In the last episode, Jack Carter, Eureka’s Sheriff and the star of our show, finally had his last showdown with the giant renegade robot, RoSS. He also met another one of his DNA donors while he was morphed as her near twin – an incredible sight to see, as Sgt. Dalton and Jo’s other commandos would attest to.

And now, the conclusion...

- - - - -

It was more than two weeks now since Jack and Jo’s people put down the giant marauding robot called RoSS and the humanoid robot called CoNAREE, and everything was almost back to normal.

The damage to GD’s and the town’s buildings, facilities and streets were already repaired, and Henry reported all the events that had happened to the DoD, as well as the conclusions they came to. (Not to mention billing them for the cost of the repairs, which the DoD was only so happy to pay for them.)

The government people and the DoD sent back a muted “good work,” and nothing further was said about it.

This made Henry and Jo feel they were correct that there really was some kind of conspiracy within the DoD trying to get GD secrets, so Henry asked Jo to continue her efforts to find out who these people were.

Still, the DoD continued paying GD their weekly fee of one million dollars and Section Ten continued their work of reverse-engineering Ross, or its remains, as the case may be.

They were waiting for the DoD to retrieve the ConAREE robot as well, but they made no efforts to do so. So far. Oliver Babbish, Eureka’s and GD’s chief legal counsel, said they probably won’t try to. Doing so will mean they’re admitting to owning the robot. As it is, GD’s information on the robot was proof enough, but it would take a while for them to get it through the courts. And, according to Charles’ sources, the DoD was using this grace period to track down the person or persons responsible for the whole conspiracy: though the DoD did want more information on GD’s projects, they were too chicken to do anything really... shady. Those responsible were, however, not. And the DoD was tracking them down in the hopes that they will be able to shield the department from any liability.

Jack, Jo and the others were still inclined to continue legal proceedings, but Oliver said that the DoD could easily disavow the project and say it was not approved nor was it done with the department’s knowledge.

Proving that in court will take time, again, and Oliver said that particular one wouldn’t be as easy to win, given the DoD’s influence, the loopholes in the DoD’s command hierarchy, and their complex budget appropriation and expenditure rules and policies.

In any case, GD’s project was still on the books, and the DoD still continued their payments, which were enough to cover GD’s expenses week-to-week, allowing Henry Deacon and Allison Blake to concentrate on finding more projects instead of worrying about budget.

Which was just as well: because of the seeming distrust that the government and the DoD had shown during the recent robot crisis, Henry, Allison and the rest of GD’s current board of directors unanimously decided to wind down or outright cancel all of GD’s weapons projects, both the US government ones and the ones with other entities, and switched the teams working on these projects to what were considered NOLWEP or non-lethal weapons projects. These wouldn’t be as lucrative as the projects they would replace, but neither would they cost as much to work on nor be as dangerous. All in all, business-wise, it would be a wash.

This was all great for people like Dr. Isaac Parrish, who was heading the NOLWEP team: his unit suddenly had twenty times as many people and resources as before, as well as ten times as many projects. In fact, a new facility was being planned for his team, and an actual, full-blown section was going to be established just for them: connecting labs 300A through 300D were being set up specifically for them. The hope was that, when NOLWEPs was expanded, it would be able to make up for the shortfall of Section Five.

Henry, Allison and Jo heaved a sigh of relief. So they started shopping their new NOLWEPs technologies to private security companies and various city and state police forces, including those from other countries allied to the US. The potential clientele wouldn’t be able to pay like the DoD, but there sure were a lot of them.

Another section that Henry and Allison had high hopes for was Medical. The progress GD was making with the reconstituted Donor Organs Project wasn’t much, but it was making waves in the medical communities that knew about it, even if the directions they were going were away from Dr. Barrows’ tech. Several medical communities offered to fund GD’s work, and this gave the dream of having replacement organs on demand more than just a hope, but something with an even chance of being realized, and it’ll keep Eureka running for several years more, regardless whether they were actually successful or not.

As for Jack’s morphs, Allison and Grace did indeed link up with Dr. Vanessa Calder from the CDC, and they were able to make quick progress. It was like Dr. Calder had a unique insight as well as an unusually deep affinity for Jack’s situation, and with her help, they had established several things:

One was that, yes, Grace was right – Jack had unconsciously influenced his morphs. That’s why all of his morphs were hotties even if the original donors weren’t as hot. But it was a one-time thing – after the first morph, the form was set. Further “tweaks” wouldn’t be possible anymore.

Next - Jack’s situation was likely a permanent situation now – his new DNA has been permanently changed, and his morphs a permanent part of him, and trying to reverse it now would probably kill him.

Next was that, yes, he would be constantly changing - depending on his blood glucose levels and other things, his morph would be triggered – that meant that Jack would have to watch his diet for the rest of his life if he didn’t want to be morphing constantly, and the pills that Allison gave him were next to useless.

There was also no time limit to his morphs – he could morph continuously and it would be fine. There was a minimum five to ten-minute pause between morphs, though, but that was because that was the minimum time his body needed in order to build up enough energy reserves to power another morph - even if Jack drank nothing but his so-called “super juice,” he would still need five to ten minutes in between morphs.

On the up-side, though, there was no penalty from the constant morphing - even if Jack did nothing but morph all day, he would be fine. And the morphing itself had, to some extent, a regenerative effect.

However, Dr. Calder was unable to help them find out if the regenerative effect meant that Jack would always morph to the same state every time – that is to say, if he changed into his Dawn Cameron morph, for example, would he morph into the exact same morph every time, to the same age and state of health? Dr. Calder said she doubted it, but the only way to really answer that was to continue observing him over time.

“For example,” she said, “after that final encounter with that robot, Jackie’s cuts and abrasions didn’t disappear when she morphed again, and the hairdo that Dawn gave her that one time didn’t disappear. I suspect that each of his morphs will progress in age and in general state as any person does, from the point of the last morph, like each morph was a separate person and would age normally and so forth.”

“He prefers ‘Jack,’ though,” Allison said.

“Sorry,” Vanessa said, smiling apologetically.

As to stabilizing Jack, Vanessa agreed with Allison – by using his EM device, Jack could just set it such that, when he morphed, he’ll just morph into the same morph each and every time and, outwardly, no one would notice. He just needed to keep the EM device on him constantly, and tuned to the appropriate wave form.

To that end, Vanessa presented Allison with several watches, necklaces, bracelets and rings – each one actually an EM device functioning like Jack’s EM device and his warning bracelet wrapped up in one.

“Each of these would be appropriate for any occasion,” Vanessa said, in a tone like she was in an infomercial on the Home Shopping Network, “and this entire collection can be yours for free! But wait! There’s more!”

Grace and Allison laughed.

“This might be better, though,” Vanessa said, more soberly, and presented Allison with a felt-covered ring box.

Allison opened it, and found a wedding ring.

“That,” Vanessa said, “would never need any batteries because it would be powered by Jack’s body heat, and would function just like his EM device and his warning bracelet combined.” Vanessa showed a tiny window on the plain, round silvery-gold ring.

“This would display a small number, from one to zero,” Vanessa said, “and would be in a unique color – either red, or blue or green or yellow – that gives you forty unique numbers in all, and would indicate which morph. Also, if the number blinks the way her bracelet does now, that means she’s about to change, and if she presses the window down, she can select which morph... I mean ‘he’...”

Allison studied it up close. Aside from the tiny crystal screen, which, from a distance, looked like a little diamond, it looked exactly like Jack’s wedding ring, and if one weren’t looking for the tiny window or screen, one would be liable to not notice it at all.

Vanessa reached out and held Allison’s hand.

“My friends in Warehouse 13 made it look and feel like an exact duplicate of Jack’s wedding ring, so he wouldn’t ever not have it with him. Look at the inscription inside.”

Allison looked, and she saw the inscription that she knew so well – they had even copied that. And she started crying.

“Well,” Vanessa said gently, letting go of Allison’s hand, “here’s another gift for you.” She handed Allison something else. It looked like a thumbdrive.

“What’s this?” Allison asked as she sniffed and wiped her nose and eyes.

“You stick this into the USB charging port of one of your chairs, have Jackie sit down in the chair, and then trigger a morph.”

“You mean...”

Vanessa smiled at her and nodded.

“Ohmigod.”

- - - - -

After Vanessa left to fly back to Atlanta (with a short side trip to South Dakota first), Allison gave Grace a hug and rushed out.

“Good luck!” Grace called after her.

Allison jumped into her car and started driving out of GD. But she didn’t know where to go. She directly called the radio in Jack’s jeep using her phone (something she could do, at least in Eureka), but no one was in the jeep. She tried the patrol car’s radio even though Andy was the one who usually drove the car.

“Yes, Ms Blake,” Andy answered.

“Andy, where is Jack?”

“He’s in the Sheriff’s Office, Ms Blake,” he said. “Can I be of service?”

“No, but thanks. Oh, wait! Yes, there is something – can you call Jack and ask him to stay put? Tell him it’s important.”

“Sure thing, Ms Blake. Anything else?”

“Not right now, Andy. But thanks!”

She hung up and went straight to town. As soon as she got to Main Street, she went straight to Andy’s parking spot. In her agitation, she didn’t do a good job of parking, and her front tire went up the sidewalk.

She rushed into Jack’s office, ignored Jack and went straight to Jack’s pantry. She got the biggest tumbler there and started putting powdered Tang and about forty-eight teaspoons of sugar in it.

“Hey, Allison. What...?”

She filled it almost to the brim with water and furiously started stirring it.

Jack was currently in his Alexandra Ambrose morph and was wearing a uniform that was a close lookalike to his old Jack Carter uniform, except that it wasn’t one of the fit-anyone kinds, so it wasn’t form-fitting.

“Honey, I just morphed an hour ago...”

“Just sit in the chair, Jack! Now!”

Jack raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay! Be cool.”

Jack sat down in the diagnostic chair. Allison handed him his “transformation juice.”

“Bottoms up!” she said.

Jack looked at her, shrugged and drank the syrupy juice. Allison brought out the thumbdrive, plugged it into the chair and switched it on.

Jack looked at her manic expression in a bit of alarm, but held his tongue.

As they waited for the morph, Allison unblinkingly stared at his face with such intensity, it worried him.

“Allison?”

“Dammit!” Allison muttered. “Morph already!”

And then in moments, he did.

The buzzer sounded but Allison kept on staring at his face.

“So,” he said, “what do I look like?”

Allison lunged at him and gave him a kiss like she never had before.

It was like coming home.

- - - - -

Jack ran into Café Diem and looked for Vince. He was so excited to tell someone but he couldn’t find Vince, nor any of his other friends.

He went to the nearest table.

“Do you know where Vince is!” Jack demanded.

The two diners looked at him in confusion. The one in the checked shirt shrugged.

But he couldn’t hold on to his excitement anymore. “Whoooo!” he yelled at the two diners, and ran out of the café.

After he left, Vince came out, wondering what the commotion was all about.

“Who was that?” Vince asked Charles Grant, aka Trevor Grant, aka Trent Rockwell.

“It was the sheriff,” Charles said nonchalantly as he sat at the counter, and then took a bite of his burger.

- - - - -

After Jack calmed down and told and showed everyone he could find that he knew on Main Street, Allison came out from his office and sat him down on one of the benches by the Archimedes statue.

Truth be told, though, she knew Jack was only getting eight words out of every ten, but that was okay. At least he was getting the gist of it.

I guess that’s good enough for now, she thought.

She also thought not to tell him about his voice. He looked the same and seemed the same. He was also the same age and had the same incipient baldness (she giggled). But his voice wasn’t the same as his old voice: it had stayed female. He had the same voice that he had with all of his other morphs, and though his new voice sounded low but sexy and sultry when he was a female, as a man, the voice wasn’t exactly... right. She decided to tell him later. Right now, she didn’t have the heart.

After Jack called Andy and told him the good news, he told him he was taking the rest of the day off. He and Allison went home to get reconnected and do some other things.

Besides, he need to change again – though the uniform fit (barely), the underwear was extreeemely uncomfortable.

- - - - -

Allison, Jack and the kids finally got used to things, especially since Jack can pick who he morphs into now, even though he was still having difficulty controlling when he morphs.

It was all about controlling his diet, Allison kept on explaining. But he really was doing his best, he said. He kept on saying to her and the kids, “I could do it if I really wanted to... but I don’t really want to...” That would always be greeted with Allison or Kevin rolling their eyes, and the girls just giggling.

The longest he’d gone without morphing was forty-eight hours, and according to everything they now knew, he could actually make it a continuous thing. But, of course, the human body wasn’t a machine, and controlling one’s blood glucose levels wasn’t as precise as adjusting a thermostat.

So, for the times that he couldn’t stop his morphing, he’d just make sure which of his other morphs he’d change into. He would just preset all his EM devices – the watches, bracelets and the wedding ring that Dr. Calder gave them, or his original mouse-device – to twenty-two (twenty-two, or Green-Two on his new wedding ring, was his Jack Carter morph), but after twenty or twenty-one repetitions of the same morph, it’s like his body needed to reset. So if he pre-selected twenty-two again after the twentieth or twenty-firtst Jack Carter morph in a row, his body would just pick a random morph. Although after four or five other morphs, he could go back to morphing into Jack Carter again.

When he couldn’t stop morphing to something other than his Jack Carter morph, at least Jack could pick which one. Allison had two favorites – number nineteen and number twenty-three (or Blue-Nine and Green-Three on his ring): his Emily Rosewater and Jennifer Morris morphs. Allison liked them because they were around Jack’s age, so she wouldn’t feel too much like a pedophile if they... did stuff, and Jack liked them because Allison liked them.

So, today, since he‘d been Jack Carter for twenty morphs already, he decided to switch his EM device to Green-Three – his Jennifer Morris morph.

He still had seven or eight more morphs that haven’t come out yet, but that didn’t feel too important at the moment. He will eventually get around to that sometime, he kept on saying to himself. At the moment, he was just enjoying being himself again.

Today was little Kimmy’s checkup day. Sure, Allison could perform Kim’s checkup herself, but that was a professional no-no. And besides, Allison preferred to go to a real pediatrician, and the nearest one that Allison was comfortable with was in Portland, which was a two-hour drive away.

Zoe was visiting from Johns Hopkins, making the family complete for once, so Allison suggested making it a kind of outing. Kimmy and Jenna were always happy when their big sister was around, and a road trip was just the ticket to reconnect.

Zoe asked Jack and Allison if it was okay to ask Pilar to join them, since Pilar’s people were away and would only be back later that night. They agreed, making their little group seven.

Two older adults, three younger adults and two kids were too many to fit in a car, so Jack borrowed a mini-camper from GD. At least it would be a comfortable trip.

Arriving at the clinic, they found that they were a trifle early. There were a few patients ahead of them, so Jack shooed the others away and told them to go and have brunch or something.

The three nodded and Zoe picked Jenna up and said they’ll do some exploring instead.

“Bye Kimmy!” Jenna said, and waved to them. “Bye Mommy and Daddy!”

Kimmy waved back.

As Allison and Jack waited, Kimmy asked to be carried by Jack, and Jack picked her up and put her in his lap.

Allison looked at the two of them as Kimmy comfortably kept her arm around Jack’s neck. And she wondered.

“Kim,” Allison said, “how do you feel about your dad changing into a lady?”

“What do you mean, Mommy?” she asked. She didn’t understand the question.

“Don’t you think it’s weird that Daddy keeps on changing?”

She shrugged. “We live in Eureka.”

Allison and Jack looked at each other and laughed.

“You’re right, honey,” Jack said and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“Besides,” Kim said, “I can always tell it’s Daddy.”

Allison looked at Jack.

“How can you tell it’s Daddy?”

She shrugged again. “I just can. Jenna and I can always tell even though Daddy’s in disguise,” she mock-whispered to Allison.

“You can?”

“Yeah. Me and Jenna can, every time.” She looked at Allison. “Can’t you?”

Allison and Jack looked at each other again, Allison grinning and Jack looking a bit pained.

“It’s the voice, huh?” Jack said.

Kimmy giggled.

Jack had been practicing modulating his voice, following some lessons he bought from some transgender store (they were video classes that were meant for transgender men, to try and make their voice sound more masculine), and it seemed to be helping, though not by much.

Anyway, Jack had to stop all this introspection since, after a few minutes, Dr. Keller’s nurse-receptionist called them. Allison picked Kimmy up and they went to the desk.

“Ahhh, that is Dr. Allison Blake,” Jack pointed at Allison, and that is Kim Carter, her daughter.”

“And you are...?”

“Ahhh,” Jack said, “I’m Jennifer Morris, a family friend. Jack Carter couldn’t make it so I came along to keep the girls company.”

The nurse smiled. “Ahhh. It’s all good then. The doctor’s waiting so in you go!”

And the three went in.

As soon as the door closed, the nurse’s smile disappeared. She picked up the phone on her desk and dialed a number.

“Hello, Mrs. Frederic,” the nurse said to her boss, and listened to the other party. “Yes, that’s right. They’re here for little Kim’s two-month checkup – like clockwork. Both of them. Yes, she said she was someone named Jennifer Morris. Yes – very convincing. Dr. Calder was totally right. What should I do now?”

She listened for a bit.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll let the doctor finish their little girl’s checkup and then hand Sheriff Carter the envelope before they leave.”

She listened to her boss for a bit.

“Yes, ma’am. Totally believable. She actually makes quite a lovely lady. A little too tall, though.”

She listened again.

“All right ma’am. I won’t raise any suspicions then. Leave it to me.”

She hung up, took out a pack of letter envelope labels, stuck a sheet of them in her vintage electric typewriter and typed the following on one of the labels:

She then took out a sealed UPS letter-envelope sized packet from her desk and stuck the label on it.

- - - - -

The little road trip to Portland was fun, and Jenna loved the Marionberry Pie they had. Kimmy, following her big sister’s example, said that she liked it, too. Allison bought half a dozen of them and put them in the camper’s little fridge, to give to friends later.

They also bought a few boxes of Moonstruck Chocolates – one of them for Grace, one for Jo and one for Holly. Allison said she’d leave it to the girls to share them with their boys.

They also bought several bricks of Tillamook cheese and several bottles of Oregon’s top Pino Noir.

With all the food they ate, Jack just knew he’d be morphing, so he made sure his EM wedding ring was set to “23” or green-three, his Jennifer Morris morph. So if he did morph, no one would notice.

And as they did the mom-and-dad-and-kids thing with Jenna and Kim, Kevin, Zoe and Pilar went for a nice boat ride instead.

All in all a nice day, except for one thing.

Just before they left the clinic, the nurse handed Jack a UPS envelope. He looked at the name and was surprised, to say the least. He showed it to Allison and they shared a look. Jack asked the nurse where it came from, and she shrugged saying that a UPS messenger passed by to drop it off while Kim was being checked by the doctor.

“Didn’t you have that delivered here today so you can pick it up?” she asked innocently.

Jack looked at the nurse suspiciously but didn’t push it.

He and Allison hurried to their mini-camper and Jack went to the back. Eventually, he found one, under the junk in the toolbox.

Allison looked at all the junk.

“This camper’s from Henry, huh?” Allison laughed.

Jack nodded and slipped the letter into the box he found, and put everything else back into the toolbox.

Jack explained that the box was for isolating infectious, toxic or dangerous material, making sure that the letter would be bio-isolated until they got back to GD and had it checked out.

- - - - -

When they got back home, it was around seven, but the trip was fun, and everyone enjoyed it.

The topic of discussion at the time was Jack’s morph. Zoe begged Jack to morph to someone else – she wanted to see him change.

After all the cajoling, Jack finally agreed. He switched his EM wedding ring device to “19” or blue-nine, and told Zoe she had to watch out for the change. Jack explained that the change just happens on its own without his control, and it happens very fast.

When they got to Eureka, they first passed by Pilar’s folks’ house. There were lights on so that meant her folks were back. Pilar carried a marionberry pie and a bottle of Oregon Pino Noir for her folks.

Zoe gave Pilar a hug and said goodbye, promising to meet up again the following day. When she got back in the camper, though, Jack had already changed into his Emily Rosewater morph.

“Dammit, I missed it!” she complained.

Jack shrugged. “Sorry, honey.”

He dropped everyone off at the townhouse and then drove the camper to Henry’s and Grace’s.

Henry came out.

“Jack, I appreciate you bringing it back, but I assumed you’d bring it back to GD,” he laughed.

“I have to tell you something,” Jack said. “Ride with me back to GD so I can tell you.”

Henry knew enough to know that Jack was being serious, so he told Grace and rode with Jack.

After Jack was finished telling him, he handed Henry the bio isolation box.

“So it’s in here.”

“Yes.”

They parked in GD’s motor pool and got out.

“Okay, let’s go to Section Five.”

They got to Section Five where Henry had the box and the letter inside tested for everything they could think of, and all the tests were negative. No anthrax, no poison, no radiation, no nothing.

Jack unsealed the box, opened the envelope and read the note typed up on an official Treasury Department letterhead.

My name is Irene Frederic. I am a senior director in the US Department of the Treasury, and I am also in charge of a facility in South Dakota called Warehouse 13.

I am sure you’re familiar with Warehouse 13: one of our people, Claudia Donovan, assisted you several years back, and your then-director, Dr. Douglas Fargo, also assisted us with our security systems.

In any case, I’d like to let you know, Sheriff Carter, that your exploits and sterling reputation have reached us in the Secret Service and in the government’s other security agencies, and we believe we can use your unique capabilities and expertise.

Our country is beset by many enemies and critical situations of a national nature, and we have need of your assistance – on a purely when-available basis only, of course: your work in Eureka and Global Dynamics is extremely important and we would not want to deprive Eureka of their sheriff.

So if you are interested in serving your country, Agent Myka Bering of the Secret Service, and Dr. Devon McMasters from the New York Police shall be coming to the Sheriff’s Office tomorrow at 10:00AM. I would appreciate it if you, Sheriff Carter, can make yourself available to them at that time.

Thank you, and please say hello to your friend, Doctor Deacon, as well.

Sincerely yours,

He passed the letter to Henry, and Henry read the letter rapidly.

Henry then picked up his tablet, typed something on it, and read the results.

“Well, this Irene Frederic checks out,” Henry said. “She is indeed a director in the Secret Service and the Treasury Department, and is the head of Warehouse 13.”

“I remember Claudia Donovan! But tell me again - what exactly is Warehouse 13?” Jack asked him.

“I don’t know – Fargo’s the one that that really knows about Warehouse 13. All it says here is it’s a security agency. If you ask me, there are too many security agencies already.”

“I heard Warehouse 13 mentioned recently,” Jack said. “Now, where did I hear it? Let me see... Doesn’t that friend of Allison’s - the one she and Grace were consulting with about my morphs – isn’t she connected with Warehouse 13?”

“Vanessa Calder, yeah.”

“Do you suppose this is connected to my morphs?”

Henry shrugged. “I didn’t think of that. Yeah, could be.”

“Hmmm...”

“Here’s another thing,” Henry said, “did you notice she started with ‘good evening?’ Picking a specific time of day isn’t the thing to do when writing a letter, you know.”

Jack shrugged. “Probably a mistake.”

“And why not give a date range for that visit? Why was she so specific that it had to be for tomorrow at ten?”

“Maybe she’s just bossy.”

“And why did she include me in her note? When it was clearly meant for you.”

“I don’t know... maybe it’s just she knows that you’re my friend.”

“Maybe... Maybe you’re right. Or maybe she knew you were gonna read the letter tonight, and knew I would read it with you, and knew that you’d be available at ten tomorrow and already sent her people. Now how can she know that, Jack?”

Jack looked at him. “That’s creepy, Henry.”

- - - - -

The following morning, Jack made sure he was in his office before ten. He also made sure Andy was there with him, just in case.

And almost exactly at ten, two women in what Jack thought of as FBI uniforms – plain collared blouse, dark blazer, dark slacks and low, black leather pumps – came in.

Both were remarkably pretty – the taller brunette in a very efficient, no-nonsense secret agent kind of way, while the blonde one was more like a Victoria’s Secret model slumming or something, especially with her long, free-flowing blonde hair and flirty little smile.

That morning, Jack tried to morph into his Jack Carter morph, but it was still not working. Instead, he turned randomly into his Jessica Macnee morph. At least he had a uniform available that fit that morph.

“Good morning, Sheriff,” the brunette approached his desk, hand outstretched. “My name is Myka Bering. I’m from the Secret Service.”

Jack stood and shook her hand. “I’m Sheriff Carter.”

Myka gestured to her companion. “This is Dr. Devon McMasters.”

The blonde smiled and shook Jack’s hand as well. “Doctor?” he asked.

“I’m a forensic scientist,” Devon said. “I work for the police as well as the Secret Service.”

Jack shrugged. “Uhuh.”

Andy stood beside him. “Oh. This is Andy, my deputy.”

Andy stretched his hand, and the women shook hands with him almost reluctantly.

“Is that the one,” Myka whispered to Devon.

“Yep.” Devon said.

Jack and Andy pretended not to have heard that, and Jack gestured for them to have a seat.

“So what can we do for you?” Jack said pleasantly.

“It is our understanding, Sheriff,” Myka said, “that you received a letter from our boss, Mrs. Frederic?”

“Yes. I take it this has something to do with my morphs?”

They didn’t respond.

“And what does Andy have to do with this? He wasn’t mentioned in the letter.”

They didn’t reply to that as well.

“You probably know what he is already, too, given how reluctant you were to shake hands with him.”

“Well, Mrs. Frederic did say she was pretty sharp,” Devon said to Myka.

“I can see that, Devon,” Myka grated.

“I think we need all our cards on the table,” Jack said. “Yes, I got your boss’s letter. She wants to recruit me to do some part-time work for her and the government, and she sent you two for that. Whatever work that is – it involves my morphing ability, and it somehow involves Andy as well, who you know to be a robot. Now, I think that covers most of what I know. The ball’s in your court now.”

Jack folded his arms and looked at them sternly. Andy, who was standing beside him, did the same thing. To anyone else, that would have been funny, but for Myka and Devon, it was intimidating as hell, since they came in not being completely open.

So they explained.

Mrs. Frederic would like to hire him on a per-case basis to do what was essentially espionage work, using his morphing ability as his means of disguising himself. The jobs would be very dangerous but vital to the country – no question of politics or any shady motives, and he had the full option of not accepting the assignments.

He will only be used in situations where his physical ability to change himself was absolutely critical, of course, since they preferred to use their own agents otherwise. And since Mrs. Frederic was a believer in partners that one can trust, if Jack wanted it, she can make Andy part of the package.

However, in order to test him out, they’d try him out with a fake or practice mission first, the details of which they can work out together later.

Mrs. Frederic also realizes that Eureka and GD are not government anymore, so he, as well as the township of Eureka, would be compensated. The rates can be discussed later.

Myka passed over a manila envelope. It was supposed to contain draft contracts, both for him and for the township of Eureka.

Devon also slipped Jack a little business card.

“To use your words, Sheriff, the ball is now back in your court,“ Devon said. “That number is where you can contact us,” Devon said. “Let us know what your decision is. There’s no timetable. Call us anytime. A week, a month, a year – whatever. This is a ‘just-in-case’ thing for Mrs. Frederic. Our boss is the type that wants to know what kind of resources she has available to her beforehand.

“If you need to know anything, or have any questions, you can also call. We don’t guarantee that we will answer your questions, but it can’t hurt to ask, right?” She smiled at Jack, and he couldn’t help but smile back. The girl was really pretty.

- - - - -

“So,” Myka said, “what do you think?”

“I guess I agree with Mrs. Frederic,” Devon said. “That Sheriff Carter is one smart cookie. And, reading her file, she’s plenty tough, too. I wouldn’t mind having her on the team if we could.”

“I can’t believe she could be a man underneath all that,” Myka said, as they both got in the car.

“What do you mean you can’t believe,” Devon said, closing her own door. She gestured to her own boobs. “Exhibit A!”

Myka shook her head as she started the car and pulled away from the curb. “Your situation is a totally different thing.”

“Are you saying you don’t believe Doctor V?”

“Never mind what I believe or don’t believe,” Myka said. “Besides, I just betcha she won’t call.”

“I don’t know about that,” Devon explained. “Remember what Mrs. Frederic explained? The government doesn’t subsidize GD anymore. They need the money.”

“For that amount of money,” Myka said, “I’d be willing to be a transvestite for a year!”

“I tried that already, hon,” Devon said. “Totally not fun ah-tall!”

“Okay, okay. Now that we’re done here, what’s next?”

- - - - -

“What do you think, Andy?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “What do you think, Boss?”

“Well, if these people are serious, and since Allison says her friend Vanessa trusts this Mrs. Frederic so she trusts her, too, then I am seriously considering it. I think it’s important to be on the right side of the truly important things. You know?”

Jack opened the manila envelope and read through the draft contracts. “Wow!” he commented. “Henry has to see this!” He passed them to Andy, who read them in less than five seconds. Afterwards, he handed back the papers.

Andy looked at his boss. For whatever reason, it was only Sheriff Carter who could explain things to him in a way that his logic systems could properly parse.

To Andy’s main logic algorithms, it was an important thing to be part of the “important things.” But in the hierarchy of his inventory of priorities, where following the instructions of Sheriff Carter, the protection of the citizens of Eureka, the welfare of Sheriff Carter’s family (in his database “Sheriff Carter’s family” was equivalent to “Andy’s family”) are on the top, as well as his “relationship” with his boss’s smart house AI, Sarah, he was unable to parse out “truly important things” – what are they, and where do they fall in his list?

He therefore engaged his data-gathering protocols.

“Boss, what are the ‘important things?’” he asked.

Jack shrugged. “It’s hard to answer that, Andy,” he said. “I guess you have to look at things in a bigger way. For example, instead of just thinking of yourself, think of your family, too. And you can then expand that further. Instead of thinking of just you and your family, you can include your friends. And then, expanding that, it could be you, your family, your friends and your neighbors. And then you can expand it to include your town. And then maybe your country, too, and so on and so on.”

“But, Boss, why should I think about the entire country? Who are they that I should?”

“True, but whether or not someone is a stranger is only important in certain situations, right? Helping people is the important thing. As to who to help - well, say, helping an old lady across the street will only be possible if you know if that person is really an old lady requiring help, and knowing that the lady wants to cross the street, and if you are in the same area so that you are even in a position to help the person, right?”

“Aren’t those things self-evident in the question?”

“Are they?”

Andy stopped. “What do you mean, Boss?” he asked.

“Can’t you use the same method to answer the question of what the important things are?”

Andy nodded. “I will think about it some more. But if there are many ‘important things,’ which should you do?”

“Well, obviously, you try for all of them, but you can’t, of course. But since you know there are things you need to do – Rescue Henry, for example, or stop a nuclear meltdown, or even something as mundane as go to the bathroom, or have lunch, or meet up with someone, or try and get some sleep, or whatever – knowing these things you absolutely need to do, you can evaluate and see the things that you can take care of, right? Prioritize.”

“But, Boss, there could still be still be too many things - how do I know which are more deserving of my help?”

“Assigning value is a tricky thing. Any normal person will use his own yardstick. One can use his sense of compassion, or his, quote, set of values, or, quote, sense of justice. For us officers of the law, it’s easier – we have the law as our means of judging that. But as a human, I will temper the law with my, quote, sense of compassion.”

“What is that?”

“I’m sure you can look it up.”

“I will.”

“You know, Andy” Jack said and leaned his chair back, “I think it might be fun being a secret agent. You know, going undercover and doing spy stuff so the bad guys can be put away, or prevent the dominoes from falling, and help to preserve the country. I’m actually considering it.”

Andy was getting the context of what Jack was saying even though he knew he wasn’t interpreting the literal words correctly. He was actually getting good at context-driven conversations.

“How about me, Boss? Should I consider it, too?”

“Well, it’s all up to you, actually. Do you really want to do it and work with me? But if ever I go undercover, it would be nice to have someone with me I know I can depend on, like you. Wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, I would.”

Jack nodded. “Hey, I promised to tell Henry and Allison about this. Would you mind if I go to GD for a couple of hours?” He waved the manila envelope. “I have to show this to them, anyway.”

“That’s all right, Boss,” Andy said. “You aren’t scheduled for fieldwork until this afternoon, after all.”

“How about you?”

“Foot patrol for the next three hours.”

Jack nodded. “Okay. I’ll see you later, then. I’m off to GD.”

“Okay, Boss. See you later.”

- - - - -

Jack went over to GD and talked with Henry and Allison, and showed them the draft contracts left by Agent Bering.

Henry looked it over, checked his sources and confirmed the authenticity of the documents, while Allison called GD’s lawyer, Oliver Babbish, and he came over.

“Well, Henry,” Oliver said after going through the two sample contracts, “if you say these are legit...”

“They are, Oliver,” Henry said. “They’re genuinely from Director Frederic and the Department of the Treasury, and therefore, by extension, from the President. What do you think?”

“Well... all I can say is that whatever the president wants Jack for, for this much money, it must be something pretty big.”

“But you think it’s...”

“Aside for the obvious differences, it’s a pretty standard arrangement, like standard no-poach service contracts.”

“No-poach?”

“They’d essentially be ‘borrowing’ Jack and Andy for specific assignments, but just temporarily – they’re not being hired away. Eureka’s contract is a ‘fee’ to allow them to borrow our sheriff and deputy sheriff for assignments not exceeding a week, and with an additional section for Andy’s services.”

“What about Jack’s contract?”

“As for Jack’s contract, it’s more straightfoward – it’s just about the fee for services rendered.”

“Details?”

“Not much on details. I think that’s by design. Jack has the authority to accept or reject assignments, but other than that... And the contracts are very specific on the security. The NDA portions of the two contracts are ironclad. Jack can’t talk about anything, and the same is true with Andy. In fact, if we sign, it specifies that a special circuit designed by Warehouse 13 personnel need to be installed in Andy, its purpose being to erase all his memory from the beginning of an assignment.”

“I don’t think that can be allowed. What if that circuit does something more?”

“It says here that the plans for the device will be provided to us, so we can have the device vetted by our own people if we wanted. We can even fabricate it ourselves.”

“Hmmm... I think they’re being up-front with us, Henry,” Jack said.

“I guess. But all of this is academic, Jack, unless you’re saying you want to do it.”

“But you guys are okay with it?”

Oliver shrugged. “I can’t say anything about the legalities – they’re all pretty legal. But I can’t vouch for the ethics of the assignments they’ll send you on since...”

“I had a talk with Dr. Calder this morning,” Allison said. “She’s confident about the ‘ethics,’ as Oliver puts it, of the assignments. She trusts Director Frederic, so I trust her, too.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Jack said, and took Allison’s hand.

“So does that mean you’re saying yes?” she asked Jack.

“Well, no. Not yet, at least. I need to think about it some more.”

“Well, I’ll go with whatever Jack decides,” Allison said to Henry.

“Okay,” Henry said. “No rush. They said you don’t need to send them an answer right away, Jack.”

“I need to talk to Zoe, though,” Jack said. “See what she thinks. Would that be okay?”

“By all means.”

- - - - -

Allison decided to update her file on Jack’s morphs, prior to sending it to her friend, Dr. Vanessa Calder. Vanessa said she might not be able to come back soon, so this would help update her.

The file was Global Dynamics Employee Case File “CARTER-J-MORPH-EUGD001,” but everyone just called it “Jack’s Morphs.” The file was actually complete, but she went to the end, added a note and electronically signed it.

She wasn’t for it herself, but she wasn’t saying anything either way, leaving the decision to Jack. And whatever he decided, she knew she and the kids would be okay with it. It remained to be seen what Zoe will say, but she was fairly sure she’d have the same take on it. They all loved Jack, and they’ll all support him.

She sighed. She saved the file, punched the button to send it to Vanessa, and went back to work.

- - - - -

Jack went home to their so-called townhouse, and met up with Zoe. She was entertaining the girls while Kevin was with friends.

“Hi, Dad,” Zoe said. “You morphed again? Dammit! And I didn’t see!”

“Sorry, Zoe. But if you really want me to, I can morph again. You just tell me when.

“Yayyy! So what are you doing home?”

“I need to tell you something.”

“Okay...”

- - - - -

After Jack left the Sheriff’s Office, Andy “felt” something akin to being lonely. He knew it couldn’t possibly be like a human’s sense of loneliness. In straight terms, Andy was observing a situation in his sytem where the low amount of data coming into his input circuits was causing sub-optimal performance in his main processor, aka loneliness. To correct that deficiency, he needed to increase input. It was a good thing he was going to do some foot patrol. Seeing more people meant more input. And that would mean less “loneliness.”

He grabbed his radio and proceeded to do a circuit around Eureka’s downtown area.

- - - - -

In about two hours, Andy was more or less done with his foot patrol. His last stop was in Café Diem. Not to eat, of course, but to check with Vincent and his diners.

As explained in the Eureka Sheriff’s Operations Manual, “by talking and chatting with people, a peacekeeping officer can increase the community’s confidence in the said officer, as well as allowing the officer to unearth potential concerns of the community.”

And where else could one get the best gossip and conversation in Eureka than in Café Diem?

So he chatted with Vincent and most of the diners that he knew. Nothing big - just small talk.

As he was chatting, a very tall brunette came in.

She was wearing high heels and something Andy knew was sometimes referred to as an “LBD” – a little black dress. Over that ensemble, the girl was wearing a black high-fashion trench coat.

Andy didn’t recognize her, although her general features correlated with Kayley Panabaker, the daughter of Dr. Elise Panabaker, GD’s chief librarian. But then, Kayley was five-foot four. This girl was over six feet tall.

“Hey, Andy,” the girl said as she posed provocatively by the café’s doorway. “How do you like my new outfit? Zoe and I picked this out for fun. What do you think? Do I look like a genuine spy?”

“Hey, Boss,” Andy said. “Does this mean you’ve decided?”

Jack shook his head. “Heck, no. I’m just trying out the look for fun.” She posed again. “So?”

“Well... That’s definitely a different look for you. For sure.”