Act I: The End is the Beginning is the End

Disclaimer: Don't own Fillmore!. Just own a couple of OCs that may be in the fic.

Friday

The operation was quick and easy. Just a day before, the Safety Patrol got word of a team of hackers hitting the mainframe. It didn't take long for the entire group, new recruits and all, to descend on the trio of hackers as they attempted their alterations of the grades.

"Freeze," the African-American member of the safety-patrol yelled out, flashing his badge. That was when the three hackers immediately bolted. This was the third attempt at hacking the computer systems, the previous two failing only because of the Safety Patrol's intervention. The first one was an attempt by two members of the computer club to prove that everyone's the same, including the popular people. The second was caused by the ringleader of this group, a blond loser who attempted to use the mainframe to change everyone's grades on the night of the eighth grade dance. The outcome was that said blond was defeated and the Safety Patrol gained a new member.

Now, the spiky-haired blond boy was staring at the African-American. "Fillmore, it's good to see you again." In fact, blondie attempted to poison Fillmore like the time before, but it didn't work.

"Likewise, Patterson."

"I see you've caught us. Unfortunately, you arrived a bit too late." Patterson smiled, causing the group of four Safety Patrol members to gasp. The group consisted of Tehama, a Japanese girl, Ingrid, a black-haired girl with a black dress, and Bueller, a girl with brown hair in a ponytail wearing a red shirt and blue, form-fitting jeans. Bueller was simply there to replace Anza while he was at his hearing. She didn't particularly want to be there, since Patterson had the hots for her in the past (she didn't like that he was so pale and skinny or that he sent one of his fangirls to get her).

The screen showed the grades for everyone in the school: all A's except for members of the Safety Patrol who received failing grades in every subject. "Dawg…" was Fillmore's reaction to the sight.

Then Patterson and his two fangirls proceeded to run. Fillmore and Third went after Patterson while Bueller and Tehama each went after one of the fangirls. The girls were each joined by a chubby guy with brown skin and curly brown hair and a blonde girl respectably. The fangirls were easy to nab, one of them attempted to hide in the tires, but that didn't work since Tehama and the blonde had her cornered easily and she was too afraid of breaking a nail to climb properly. Bueller and the brown-haired guy almost followed the other girl into the Maize Maze, but stopped just in time.

"Bueller to Seth, do you have a feed?"

Seth was a chubbier kid than the one that Bueller was with who had blond hair and blue eyes. He was one of the recent recruits, who, although giving out cheat sheets at the time of the SATTY 9 tests, changed his ways and joined the Safety Patrol shortly after Bueller. "Yeah, just go in and turn left… now right! …keep going straight, and you got her surrounded. Just go in and get her."

Bueller and her partner had the blonde fangirl bottlenecked. "Got you! Now you're going to have to come with us," the brunette said, grabbing onto the girl's arm.

Fillmore and Third were still trying to find Patterson, though. Despite not being all that smart, the guy seemed to know his way around the school. Fillmore and Third fallowed him into the boys' locker room, which, much to Third's dismay, was full of boys changing. The girl shielded her eyes as best as possible, trying not to catch sight of anything she wouldn't want in her photographic memory. Then Fillmore spotted him. "There!" he said, pointing to a window that was being exited by the overly good-looking boy.

Both Fillmore and Third climbed out of the window with ease. Then they spotted the perpetrator running across the soccer field. There wasn't anybody there playing soccer so he was sticking out like a sore thumb. Patterson was already an athlete, though his forte was actually swimming, not running. Of course, since his last offense, he hadn't actually been swimming. Fillmore was the faster runner though, due to his experience in chasing suspects. Eventually, the boy tackled Patterson and knocked him to the ground, hand-cuffing him.

"Glad that's over with," Ingrid commented. They were now back at headquarters and the entire group of Safety Patrollers was there, including the new recruits and Frank Bishop the profiler. He had black hair spiked in front and was wearing a dark blue buttoned-up shirt over a white t-shirt and black jeans.

"Something's not right," he said, going into the interrogation room where Robert Patterson was. The fangirls were already interrogated and it turned out that neither of them actually did anything to help with hacking the computers. It turned out that Patterson actually used a code given to him by someone to get into the computer systems. Thanks to the work of a girl named Yumi who worked for the computer club, though, the grades were restored back to the way they were before the changeover, including the Safety Patrol's.

Frank Bishop walked out of the interrogation room. "It turns out that yeah, he was working for someone. However, he doesn't know who. That I know is true."

"Why am I not surprised?" Fillmore asked. "I mean, the last time Patterson try to do this, he had… outside help."

"I barely remember that. Unfortunately, I was one of the Safety Patrollers that got knocked out by him back then. I gotta wonder: why didn't he do that this time?"

"It's a long story," Ingrid said. Then again, it had been weeks since the incident and they had a lot of cases to go through, so their memory was kind of hazy. "Let's just say that I'd rather forget about the whole fiasco."

It was about that time that Vallejo and Anza came in. "So… how'd it go?" Fillmore asked.

"Guess what? Anza's the new Jr. Commissioner as soon as I graduate," Vallejo announced. He was a slightly overweight Mexican-American who tended to wear pretty formal outfits to school, namely his dark grey pants, light blue shirt and dark blue tie. "Of course, we still have a week, people, so keep working!" Then he turned back to Fillmore. "So, how'd the case go?"

"We caught Patterson red-handed. Unfortunately…" Fillmore let Bishop finish.

"… We have reason to believe Patterson may have been working for someone. We don't know who, though."

"Alright, let's get this finished before finals, okay? Besides, it'll be hard finishing things once two members of the force are gone."

"You got that right," Fillmore agreed.

A few hours later, it didn't look promising. "So far, nothing…" Ingrid said. "We checked the answering machine but Patterson had already deleted the message. We called his provider to figure out where the call came from and it came from a pay-phone, off campus."

"Dawg, nothing," was Fillmore's response. "We're going to have to work harder."

"Unfortunately, guys, we're out of time," Bueller said, pointing at the clock.

"So, we're still going to my house, right, Rachelle?" Ingrid asked.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot it was Friday."

Tehama came up, "Wow, I can't believe you forgot our study session for tonight."

"It's not that, Karen, I just forgot that today was Friday. Great, we're going to have to wait all weekend to solve this case, aren't we?"

Tehama and Third both nodded.

"Hey Bueller," Vallejo called out, walking up to the girls, "Are you doing anything tomorrow afternoon? Frank and I are thinking of going to a movie and then heading to my house for some studying. What do you say?"

"I would say yes except that my dad doesn't want me going to any boys' houses. Hey, we could always go to mine. You haven't been, right?"

Vallejo shook his head. "No I haven't. Hey, it'll be great to meet your family."

"By the way, bring your swim trunks. I have a pool."

Vallejo blushed as the brunette girl walked out of the room with her two friends.

Back at home, Fillmore picked up the phone and dialed the number of an old friend. It had been a couple months since spring break, when Fillmore went down to Tennessee to visit his friend Wayne Liggett. He was worried that something was going on so he felt a need to call his old friend, old partner, and current Safety Patrol sheriff of a school in Tennessee.

"Hey, how are you doing, Wayne?"

"Great, how about you," the other boy asked.

"Mighty fine. How's the sheriff duty going these days?"

"Well, school's out earlier over here, so it's going great. I got re-appointed, you know."

"I kind of figured you would. We'll have a new one in Anza beginning next year, but we still have Vallejo for the week."

"That's great. Oh yeah, there's something I need to tell you…" What Fillmore heard next disturbed him.

Vallejo was busy doing some studying for Algebra when his phone rang. He didn't answer it, but his mother called through the door, telling him that it was for him. Hearing that, he groggily walked over and picked it up. Since he was at home, he wasn't wearing his tie and the top of his shirt was unbuttoned.

"Hey, Vallejo," Fillmore greeted.

"Fillmore? What are you calling me about this time of night?"

"I found out something from Liggett that may affect the case."

Vallejo was curious. "Go on."

"It turns out the former Safety Patrol Sheriff at his school, the one that I busted, has escaped from the military school that his father put him in and that some of his former cronies went with him."

"And how does this affect the case? They were in Tennessee."

"Still, they have a vendetta against me. I think that may be some cause for concern. Then again, as far as I know, none of them have any skills that could be used for computer hacking. However, I would still tell the others to be on the lookout for them."

Vallejo nodded. "Alright. That's good as done."

"Good to hear, chief."

Ingrid was drilling Tehama for history when her phone rang. "Hello… Oh hi, Vallejo… Okay, good to know… Yeah, there are two others here, I'll tell them. Bye." As soon as she hung up, she spoke to the other two girls in the room. "I turns out we're to be on the lookout for the former Safety-Patrol sheriff of a school in Tennessee. He was described as overweight with blond hair and blue eyes. He also has a tendency to dress up like a cowboy with the hat and everything."

"Good to know. No pictures?" Rachelle asked.

"No, none."

"Do they think that he may have something to do with the hacking from earlier?" Tehama asked.

"We have nothing that could confirm or deny that. Fillmore just found out by calling his old partner."

"Patterson and now this guy… it sounds like it could be part of a large conspiracy with Patterson and the former sheriff being pawns."

"That's highly probable. After today, all the passwords were changed and additional backups of grades were made, but there's a chance that whoever's pulling the strings could have made additional changes to the system," Ingrid commented. "Karen, was there anything to indicate who else may have been involved at the crime scene?"

"No, nothing," Tehama replied. "The only fingerprints there were from Patterson and his fangirls."

"Crackers."

A/N: Well, this is a short chapter for a short fic. I figured I'd stop it here since that's the end of the day's events for you.

A few notes. Seth was a minor character from the episode 'Test of the Tested.' I added him to the safety patrol… just because. Along with him, there are the minor safety patrol members that show up every so often (the blond girl and the ambiguously brown guy with curly hair). I don't think those guys even got named. If anyone knows, just tell me. Rachelle, on the other hand, is my character and shouldn't be confused with the one from the episode about bullying. Then there's Frank Bishop from 'The Shreds fall like Snowflakes' or whatever that's called.