A black car was parked in the driveway of the house. It clearly wasn't supposed to be there. No one ever came to visit Alex, especially in a black Crown Victoria and after dark.

Alex disliked this, as he often wanted to have friends over but always had to make some excuse that they couldn't visit him. He couldn't let it get out that he lived on his own. He always made excuses like his parents were sick, that they had the cable guy coming that day to install a new internet connection and such. But to tell the truth meant to tell that his parents were nowhere to be found, but telling the truth also meant the possibility of the government finding out as well.

You see, the government didn't really like fourteen year olds living on their own. They preferred sending them to foster homes where they could be monitored, an option that Alex didn't want to accept. Why would he have to live with people who never met him in his life and have to see a counsellor every week? He could keep his parent's house in reasonable condition and take care of himself using the money that his parents left him. As long as the hydro bill was paid, no one suspected a thing.

By forging their signatures, he was able to dodge nearly every legal bullet, even though they died ten years previous. Death records were easily obtainable by the government of Canada, yet somehow the case slipped through the cracks.

His parents died in a plane crash coming back from a business summit in the 'states. Why his mother decided to accompany his father on the trip, no one will ever know. The aircraft lost control over the Rockies over Washington State and slammed into a cliff face. There was no hope for survival.

The day after, Alex was sent to live with his grandmother, who as nice as she could be was in ill health. It eventually became his job to look after her as she aged, making him able to look after himself in the process. After she was forced into a nursing home, he was left with little choice. Either he was to go into a foster home or try to tough it out on his own at the age of twelve. He chose the latter.

Moving back into his old home was the hardest day of his life. The sleepy Vancouver home made all of the old memories of his early childhood come flooding back. How he missed those days. It wasn't long before he made the place his own and erased most of what the home used to look like. Now it was his and no one was going to take it away from him and put him into an orphanage.

Now there was a black sedan parked outside his house. It had a government license plate, reading C-something. He felt a sinking feeling in his stomach, they had come for him. It was almost inevitable. All he could do was face them like a mature human, running from them would go against all that he was able to accomplish over the years where he lived on his own. He wasn't a child anymore.

Rain started to fall as he slowly walked over to the vehicle and peered into its tinted windows. At such a short distance, it was possible to see the interior which as far as he could tell was empty. Now who would just leave a vehicle in his driveway? They might already have been inside, which by the looks of the front door being ajar they were.

Now wanting to get out of the rain, Alex hurried up the front stairs of the house and into the foyer not thinking for a second if there could have been anyone other than a government official inside.

"Hello." came a voice to his right. He turned to face the speaker, who was seated in the living room. He was an older man, not too old though. He was the same age Alex's father would have been, though it definitely was not his father. He was dressed in a cheap suit that could easily be identified as over two decades old.

"Hello." was Alex's subconscious reply; he was too startled by how the man had already become so comfortable in a home that wasn't his own. "Can I help you?" he implored.

"I'd like some water if it's not too much trouble." he replied, casually as if the answer wasn't too out of the ordinary.

"Okay." His voice cracked, quite embarrassingly as he was taken off guard by the statement made by his visitor. Alex, uncomfortable quickly ran into the kitchen to fill a glass with the sink and bring it back into the front room. This was probably the oddest situation he had ever been in.

The man graciously accepted the glass and began to drink. Alex just sat across from him, trying to pick up on what he was thinking. When he finished the water, Alex got up the courage to say another line. "Usually there is a reason why someone breaks into a house and it's not to get a glass of water. The only two reasons I can think of are that you are either here to rob me or you want to arrest me."

"I'm here for neither."

"Then why did you break in my door and come in here?" Alex asked, more seriously than the last statement, trying to press him into divulging more information. The man simply stared back at him, not intensely and not passively, just neutral.

"I'm not asking you again. Why are you here?" he asked again, his voice now rising above its normal volume.

"Persistent; I like that." the man said with a small smile, before taking another sip of water.

Now he's just creeping me out.

"If you don't tell me what the hell you are doing here, I am going to call the cops damn it!" he sputtered, visibly shaken. He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. "See, I can dial 911 and they will be here in less than a minute."

"Come on, we both know you aren't going to do that. If they come, they most certainly run a background check on you and find that you are an orphan." he said in a relaxed tone. The phone held in Alex's hand was slowly lowered to his side as he took on the full weight of the words. "Isn't that right Alex?"

He stared at the man. If he was here from the government, he would have probably introduced himself better, no federal agent would be acting in such a manner.

"I believe I should be explaining myself?" he asked rhetorically.

"Yes!" Alex said, exasperated. "By all means, please explain yourself!"

"Take a seat and I will explain everything." Alex wasn't used to being ordered around by other people, especially people who he didn't know in his own house but for some reason, he complied with the request.

"Now you are familiar with Canadian statutory law regarding child welfare I presume." he said, already knowing the answer.

"Yes, how could I not. If I didn't I would have been discovered half a decade ago. But you would already know that wouldn't you."

"In fact, I thought it was just luck that you managed up until now." he said lowly, before continuing to explain. "So with those laws, it allows policemen to be dispatched anywhere by the child welfare bureau to how the put it: collect them. In reality, it is a free and universal arrest warrant. They can batter down the doors of any house they want and arrest the subject in question."

"...And where does that leave me?" asked Alex in rapid succession.

"I'm getting there, in time." the man said in the same casual voice that he used when he first spoke to Alex. "You see the laws just need to be enacted by any bureau member and the arrest warrant can be carried out the next day. Your address and your name were on one of the applications to the police yesterday." he spoke the words of your with high emphasis.

"So you are saying that I am to be arrested tomorrow." said Alex with an air of uncertainty

"Exactly." was the man's simple reply.

"Why are you telling me this? Why is this happening? Why..." he began to lose control and trail off. This was his worst nightmare happening to him in real life. He sat down heavily, burying his head in his hands.

The man cut him off. "Calm down. I'm here to help." he said calmly.

"How can I even trust you? How did you even find out about this?" he continued his questions.

"As for finding out about this whole situation, the answer is very simple. I monitor the bureau everyday for the same sort of cases like the one you are in. Secondly, you don't seem to have any choice in the matter whether you trust me or not. If you don't, you can sure trust child services when they come to pick you up tomorrow. So does that answer your question or not?" the man was severely out of breath from his speech and took a long pause afterwards.

"Kind of." Alex mumbled.

"Then what haven't I explained properly?"

"Why exactly are you here and what do you have to gain from this? Why would you spend time hacking into government records, and breaking into private property is the general question I am asking you."

"I understand you have no idea what my motives are. Sometimes it is good to not know something until you are ready for it, but I do suppose I should tell you something to placate you."

"Yes, please do."

"I am an employer. I seek out new applicants, usually people in your position."

"Yeah, great." scoffed Alex. "You're basically blackmailing me into working for you. Now if you wouldn't mind..."

The man cut him off very suddenly. "Now don't be hasty here."

"I'm not interested and that's final. Also as a word of advice, it isn't usually good to break into people's homes when you want them to work for you. Putting up an advertisement online usually suffices." he began to use the same nonchalant way of speaking the man used on him minutes earlier.

The man stared at him for what seemed like several minutes, as if to size up Alex for some sort of purpose.

"I know when I am getting nowhere." he said, getting up from his seat on the couch.

"Exactly."

He was visually annoyed with the way Alex had been shutting him out and not trusting him. Gathering his belongings, which were only his hat and jacket, he approached the door where he paused.

"If you change your mind." he said simply as he dropped a small object on the front landing. "There will be a taxicab waiting for you at the end of the street tomorrow morning." and with those words, he exited and didn't look back.

It took Alex a few minutes to advance towards the object after being severely shaken by his experience. He wondered if what he said was true. Would this be his last night in his house?

He was thinking of that when he finally came within visual distance of the object the man dropped. It was the house key that he thought he had lost nearly a week ago; he knew it was this, because as soon as he got it he locked the deadbolt to the front door from the inside.

What the key was attached to was more foreign than the key. It was a small business card, simple with large text which gave an address. Alex was about to crumple it up and throw it in the garbage when something in the back of his mind stopped him from committing the deed. This might be his only ticket out of being forced into a foster home. But at what cost, would it be better just to accept his fate?

Just to be sure that the note was in fact a business card; he glanced at it and turned it over in his hands which revealed two sides of writing on the paper.

"Station Three-Hundred Sixteen, Mandated and Securely Operated UNSS Operation Since 1983 (For before 1983, see Station Three-Hundred Fifteen.)"

On the rear, scrawled with a thick pencil was the numbers 8:15. This occurred to Alex that this was the time that the taxi would be waiting for him the next morning, but this wasn't the thing that most intrigued him about the note.

UNSS stood for nothing, except some Bulgarian University which obviously wasn't what the man was talking about. A university halfway around the world wouldn't have an 'operation' in some random Canadian city. He made sure of this by entering the abbreviation in Wikipedia right away. Searching it on Google did nothing more than turn up similar hits.

It wasn't like the card even had an address on it, if it did, he could have just entered it into a map website which would have also given a description of the business. But it didn't have one. What even was the point of this card anyways? Usually business cards were used to attract people to a business, right?

Alex slumped back in his chair, tired of searching for any leads onto what the company did, where they were or who was employed there. He wondered to himself why the hell he was even considering going. It was probably him subconsciously trying to suppress the fear that any normal person would be feeling given the situation.

"I just need some sleep." Alex said to himself, with no one there to hear except himself except a continually changing digital clock. It was past midnight already. He put his head in his hands and sighed at the realization at the time. He was dead tired, even though he was scared out of his wits. Perhaps sleep would bring a new solution to his problems.

He slowly lowered himself into bed, not taking the time to take off his shoes. He needed to be ready to book it at the drop of a hat. He usually was good about not doing this as he was the only one in the house to clean up after himself. Tonight was an exception, because tomorrow he wouldn't be living at his house, one way or another. That is if he trusted the guy.

Alex's alarm clock went off at ten to eight in the morning, as always. He awoke with a bitter taste in his mouth and wishing that the events in the past day didn't take place, but he knew that they did. Being naive never got him anywhere, so he pulled himself up and out into the hall.

It was deserted, like normal. No one else had been there for years. Today perhaps, that would change. Just when it would happen, he couldn't tell.

Just before falling asleep, he decided to take the taxi instead of the cop car ride out of his house. He thought it might be good just to check out what this guy was exactly offering in the way of a job position. Just as long as it wasn't a sweatshop, he was down with any ticket out of going to a foster home.

As soon as he made his way into the main floor from his room on the second, he was greeted by a knock on the door. The noise of skin on the steel door was unmistakeable. A sinking feeling emerged from the pit of his stomach. It was them.

The first instinctual thing to do would be to look to see who was there from the front window, but that would mean also giving away that he was there as well. Alex would have to be content with taking a glance at his visitors from one of the spare bedrooms on the ground floor. The view to the front door was obstructed by a hedge, but he could still see any cars that were parked out front.

Sure enough, a police car was parked in the front drive and an officer was exiting the passenger car door. Alex quickly ducked his head beneath the sill to avoid being spotted. Hopefully he was swift enough.

Another knock at the door, and this time it was accompanied by a voice shouting something incomprehensible at the supposed occupant inside. Alex's breathing rate dropped, slow enough not to arise suspicion from the uninvited guests on the front porch.

He was careful to keep noise to a minimum when he tiptoed out of the room, keeping his head low. He made his way across the hall in a diagonal fashion around the stairs and down into the back hall that led outside. Another voice interrupted his progress.

"Open up, it's the metropolitan police!" was a shout that was made to pierce the door. Alex was about to open his mouth to make a fake promise to them that he would come to the door, but he checked himself. It would be to his benefit if he could get out of there without them even knowing that he was even home that day.

Not having to remember to put shoes on or lock the door, he opened the back door very gradually and softly as to not arise any suspicion from the men out front. The hard part would be shutting it.

"We have the authority to forcefully enter your house." one announced. Alex's eyes grew wider at the statement. 'Focus' he thought, as in every situation there was some way to use any force to your own advantage. Just think of something...

"The door has to come down." The sentence was final, not loud or directed at Alex but final none the less. The door was going to be kicked in and it did.

In an ear-splitting resounding smash, the door was lifted off of its hinges in a flurry of a feet and legs. At exactly the same millisecond, Alex shut the back door with force. The sound of the door being shut was overruled by the sound of the other door being destroyed. Thankfully so, but the fourteen year old didn't want to take any chances.

He never ran so fast in his life, but never before in his life was his entire life at stake. He bolted out of the back yard, jumped the back gate and continued up the back lane up to where he could imagine the taxi would be waiting for him. Checking his watch, he found it was eight thirteen. With luck, the cab was already where it was supposed to be. Well, he would only have to wait a few more seconds.

"Come on... Come on... Come on!" Alex growled to himself, wishing that he could keep up his pace long enough to get to the end of the lane.

He turned the corner at the end and looked around. Sure enough there was a yellow Prius with a man in a brown uniform leaning against the door. The person glanced up from his shoes and up at me.

"Hey are you..." he started to ask the boy running up his right flank.

"Yes, I'm Alex Sharp now get in the car." The taxi driver simply nodded and got inside again, not really caring about what was going on, as long as he was getting paid.

Alex hurriedly slid over the hood, opened the back seat and hopped inside in one swift motion.

"You must be in a hurry." said the taxi driver, making small talk as he pulled out of the block.

"You don't know the half of it." breathed Alex, now getting a full lung's worth of air into his system.