after handshakes all around, they left Jack and followed Jo to help GD recover from the forced shutdown.

For Jack, he went to the cafeteria and had a big brunch. After all, he didn’t have a chance to have breakfast earlier, although he would have preferred something from home, or from Café Diem.

It was a mistake, of course, to eat such a big meal because he soon found his bracelet, the fancy warning device Allison had given him to warn of an impending morph, starting to blink.

He rushed to Allison’s office and sat in the diagnostic chair there. He pressed the button and waited for the change. The bracelet started blinking faster and faster and he changed in about ten minutes. He checked and, no, it wasn’t his Jack Carter morph, but it was a new morph nevertheless.

He updated the EM device and tried to update the rest of the chairs, but found that the Internet connection down. At least one of the chairs recorded the new morph waveform. This made his twenty-first morph.

He checked through the pictures in the list of DNA volunteers that he had, and was shocked to find none of them matched his current morph.

This new morph looked roughly as young as his Dawn Cameron morph, but this one was a brunette. Other than that, this new morph was totally new, and she didn’t look like anyone in his file. Alarmed, he jumped up, intending to go to Henry’s office to ask Grace or Henry what went wrong, but he belatedly remembered they were part of the group that was knocked out by the sleep gas. Instead, he needed to get to Allison, and ask her to check him out.

By standing, though, he felt the shoes pinch his feet really badly. Dammit! he thought to himself, clothes again!

He took off the boots, unbuttoned his tweed jacket and went in search of someone who could lend him some clothes.

- - - - -

The best he could do was a pair of velvet mid-calf boots, a short miniskirt and a stretchy cami string top that someone had in her locker. The girl explained that these were the club clothes she wore when she and her friends went out for girls’ night a few weeks ago. They were clean and everything, she said – she just hadn’t had time to bring them home yet.

Jack sighed. These were all that fit. He realized that being taller than most girls, he knew that this would be happening a lot. And since beggars can’t be choosers, he accepted the clothes, thanked the girl and went to the ladies bathroom to put them on. He had to go with no bra, however, and had to make do with his current panties. Thank goodness they stretched. Oh, well.

He put a brave face on and brazened it out as he walked back to his jeep. Inevitably, he caught the appreciative eye of most of the men and some of the women. He just smiled politely, nodded to them, tried not to rush, and calmly continued on.

Can’t be helped, he thought.

He eventually got to the jeep and drove back to the smart house.

When he got there, though, he had another problem: Sarah wouldn’t let him in.

“Sarah!” Jack said in frustration, “it’s me! It’s Jack!”

“I’m sorry, miss,” Sarah said in her new Australian voice, “but you are clearly not Sheriff Carter.”

“Dammit, Sarah! I’ve morphed again!”

“Yes,” Sarah replied, “but I have access to Sheriff Carter’s file of photos of the people he turns into, and you are not one of them.”

“I know that! That’s why I need to talk to Allison to find out what went wrong!”

“I’m sorry, miss, but I do not believe you. Now please leave these premises or I might be forced to Taser you.”

“Allison!” Jack bellowed.

Sarah thought it through. “You’re absolutely right, Allison,” she said after a few moments. “Miss, if you’d care to come into the bunker and put your right palm against the door sensor.”

Jack sighed, went through the aboveground airlock door and went down. Beside the smarthouse’s main door was a handprint sensor. Jack put his right hand on it.

“Fingerprints and voiceprint confirmed,” Sarah said, and opened the door. “I’m sorry, Jack, but you entrusted me with Allison’s protection. I had to be thorough.”

“That’s all right, Sarah,” he said. “You did good.” He went to Allison and gave her a kiss and a hug.

“So you went through a new morph.” Allison said. “Who is it this time?”

“That’s just it, Allison, it’s not one of the forty.”

“I can’t believe that,” she said. “Why didn’t you just call?”

Jack explained everything that had happened.

Allison nodded as Jack told her everything that happened since they woke up.

“So Zane said they’d have communications back after a couple of hours?” Allison asked.

“Yes. In the meantime, we’re all alone.” He brought Allison closer and gave her a kiss. But Allison felt more ill at ease than usual. She was somewhat getting used to Jack being a girl but this particular morph seemed to be even younger than Kevin.

She explained this to Jack, and he seemed to understand.

He sighed. “Just my luck,” he muttered. “Jailbait again.”

“Anyway,” Allison said, “first things first. Let’s see if we can find out who you’ve turned into.”

While they waited for GD’s comms to come back, Allison used Sarah’s files of the people from GD, and picked out one likely candidate.

“She could be the one,” Allison said. “This is Hannah Cyrus, the daughter of Dr. Bill Cyrus from Section Three.”

“But she doesn’t look at all like my morph,” Jack said, “and she’s not in the list that gave DNA samples to Dr. Barrows.”

“We can confirm that later with her father.”

“You say she’s the closest?”

“Yes. She’s the only one that could possibly be it, actually. Let’s see if we can find some clues. Sarah, can you display Hannah’s records?”

“Of course, Allison.”

Allison read the file. “Ahhh!” she said, and pointed to a line in the displayed data. “She had some reconstructive surgery done.”

“That explains it!” Jack nodded. “Sarah, can you display her picture prior to her plastic surgery?”

Sarah wiped the screen and displayed the original picture she had up plus another one side by side.

They looked at both pictures.

“Hmmm,” Jack said. “Her pre-plastic surgery picture does look more similar to my morph, but it’s still too far off. My other morphs are closer to their originals than this one.”

“Excuse me, Jack,” Sarah said, “but the picture you are referring to is actually Ms Cyrus’ post-surgery picture.”

“What! But how is that possible?”

Allison continued to look at the picture deep in thought.

“I think I might have an idea, Jack,” she said after a while, “but I have to ask Grace first. For now, let’s assume your new morph is based off Hannah Cyrus. By my count, you now have twenty-one. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then that means you still have ten or eleven more to go, excluding a Jack Carter morph, assuming Hannah is indeed a new one and not part of our original list. Don’t worry, one of them will be your Jack Carter morph.” Allison gave Jack a hug.

“Thanks, Allison.”

Sarah made what sounded like the electronic version of someone clearing her throat.

Jack smiled at that. “Yes, Sarah,” he said, “what is it?”

“It’s Mr. Donovan, Jack. It seems they’ve finally reestablished GD’s communications.”

“Finally!” Allison sighed.

to be continued in Episode 11: “The Final Showdown” Jan. 30, Wednesday 8PM Eastern On the BTTV Network