Houston We Have A Problem
Eureka's Sheriff Carter, and Mayor Henry, take a look into stolen Global Dynamics property that leads them to Texas and a run in with the Warehouse 13 gang, who are there on assignment. Are they looking for the same thing? Why would Eureka's Sheriff go somewhere he doesn't have jurisdiction? Will Fargo and Claudia hook up again? Find all of this out and more by reading. Please review!
Disclaimer: I do not own, Eureka, Warehouse 13 or any of the affiliated characters. I have absolutely no connection to SyFy Channel or anyone who does, this is placed here for entertainment, and parody, no money will ever be made for me from this story.
Eureka Sheriff's Office
Jack Carter sits alone in his office dreaming of baseball when his phone snaps his consciousness back to the here and now.
"Sheriff's Office, Jack Carter speaking, what can I do for you?"
Jack listens to the caller for a few minutes before responding, "Sir, you do know that I am no longer a U.S. Marshal, I left to become a small town sheriff."
Jack listens for a moment, then takes his feet off his desk and leans forward looking very worried.
"Okay, but I am going to need to take a couple people with me for their expertise. "
Jack hung up the phone, took a quick look around and ran out the door
Inside Warehouse 13
"Claudia! What have you done to my computer this time!" yelled Artie.
Claudia, smirking responded "Relax gramps, I just added some RAM to help speed things up a bit."
"You know I don't want you touching anything unless I specifically…" Arty was interrupted by the computer's alarm announcing suspicious artifact related activity. Pushing his glasses further onto his face Arty admonished, "We are not done talking about this."
He looked over the monitor and typed a few commands watching the data flash quickly on the screen.
"See, look how much faster this dinosaur responds to your commands now!" Claudia quipped.
Arty was trying very hard not to show that he was impressed by the improvement to his computer.
"I liked how it was just fine without you messing with it, now call Pete and Myka, it looks like it won't be a slow day after all."
Claudia was just reaching for her Farnsworth when it started buzzing indicating an incoming call.
"Claudia, it's Pete. Is Arty with you?"
Claudia turned the device so that Arty and she were both visible to Pete.
"He won't let me be anywhere else, even though I am trying my best to aggravate him."
Arty, looking over the top of glasses gave Claudia a very indignant look before turning his attention to Pete's image in the Farnsworth.
"Pete you and Myka need to come to the Warehouse right away, there has been an incident."
Hearing her name, Myka popped her head into view of the Farnsworth on Pete's end and asked, "Let me guess. It has something to do with a frozen guy in Houston?"
Pete added, "That's why we buzzed, it is on the news right now."
Artie, looking bemused replied "That's right, and Houston is anything but cold in July."
Claudia's usual facial expression of exasperation to Arty changed quickly to one of exuberance as she took off out of the room.
"This certainly does smell of artifact to me, but Houston's a big place, can we narrow it down any Arty?" Pete looked like he already knew the answer to his question, but had to ask anyway.
"For now just go the scene of the crime and I'll see what I can do from here," Arty started looking around for Claudia as he closed the Farnsworth ending the transmission.
"Now where did that girl go, I have lots of research I need her to do, uh help me with," Muttered Arty to himself.
Claudia burst back in to the room with a bag in her hands.
"When do we leave?"
"We aren't going anywhere. You are going to stay here with me and try to figure out what could be doing this!" replied Arty.
"You never let me have any fun," pouted Claudia.
"If you make me stay here, you know I will cause you all sorts of trouble," she mock-threatened. "But if I get to go, I'm out of your hair and you can put your computer, and all the others" murmured quietly, "back to normal," she stated enthusiastically.
Arty let this idea roll around in his head for a moment before responding,
"Fine, but you have to stay out of Pete and Myka's way and I have to check your bag." Arty held out his hand and looked at her bag.
"Whoa! Gestapo much? Why in the world would you need to check my bag?" Claudia smiled innocently, but knew she was not going to get away without Arty looking, so she handed it over to him.
Arty unzipped the duffle and began rummaging through it. He pulled out an old walkman radio, a Swiss Army pocket knife and a cowboy hat.
"What are you doing with these? These artifacts are Warehouse property and you know the rules. You can't leave here with them. You shouldn't even have them off the shelf!"
Claudia looked honestly hurt and grabbed the radio out of Arty's hand.
"It's going to be a long drive and Nobutoshi Kihara's original Walkman plays any piece of music you can think of. It's like Napster, but with thoughts instead of computers and you don't have to worry about it being legal or not. Come to think of it; it's not like Napster at all" she rambled, then pointed to the pocket knife. "That's just a knife. It's not like I am getting on a plane, you never know when a girl may need a pocket knife." She stated casually.
Arty looked at the knife again and then back at Claudia.
"Ok, you can take the Walkman," he relented, "But the knife stays here!" he exclaimed with a knowing look as he opened one of the blades to reveal a small chainsaw.
"I happen to know that it produces any blade you need at the moment you need it."
"Also I may not be hip, or in-the-know, or whatever you call it, but I do know that Napster is old news, so your analogy needs work.
"Now the hat…" he shifted focus to the third object he had pulled from the bag.
"I don't know why you want this, but I am sure it can't be good" he said with a grimace. "I didn't know we even had a hat like this here. What does it do?"
Claudia pocketed the Walkman and took the hat from Arty's hands and placed it on her head with a wry grin. "Duh, it looks good! And since I am going to Texas, I wanted to fit in." Claudia's smirk changed to bewilderment and she asked "Wait a minute, why would that knife give you a chainsaw, what are you about to do?"
Pete and Myka walked in just in time to see Claudia put the hat on and hear her proclamation and both started laughing hysterically.
Back in Eureka
Jack is at Henry's Garage trying to convince him to come along.
"Come on Henry, it'll be fun and I could really use you there just in case there are any problems."
Henry looked at his wife, who nodded her head to say yes. "I don't know Jack. Tell me why you need to go to Houston again."
Jack smiled and said "John Clark, who is the director of the U.S. Marshal's called me and asked if I would investigate a fugitive, first I told him no, that I am a Sheriff now, but he explained that he knows what I do and knows all about Eureka. He said that the person he is looking for is believed to be in possession of G.D. property. He didn't ask Jo because the property was stolen years ago before she was head of security. Director Clark has good Intel that the fugitive has turned up in Houston."
Henry thought a moment before asking, "So what did he steal and who is this guy?"
"Her," corrected Jack. "The thief is a woman. Director Clark said her name is Wells and she stole some kind of generator that I'm told never worked."
Jack put his hand on Henry's shoulder and implored, "I've already got everything set for me to be gone a few days. We can take my car and I'll even buy the food," he persuaded. "I'd really like you to go with me."
"Okay, fine," Henry finally agreed with a small smile. "But I think we need to talk to Fargo and get all the information that we can on this generator first. I don't want to walk into something dangerous without knowing all I can about it."
Jack and Henry walked into Douglas Fargo's office only to stop short at the sight of him wearing what looked like a virtual-reality helmet. Henry opened his mouth to speak, but Jack put his hand up to stop him.
Jack whispered "Shh, this looks entertaining."
Fargo was waving his arms in the air and pacing back and forth. "Mom, I told you I can't leave right now. I am the CEO of a multinational corporation. I will visit when I get the time."
Even with the helmet on, Jack and Henry could tell that Fargo was frowning. Jack walked slowly over to him and placed a hand lightly on his shoulder. Fargo jumped and let out a girlish scream before frantically yelling "Mom I gotta go, someone is trying a hostile takeover!" Fargo removed the helmet, and crouched down in a stance that reminded Henry of a praying mantis.
Jack quipped "Easy Fargo, play along and the takeover will anything but hostile."
"CEO of a multinational corporation? Your mom doesn't really believe that, does she?" Henry added
Fargo relaxed and sighed "I am the head of G.D. it isn't that much a stretch, and she doesn't have the clearance to be told exactly what I do. This way she is proud of me, and I have a good excuse to not go home where my Uncle's like to play…a friendly game of keep away." Fargo emphasized the last part with finger quotes.
Jack laughed and said "Keep away doesn't sound that bad. Sure a little humiliating maybe, but it could be worse."
Fargo gave Jack a contemptuous look and softly replied "yeah, except they keep me away from the bathroom, for the entire weekend."
Henry couldn't help but smile and say "If I promise to give you the key, could you help us out with something?"
Fargo perked up at the thought of being useful to someone and sat primly at his desk.
"Sure Henry, what do you need?" Said Fargo as he steepled his fingers under his chin and leaned back in his chair with an air of important confidence.
"We need to know about some stolen G.D. property." Henry replied.
Fargo's chair slid out from underneath him and he flopped back onto the floor. Picking himself up he looked at Henry worriedly and proclaimed "Jo hasn't mentioned anything! What was stolen? When did it happen? Should I call the General? What section did it come from?" Fargo rambled off the questions in a panic.
Jack was looking at the helmet Fargo had been wearing and picked it up "Calm down Fargo, it was stolen years ago, before you got this position, before Jo was even in Eureka and it's a generator from section 2."
Fargo noticeably relaxed and started looking up files on his computer. "Okay, I have lots of files on generators, can you be more specific?"
Jack still turning over the helmet in his hands said sarcastically "yeah like I said, it was in section 2, was stolen, oh yeah and it never worked.
Fargo was so busy looking at his computer that he didn't notice jack putting on the helmet until it was too late "JACK NO, YOU DON'T WANT TO…"
As soon as the helmet was all the way on the Sheriff's head, he jumped back in shock and said "Uh, hi, Mrs. Fargo I presume? Sorry to bother you, I was just…" Jack was interrupted by muffled screams coming from the helmet.
Fargo, moving faster than Henry would have thought possible for the small man, ran over to Jack and yanked the helmet unceremoniously off his head, the yelling died off immediately.
"Careful! This is a direct line to my mom. I show up on her T.V. and she doesn't know that I can see her too, she thinks I web cast my image to her while we are on the phone."
Henry looking very entertained questioned, "Does she not see the camera on her television?"
"That's one heck of a camera. It was like I was in the room with her." Jack said.
Fargo paled and replied "That's because I installed holographic scanner/transmitters in her apartment. I found it was easier than asking if my Uncles were there. I could just use the helmet here to take a look around the house before making any visits, thus avoiding mom's accusatory proclamations of 'you should try to get along with your Uncles more, they are just being friendly."
"Fargo, you are head of G.D. I shouldn't have to tell you that using Global Dynamics property without authorization is strictly forbidden." Henry declared.
Fargo was about to respond when his computer made a noise indicating that the database had been searched.
"Once again my computer gets me out of trouble."
Fargo went over to the monitor and smiled. "Henry, Sheriff check this out."
Fargo waved his hands at the monitor and then towards a wall in his office, where some sort of blueprints appeared. "Here is your generator. It says here that it was stolen back in 1962 and was supposed to harness radio waves to convert them into electricity."
Henry frowned thoughtfully and said "I looked into this once, the first time I was in college, the problem isn't that you can't turn the waves into energy. That's actually fairly simple, but turning them into energy stops them from going any farther, and you still need energy to transmit those signals in the first place."
Jack looked a little confused "What good would something like that do then?"
Fargo, glowing with pride, responded "If there has been a natural disaster, and power has been knocked out, surrounding cities can boost their signals to send power wirelessly to the affected areas."
"You still have the issue of those radio signals being stopped, no one would be able to listen to emergency broadcasts. That was why it was never put into action, and probably what Director Clark meant when he said it didn't work." Henry rebutted.
Jack looking slightly distressed from the tech talk said "I need a way to find it Fargo. Got any ideas?"
Fargo typed a few more commands into his computer and said "I have just the thing." A hidden panel revealed itself behind his desk and Fargo typed in a password on the panel and the wall opened up to a rather large store room. Stepping inside Fargo motioned for Henry and Jack to wait there. After a few moments he returned. And the door closed behind him.
"That was unexpected" Jack said.
Fargo, once again looking very proud of himself said "Oh, that's where we keep the finished, tested and ready to be patented technology that comes out of Eureka, everything in that room is 100% safe and ready to go, but some of it, the public isn't quite ready for yet."
Jack grinned and replied "I have yet to see anything in town be ready for the general public, most of it isn't even ready for Eureka!"
Fargo didn't let the Sheriff's comments faze him in the slightest, he just shrugged and handed the Sheriff a small rectangular pad that looked remarkably like a large cell phone.
"Use this to find the generator. The technology is actually old now; better things have come and gone. It will not only sniff out any kind of transmission, but it will tell you how strong it is, where it's coming from and where it ends. I used to use it for wardriving."
At the word wardriving Jack's head snapped up to look at Fargo "I don't even want to know what that is, do I?"
Henry chuckled "Don't worry Jack. It's just a term used to describe looking for an open internet connection, nothing malicious about it at all."
Jack put the device in his pocket and smiled at Henry "Ok, let's get going. I hope you're ready for a great trip."
Henry, looking a little worried, said "You do know this isn't a vacation right?" The two men started to leave Fargo's office "Thanks for the help Fargo" Jack called back as an afterthought.
Fargo was already holding the VR helmet again and frowning as he slowly placed it back on his head. Henry and Jack laughed at the last thing they heard from Fargo's office was muffled yells again.
To be continued…