Disclaimer: I do not own Ben 10 or its sequels, spin-off and related characters. All is the property of Man of Action and Cartoon Network. I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit entertainment.

Extraterrestrial Registration Act

Chapter Eight: Markets

"For every market a submarket grows. […] Submarket. Sometimes I wonder why I ever got in." - Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich

It wasn't so much a 'think tank' as it was an informal meeting.

There wasn't even a table. Driscoll sat in a lavishly comfortable chair that probably cost as much as the weapons they were going to teach the new recruits to use. He didn't even bother to get up when Wes entered. Just offered a casual salute with his glass. "Green."

"Dick." Wes nodded back. They had a thing back when they were still active Plumbers. Him, Max, Phil, and Richard. Names should be kept down to a single syllable. Something you could gasp out in one breath -in case you had to call for help with your last breath. So, Maxwell became 'Max', Phillip became 'Phil', Wesley became 'Wes' and Richard became 'Dick'. (Later Devin became 'Dev' but that was neither here not there.)

Driscoll made a face of displeasure. He never did appreciate 'Dick' being short for Richard. But he decided to be the bigger man and let it go. Instead, he nodded to the only other person in the room. A young man, he couldn't be any older than his late teens. Dark skinned and dark eyed, wearing well worn blue jeans and a faded John Deer shirt. He looked so out of place amid the opulence of the room. But then again, Wes felt pretty out of place as well. "Have you met the new kid? This is Alan Albright."

Albright stood awkwardly and held out a hand to shake Wes'. He seemed pretty straightforward and honest, bright eyed and energetic. He instantly reminded Wes a little bit of Devin when he was first assigned to their team. Young, eager to make a difference, slightly intimidated by those with more experience, but full of stubborn conference.

"Pleased to meet you." Wes took the offered hand and noted that it was uncommonly warm.

"Same." Albright nodded. "I trained a bit with Max. He talked about you a lot."

"Nothing to bad, I hope." Wes put some good humor into his voice.

"No. He spoke very highly of you." Albright assured him. "He spoke highly of all his old partners."

And Wes couldn't decide if that was a veiled reference to either Dick or Phil, whom threw out their ethics in favor of material rewards, or Devin who died and left behind a son with extra-human powers to grow up without anyone to understand him or teach him to control himself and ultimately became just as terrible a threat as any of the villains they fought. Wes could go either way, really.

"Well, that's good to know, I guess." He turned his attention back to Driscoll. "Is this everyone that's coming? Just the three of us?"

"I had hoped Max would show up, but -as you can see- he still thinks he's to good for us." Driscoll replied with a shrug.

No, Wes thought, Max is just to good for you, Dick.

"Lets get down to business." Driscoll indicated a chair for Wes to sit. "My people already acquired six crates of laser lances to equip our new recruits with. We also have a surplus of armor -some of the insignia will have to be scrapped off, of course."

Of course. Can't have members of law enforcement running around wearing the insignia of a former terrorist organization. But that wasn't the part that made Wes jump back to his feet in alarm. "Wait, wait, wait! You wanna issue laser lances to these kids! Are you insane? The fact that they're level 5 tech aside, have you forgotten about their fatal flaw? If the casing is damaged, the things blow-the-fuck-up and kill anything caught in the blast! Are we teaching special cops, or human barbecue steaks?"

"They are relatively inexpensive and easy to acquire in large quantities quickly." Driscoll reminded him. "Would you like to suggest an alternative? People can't exactly fight aliens with nothing but guts and 'we can do it' speeches."

Wes glared at Driscoll, suddenly reminded of why he was discharged from the Plumbers in the first place. For stealing confiscated alien tech and reselling it for personal profit. Cheap, easy money. Cheap, easy weapons. Cheap, easy power. Cheap and easy. That was what Dick Driscoll was all about. He didn't actually care about safety or security -either for their recruits or the citizens they were supposed to be protecting- he just cared about maximum results with minimum effort. "My granddaughter wants to join this little force you're thinking of handing laser lances to."

"How about non-lethal weapons?" Albright suggested. "As both a half-alien and a black man, I'd certainly appreciate our extra-human police force using non-lethal equipment and techniques."

Wes nodded with silent agreement. He also belonged to an ethnic minority and more than understood modern contemporary law enforcement's bias against anyone who wasn't a white middle-aged male.

Driscoll looked between the two of them. Without agreeing to it out loud, the two seemed to have somehow aligned with one another. As the only middle aged white male in the room, he didn't have a hope of going up against two minorities that were already riled. "Why don't we table this discussion for the moment, gentlemen. Its always a little awkward getting off the ground. We'll come back to this discussion once we've settled into our new roles a bit better."

ID Mask sales were up.

In all his years as a smuggler, tech dealer, hitter, wheelman, grifter, and broker, Kevin had never seen such a rise in such a passive, non-lethal, non-aggressive piece of technology. He would have to be stupid not to notice that the rate of sales went up around the same time the ETRA was passed. Suddenly the extraterrestrial community had an even more pressing need to conceal themselves from the rest of Earth society.

The scary thing was, it wasn't the seedy criminal underbelly of the extra-human community that Kevin normally catered to that were buying up the ID Masks like they were cocaine. No. His customer base had shifted -seemingly over night- from terrorists and pirates, to frightened immigrants or concerned parents who wanted to protect themselves and their loved ones from hostile natives that wanted to do them harm. It was sad.

And it was terrifying.

The client he was meeting tonight was a Loboan. Kevin used to think the werewolf-like aliens weren't afraid of anybody and could stand up to anything. They were a unique blend of tight knit pack-animal type aliens with powerful family values, and savage predators with aggressive and hostile instincts for hunting, fighting, and self-preservation. However, this particular one seemed only to exhibit the former trait and none of the latter. He was purchasing half a dozen ID Masks for himself, his mate, and their litter of four pups.

Kevin gave him a discount, although, he didn't tell him he was giving a discount. The Osmosian might be empathetic, but he still had a reputation to protect. When you worked in the circles he worked in, his reputation was just as much an armor as the metals and stones he absorbed.

They haggled over the price.

The Loboan left feeling he'd won something in addition to protecting his family, and Kevin left knowing that his reputation as an evil, greedy, money grubbing, hard-ass was upheld.

It was as he was packing the surplus Masks back in his trunk that his phone rang.

The caller ID said it was Gwen and for the first time since she and Tennyson crashed his deal between the Forever Knights and the Highbreed, he considered ignoring the call. He was still trying to process what his mother told him the morning after his party -when she caught Gwen wearing nothing more than his dirty t-shirt and an awkward smile.

Osmosians mated for life. If he had sex with Gwen, he would never be able to look at another woman in the same way again. That in and of itself didn't sound to bad to him. He knew his feelings and was confident in their consistency. He loved Gwen. He wanted to sleep with Gwen. Not because he was a horny teenager -although, that was certainly part of it- but because he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her and so there was no reason not to sleep with her. But while Osmosians mated for life, humans did not -neither did Anodites for that matter. So, while he had every conference in the depth and consistency of his feelings, he had no such assurances of Gwen's.

His mother was right. They were still young. Gwen could out-grow him. Gwen could leave him. Kevin wasn't stupid, he already knew she was to good for him. Not just morally or ethically 'good', but better than him. From a better family. More educated. Intelligent. Beautiful. Stable. Termperant. Law abiding. Everything society judged the value of an individual on, she was better than him. One day, Gwen would wake up and realize she had absolutely no reason to stay with him and absolutely every reason to leave. They were to different and he didn't deserve her.

Kevin took so long debating whether or not to answer her call, that it went to voicemail.

With a sigh he put the phone back in his pocket and drove to his next meeting.

She tried again while he was in the car, his phone routing the call through his car's stereo system. If he let it go to voicemail again, she would know he was ignoring her, so with a sigh, Kevin tapped the button on his steering wheel that answered the phone. "Hey, babe! Sorry I missed your first call. I was just finishing up with a client."

"I figured that was it." He could hear the smile in her voice. He might suddenly be plagued with misgivings about their relationship and where it might take them, but for right now, at this moment, she had every conference in them. "Listen, are you free this Saturday?"

In all honesty, he hadn't made plans yet. Business was good and he was committed to three other deals in the coming week and a fourth still up in the air. But, so far, nothing was scheduled for Saturday. So he was free to go on a date with her.

But with his mother's warning still fresh in his mind, Kevin wasn't sure if it was wise to allow himself to be alone with her. His self-control had never been all that great. In fact, if it wasn't for Gwen's strict 'clothes stay on' policy, Kevin was pretty sure he would have stuck it in her like a dozen times already. She was really the one in control of their relationship and how fast or slow they took things. He had no control, over himself or their pace. On his birthday she finally waved her 'clothes stay on' rule. How soon would it be before she decided she didn't need to wait until she was eighteen to go full penetration either?

So, without committing to anything one way or another, he asked, "What'd you have in mind?"

"I'm trying to set Emily up with Cooper." She informed him, and that came as a surprise because Kevin could not imagine a thing the two of them had in common. Gwen's friend Emily was an aspiring classical musician with rich parents, and Cooper was a basement-dwelling computer nerd who worked part-time as a Plumber officer. Aside from the fact that they were both blond, they had nothing in common.

"Really?"

But, then again, on the outside, he and Gwen had seemingly nothing in common either. Maybe it wasn't so much the things you had in common with a person, but how much you enjoyed being around them. Goodness knew, some of Kevin's favorite times spent with Gwen were times when they were doing their own separate things in the same room. In his garage, working on his car while she typed up her homework or researched whatever Big Bad Tennyson was fighting that week. Siting on the couch watching a horror movie while she read a decidedly less exciting book. Pursuing separate interests, but still spending time together. Those were the best parts of a relationship.

"Yeah! Why not? I think they'll be cute together." She assured him. "Anyway, I figure a double date would be a safe enough place to start. You and me, and Em and Cooper. So, are free?"

Well, his mother did say it was okay to keep seeing Gwen so long as they were chaperoned. A double date counted as being chaperoned. "Sure, babe."

"Great!" And he lamented the fact she wasn't in car with him. If her voice was any indication, the smile she was giving must be radiant. Gwen always had the prettiest smiles. "Emily and I will probably get ready at her house. So you can either pick up up from there, or we can all meet up at wherever we decide to go -not the auto show. We can work out the detail later." A pause. "Was your mom really mad at you after I left?"

Whoa, subject change. Kevin would have been thrown off kilter if she hadn't been asking about a subject he himself spent the past couple of days dwelling on. "No. She wasn't mad. Just disappointed. My likes you, remember. I'm the bad element."

"Don't be silly. You're not a bad element!" And she sounded offended on his behalf. If was nice to see that she would always defend him, even from himself. "I don't date 'bad boys'."

Lies. But it was sweet all the same. It did make him wonder, though… "Hey, babe, the other night… When I said I loved you, how come you didn't say it back?"

"What?" Startled, taken aback. She hadn't expected the question. "I did."

"No." Kevin shook his head, knowing she couldn't see the action. "You said 'I already knew that', then we did a very fun sixty-nine. You never said you loved me back."

That, right there, was the main reason why he was suddenly paged with misgivings. He loved Gwen. But what would happen if he tied himself to her when she didn't fully love him back? She might leave him. And then, him being himself, he wold go crazy and… do something he would regret.

"You sound upset." Gwen observed and he wondered how she could tell just from his voice. He wasn't shouting or growling. He was just asking. "Maybe this is a conversation we should save until we can talk in person again."

"Alright, fine." He agreed, only because he wanted to see her face. "I've got a second client lined up and don't have time to talk anyway. I'll call you tomorrow."

He hung up.

The car pulled into another deserted ally.

This time it was a Lewodan purchasing two masks for herself and her sister. Again, not a member of the seedy criminal underbelly of the extra-human community that Kevin was used to dealing to, but just a normal, semi-legal, mostly law abiding alien who was just looking out for herself and her family. Kevin haggled with her too, but ultimately ended up giving her a lower price than he would have given to his regular clientele. Being a bad guy with scrupuls wasn't nearly as profitable as being an unscrupulous bad guy. The money was much better before he started developing this irritating streak of morality.

Sometimes he wondered why he still did this at all.

But then the client would turn to leave and their shoulders would lift, like a weight had been taken off of them. They were safe. Their mates or children, or siblings were safe. And Kevin made that possible. It wasn't why he got into buying and selling contraband alien tech, but that was definitely why he stayed.