“I’m glad you finally saw things my way, Brad,” Mikhail said, his voice ringing from the speaker on Brad’s communicator. “I always found it odd that you showed no interest in joining the family business, but I’m happy to have you along on this new venture of mine. Sure is a shame about Elaine, though. I always liked her, but I suppose I could see how our project here could be an issue, knowing her ethics. Either way, two out of three isn’t so bad.”

“Of course, Dad,” Brad said, trying to feign as much enthusiasm as he could. “Though don’t be too hard on her. She’ll probably come around eventually when she sees that what we’re doing doesn’t have to be so bad. I think more than anything she’s just unable to reconcile those disappearances.” Brad was careful to not play all of his cards at once. As far as Brad knew, his father was unaware that Brad knew that the deaths were anything but accidental.

“At any rate,” Brad continued, “Jolene needs a new job considering it’s unlikely she’s gonna be taken back by the police force at this point. At least until her leave is up once the investigation is over.”

“Isn’t she on paid leave, though?” Mikhail asked, puzzled.

“Oh, she is, but she said it’s limited. I’m not sure, something about contracts and the sort. Essentially she’s not guaranteed her job if the investigation takes a certain amount of time, and she doesn’t want to wait that long. Says she doesn’t want to be hung out to dry. You understand.”

“I’m not sure that I do,” Mikhail responded, unconvinced.

“They’ve got a pretty tight budget,” Brad pushed, hoping that would satisfy his father. “Small colony, not much in the way of violent crime. Heck, beyond the couple squad vehicles and standard-issue firearms I’m not sure what their actual equipment loadout comes to versus what officers have to supply themselves.”

Mikhail stayed silent for a few seconds, and then said, “It’s possible, I guess, but considering Jolene’s official rap sheet, I can see why she’s not sure she’ll be welcomed back onto the force with open arms. Very well, I will trust your judgment on this, Son.”

“Excellent,” Brad said.

The answer, of course, was as soon as possible, and the position Brad was given could not have been more perfect.

—

Despite her misgivings about the complex itself, the fact that Jolene was placed as a gate guard was something she could get on board with. It wasn’t particularly exciting, but a cushy job that she’d technically get paid for was nice. Brad’s ability to fast-talk his and her way into the positions they found themselves in was genuinely impressive. She could tell he wasn’t a fan of nepotism, but he’d reasoned with her that the position wasn’t going to last very long so he could just deal with it.

A week or so into their new “jobs” came the day they’d been waiting for, for better or worse, as a group of Earth Federation operatives, having caught wind of the reopening of the mine, showed up for an impromptu safety inspection. Jolene hadn’t seen it herself, but she’d heard rumors of both Brad’s father and Rami cursing Elaine’s name, that somehow she was the one who’d leaked everything and that they had almost no time to prepare for the inspection. As much as she could tell it hurt Brad, he’d played along, saying he felt like he hadn’t known her as well as he thought he had.

So here she was, opening the gate for the operatives’ vehicle, waving them through as they presented the relevant documents. She radioed the vehicle’s arrival and proceeded to wait.

—

“They’re here.” Jolene’s simple message ringing from Brad’s communicator signaled the beginning of Phase Two. Phase One had been the easy part, just getting the Feds into the complex. Now things were going to get interesting.

“Roger,” Brad replied from his position in the monitor room. He then pressed a button on his communicator, activating a new toy that was provided to him by Sonia Ray.

After a little bit, a warning flashed on the main screen of the monitor room.

Malfunction in autonomous security and mining units. Please reboot the system.

“Ah, shit,” Brad said loud enough that the communicator picked it up. “I got a malfunction warning, gotta reboot the autonomous systems, sorry.”

“What do you mean reboot?” Mikhail’s voice rang out from the communicator in distress.

“Look, I don’t know what I did, but it shouldn’t take long. You said yourself that this happens on occasion, sometimes the best thing to do is turn it off and on again,” Brad replied in a feigned defensive tone. “Sorry, I’m still getting used to the system here.”

“Of all the…” Mikhail muttered. “Fine, go ahead.”

Brad input all the commands for a full system reboot, fully activating the worm that Sonia had sent in with him.

The system flashed an all-clear. Brad looked at all the security monitors. Nothing seemed out of sorts.

Which was exactly what Brad wanted. He could kiss Sonia for coming through for him like this, though he settled on buying her lunch.

Now it’s almost time for the fireworks.

—

Brad had never gotten a chance to figure out just where the alien had come from. Thoroughly abusing his new security clearance, both on foot and with a mining bot, Brad explored the rest of the tunnel system, finding nothing but a small platform composed of the same material as the rest of the cave, almost as if it were carved out of it. Brad had asked one of the scientists about the platform, but since they’d failed to get it working as of yet, it sat at a low priority. The presence of an extraterrestrial artifact was not going unnoticed, but the research team had opted to focus on the live specimen and what they could glean from it.

Which wasn’t to say that they had tried nothing. But use of organic material from the specimen or taking the specimen directly there had proved to be pointless endeavors.

Still, Brad had wondered whatever connection between the two could be used. Perhaps, in its fear of being poked and prodded by the strange men in strange clothing, it had simply been unwilling to do…whatever it was that it was supposed to do to activate…whatever it was that it was supposed to activate.

Admittedly, Brad’s imagination had gotten away from him, but he surmised that it could be a teleportation device. Certainly, if that’s what it was, the creature wasn’t willing to let its captors use it to travel back to its home. At any rate, worst case scenario, he would be wrong, and he’d accidentally bury the first form of extraterrestrial life that they’d found up to this point. Better that than letting it end up in the wrong hands.

—

A few minutes after rebooting the system, an explosion rocked the complex. Immediately after, the Feds began pouring out of their vehicle, weapons at the ready, demanding that everyone around them place their hands behind their heads and kneel down.

Mikhail’s panicked, angry voice poured through the speaker. “What’s going on? Where are the security bots?!”

Brad kept the act up just a bit longer. “I don’t know, I did everything you said, but I’m not seeing anything on the monitors.”

“Dammit. That’s it, activate the self-destruct, we’re out of here. We can’t let the research fall into the hands of the Feds!”

Meanwhile, a Federation officer entered into the monitor room with Brad, shouting loudly, “It’s over. Hands up! One wrong move and you’re dead!”

Brad winked at the Fed before responding into the communicator, “Sorry, Dad, I screwed everything up. But you should have seen this coming.”

Through the speaker poured a final round of panicked shouting from Brad’s father before the sound of a door being blown open overpowered any other noise in the room.

“The sample’s gone, Dad. The security bots all deactivated shortly after. That explosion? Caved in the location of that platform of yours. Hopefully the specimen got out all right. Either way, we’re done here.”

“I don’t understand, you seemed really interested in what we were doing here,” Mikhail responded, seemingly disappointed.

“I mean, it’s interesting stuff, but…remember how I said Elaine couldn’t get past the disappearances? I couldn’t either. Anyway, I was only given a little time for my post-arrest ‘phone call’, so I gotta go. I may visit you in prison.”

“Don’t bother. As of now you’re dead to me.”

“That’s fair.” Brad then deactivated his communicator. Turning to the Fed, he then said, “All right, take me away from here.”

Epilogue

Elaine was shocked that the plan went off without a hitch. She’d ridden in with what could only be described as a trojan horse filled with Federation operatives, which was the only part of the plan she felt would actually work, but the rest was just insane enough that she was willing to roll with it.

“I’m gonna contact Sonia and see if she can’t give me a virus to screw with their security,” Brad had said, knowing full-well that he didn’t have a backup plan. “And I mean everything. The bots, the cameras, the doors, even the self-destruct system.”

And of course, it worked. While most screens only showed what Brad and Sonia had wanted them to show, remote access to everything was granted to Sonia, opening the specimen’s pen, guiding two of the security bots throughout the facility to the platform, opening and shutting all the doors along the way, it all proceeded according to his plan.

“I’ll blow up the bots once they get far enough away from the specimen. Naturally, this will all happen at the same time as the inspection, which will scare the Fed operatives enough to call in the cavalry and start arresting everyone on the spot. Which is where you come in as their primary contact on the ground.”

The call for backup had gone surprisingly well, all things considered. Apparently someone else had made an anonymous tip about the complex already, either Rami or Sonia, it wasn’t clear, and Elaine’s name came up almost immediately for the investigation when her ties to Jill Cortez were discovered.

Once everything was cleared up, Brad and Jolene were placed under protective custody while the rest of the facility was raided. News of Captain Matsumoto’s involvement with the mine and laboratory had been released along with the other findings such as the use of mind-altering substances and the deaths of Vincent and Jill Cortez. Jolene and Elaine were cleared of any charges, and Jill was posthumously pardoned as well as given a proper funeral.

Jolene was welcomed back onto the force following a very enthusiastic letter of recommendation from someone who only mentioned having her work as a bodyguard for a brief time. It was a bit odd coming from someone outside of the detention center considering Rami had been among those arrested at the raid, but he certainly didn’t seem too upset about her reinstatement as he waited to offer his testimony in the trial.

Elaine eventually dropped by to pay Brad’s bill for the investigation.

“Nah, it’s fine, you don’t need to give me that much,” Brad modestly said, trying to refuse the increased rate that Elaine had offered him.

“Take it, dummy. I got you involved in something way more dangerous than what your usual rate is worth. It’s only fair I give you a pay bump. Consider it a bonus for the door repair as well as payment for Sonia’s services.”

“Why can’t you give Sonia the extra money if you want her to have it that much?”

“That’s not why I’m giving you the raise and you know it, but if I know you, you’ll try to get rid of it anyway. At least this way it goes towards something better than…whatever you waste your extra money on.” Elaine said that in a tone that suggested Brad stop trying to haggle his rates down.

“All right, fine, I’ll take the money. I just feel kinda bad knowing you have your own limited budget. Speaking of, I thought you were offered a position with the Feds. What happened there?”

Elaine wasn’t looking forward to this part.

“Truth is, I quit. I got jealous of the way you do things and I wanted to try my hand at this whole private detective business.”

“Are you asking me for a job?” Brad raised an eyebrow.

“Are you offering one?” Elaine grinned.

“Yeah, twist my arm, why don'tcha.” Brad gave an exaggerated sigh. “I could definitely use some help in keeping the office clean, organizing my paperwork, handling the caseload since someone used this whole thing to signal boost my career.” Brad gave Elaine an irritated side-eye.

“For the last time, it wasn’t me!” Elaine exclaimed. “Look, I know all signs point to me, but I’m just the one who hired you. Either way, you need some help, and I need a job. When can I start?”

“Is this how you interviewed with the police force?” Brad asked playfully.

“Oh, shut up before I kick your ass again. We haven’t sparred in a while. I bet you’re rusty as hell.”

True, Brad had been slacking on the whole self-defense thing. He was on vacation, and he planned to be on vacation for another week at least. There was a lot of work that needed done, but first, Brad wanted to spend some time not responding to calls.