Louise was sitting on the couch in the corner of Eric's office while he stormed around it, moving paperwork around, checking his computer and the like. She didn't need to be a mind reader to see that something was bothering him, the way he threw drawers open and closed, combined with how tense he was would have alerted her to it in and of itself. The fact he was even in the office on a Saturday was another. One of the reasons Eric had worked so hard to set up Cerberus was to get it to a point where it wouldn't encroach too much on his time when he and Eleanor started to talk about having a family. The first few years were hectic, but by the time Emma came along, he tended to leave the running of things to his underlings during the weekends. He only worked on weekends if he had literally no other choice, like if an important client absolutely insisted on his involvement in security matters on the weekend.

"Eric, can you please stop?" Louise asked him.

"Louise, I need to..."

"You need to ease up on the furniture." She stated as he slammed another drawer shut. "Look, what are we doing here? There's nothing important here that can't wait until Monday."

"Louise..."

"You forget that I work in your admin department." She stated, placing a hand on the documents he was holding. "All of these are receipts stamped as approved. Eric, you hardly ever work weekends, hell, you often don't even check your e-mail on the weekends! Just talk to me."

He sat down at his desk, and gave her a slightly defiant look. She just sighed and took the chair opposite, sitting across from him.

"I can't help noticing your mood and your sudden desire to come to the office began when you met Jordan's dad." She told him flatly. "I couldn't help getting the feeling you knew him. I also got the impression you weren't exactly pleased to see him."

Eric was defiant at first, but he saw that Louise had no intention of leaving this alone. He just sighed.

"OK, I didn't exactly know him, but I kind of knew him by reputation." He told her. "When I was still with the marines, he was a sergeant."

"But...he's older than you." She said with a slightly confused look on her face. "Weren't you a..."

"I outranked him, yes." Eric concluded. "His career had been pretty unremarkable, but he quickly got a reputation among the others in the corp."

"What kind of reputation?" She asked him.

"He had the kind of reputation that makes you pretty unpopular around the barracks with the other troops." Eric stated. "He had a pretty big hit for himself. He had a lot of ambition, and big ideas of where he should be, but he wasn't willing to work for it like others. He had a way of finding out what officers were talking about, and being in the right place at the right time to buddy up to them and volunteer for all the right high prestige missions. If anyone wasn't able to help him advance his career, he had a habit of cutting them loose pretty quickly."

"Really?" She asked him.

"He had a few nicknames around the base that were more than a little uncomplimentary, all of them relating to the fact he didn't really care who he had to step on to get where he wanted to go. Needless to say in a place where people relied on each other, put their lives in each others' hands, that didn't really sit too well with a lot of the guys." He continued. "After I left, I heard he advanced pretty quickly. Some said he's even bragged about a move into politics at some point. Knowing Edwards, if that's true, he's hoping to end up the White House."

"Well, that doesn't explain why you have to take it out on the furniture." She teased him, leaning across and touching his face softly. "Or why you'd rather be in here looking over paperwork that's already been done when we can be doing something fun. There's a new film at the cinema we could go and see."

"Edwards never did anything that wouldn't get him a step closer to his ambitions." Eric told her. "If he's in town, I doubt it's for anything good, and if he's going to be hanging around the girls..."

"The girls aren't exactly helpless. We both made sure of that." She reminded him. "I think you should just put this little paranoid episode aside and come to the cinema with me."

"I guess so." He responded, starting to put the papers back into order, before Louise put a hand on them.

"Leave it until Monday." She repeated, leaning in and kissing him softly. He just smiled a little.

"Alright, I guess the filing can wait." He conceded, heading to the coat stand for his jacket. He looked to her. "You know, not many people get through to me when I'm being difficult."

"You have met my daughter haven't you? She's easily the most hard-headed person on the planet when she wants to be." She chuckled. "If it doesn't work for her, what makes you think it'll work for you?"

He just conceded that point too, putting his arm around Louise as they left, hoping that she was right, and his feelings about Edwards were nothing more than paranoia.

Over at the Edwards house, General Jack Edwards was in his study, getting a little work done before his guests arrived. Of course, not all his work related to his mission for the government.

"So, the latest minor tectonic shift caused a strange radiation to register." One of the lab techs told him over the communicator as General Edwards looked over some files he had pulled up.

"Is it harmful?" Edwards asked him.

"No, as near as we can tell anyway." The lab tech informed him. "In fact...no one's even sure what it is. It isn't X-rays; it isn't Alpha, Beta, Gamma...as near as we can tell it isn't any known kind of radiation. That's what got us thinking that it might be related to the primary objective."

"Well, I'd rather not wait until a full-blown earthquake to find out." Edwards replied. "Do you know where it's coming from?"

"All we've narrowed it down to is somewhere in the Black Mountains." The lab tech replied.

"That's a pretty big area; we need to narrow it down." Jack responded. "Fit out Dave and Sam with some scanning equipment and tell them to head out there. Tell them to claim for all the overtime they need, but I want us to find that energy source first."

"Sir, we..."

"We need boots on the ground to get that power source first, and Dave and Sam are among the best, that's why I asked for them personally." Jack instructed the lab tech. "Don't worry about signing the checks; I have an understanding with someone in the Defence Department. Just tell them to get out there and don't come back until they have something to tell me."

"I'll do that sir." The lab tech replied as he signed off. General Edwards switched the equipment to take his messages and turned his attention back to his files.

There were certain advantages to his position, and people often turned a blind eye to certain abuses of his power. In front of him, he had five files, each relating to the Rangers...or rather, to their civilian counterparts. It was something he had done a few times when his son started to show particular interest in a group of people, just to try and steer him away from trouble.

He had started with their school records, pulling up all of their records to see if they would be a good influence on his academic record. From that, he got their addresses, and their parents' details. He had enough influence that with that limited information he could pull up all sorts of records to check out every detail of their lives. Employment history and records, medical histories, criminal records...that was before he even touched Google to just look for any mention of them in the local media or social websites.

He was pleasantly surprised by some of the results, beginning to think that maybe Jordan was learning, and had started to choose his friends a little more carefully. Starting with Jake Holling, he found that he was no superstar academically, but he was more than capable of maintaining a B average across most of his subjects. He had a slight dip in his grades in shop class, but his physical education grades more than made up for it. He had been the star striker on the school soccer team for a couple of years...well, that was a little problem since he had hoped Jordan would aspire to that position, but he guessed if Jordan tried, he could always take the spot. His mom and dad had good jobs, they lived in a nice neighbourhood, there was no mention of criminal records, and no sign of any major medical issues, there weren't even any debts to speak of. Their mortgage only had a couple of years left to run, and was looking like it was going to be paid off a few years early. Everything looked good on the surface.

He found the red flag though, finding a Juvie record relating to Jake. Apparently he had spent a few weeks in a juvenile hall the previous year relating to an assault on another kid which resulted in a serious injury. His disciplinary record from the school wasn't spotless, being mostly minor things, but he found one reference to another assault earlier in the year which led to an official warning and the threat of suspension. He just shook his head. It was just like his son to find and befriend the local thug.

Emma Goodall...he was interested to see what her deal was, and if she took after her father. He didn't need to look too far before he found that the apple in this case seemed to end up a fair distance from the tree. She was in the Environmental Club, she had a number of stories published in the school paper about environmental issues, and her name even appeared in the newspaper a few times, her photographs often being used in environmental stories.

Academically, her grades fluctuated between B's and A's, being just a little short of an A average. She didn't seem to have any extra-curricular activities to speak of, at least, nothing on paper. Her disciplinary record was virtually unblemished, only a few minor things, but nothing he wouldn't expect from an average teenager. There was only one thing about a protest when the school planned to bulldoze a tree to extend the parking lot where apparently she had chained herself to it and refused to move. Her father...he knew of his time in the corp., and he knew that since then Eric had moved into private security, starting his own firm Cerberus Professional Security. Financial records and medical didn't seem to show anything to be concerned about. His only concern was that she would influence Jordan with her idealism that he often referred to as "tree hugging". She was an attractive girl, and he knew that at Jordan's age, guys could occasionally be swayed by a pretty face, using something other than their brains to make their decisions.

Noah Carver...he wasn't coming to the barbecue, but Jack still checked him out. His school record was exemplary. His grades were only marginally short of perfect. He got A's across the board in all subjects except for gym. He did note however, that his teachers had remarked on a noticeable and dramatic improvement in those grades over the first few months of the year, just marginally too late to pull his grades up to a perfect score. He figured that had to be the influence of Jordan and his friends, people didn't tend to make such a drastic turn-around without some form of influence.

His check on his parental background troubled him a little more. His mother and father were in relatively low-paid, unimportant jobs. His dad worked in a convenience store, while his mother was a telemarketer. Their apartment wasn't in the greatest of areas, but it wasn't like they lived in the slums. He also found a record of Noah taking a job at a wildlife part recently. He could hardly imagine a kid being any more different to his parents, but that didn't mean Noah wasn't just a blip. In his experience, people tended to succumb to their blood in the end. That didn't mean he wasn't a good influence on Jordan now, he just hoped that he would maintain that during senior year. After all, Jordan could always leave him behind when it came time for college.

Troy Burrows...here, he found someone that he had high hopes for. He didn't show much interest in extracurricular activities at school which was a negative, however he did seem to have good grades, varying across the board between A's and B's. He found numerous stories of martial arts tournaments he had been in, and a number of accolades to his name. His parents, well...there wasn't much to say about them really. His dad ran a reasonably successful gym now, having worked in a few throughout the country, presumably until he raised capitol to start his own. His mom was a nutritionist, and worked in a health food shop. They didn't earn a huge amount of money, but it was a respectable life. They had a decent home in a decent area of town. He couldn't find any criminal records, all of their finances looked to be in order...he was starting to think his initial assessment of Troy was correct, he would make a great addition to the military, and was a great influence on Jordan. The others had their negative points, but it wasn't like they were all going to stay together forever. Senior year was only one year after all, but Troy...he was the kind of friend Jordan could do with more of.

That left the last, Gia Moran. As he was about to start reading though, he heard the door bell, and checked his watch, realising it was now four o'clock. Jordan and his friends had to have arrived. He just put the files aside and left the study, locking it behind him. By the time he got to the stairs, Jordan had brought Troy, Gia, Emma and Jake into the lobby.

"Ah, sorry I was just finishing up in my study." He told them. "Come in, make yourselves at home."

"Thanks Jack." Troy answered. "You have a nice home here."

"I try to make sure my son's provided for. Unfortunately I'm not around as often as I'd like to be." He responded. "Come through, the barbecue is just this way."

As they started to file through, he saw Gia wasn't looking too happy. He noticed Jordan stopping by her, speaking to her.

"Are you alright?" He asked her. "You can always cry off if..."

"No, I'll be fine." Gia answered. "Saying goodbye was always going to be tough. Maybe Emma's right, maybe this will keep my mind off it."

Jordan just looked a little unconvinced, and just led her through. General Edwards just smiled as he followed them through.

On the Warstar ship, Vrak was checking over the maps and charts Lord Zedd had been working on, when all of a sudden his machines alerted him to something. He checked up the monitor, seeing the screen showing radiation readings.

"Interesting." He commented. "It seems the latest minor tectonic shift has opened up something...this energy...it is familiar..."

He looked to the research, and found something he was looking for. He smiled.

"The Black Mountains." He said with a smile. "I guess now I know why Lord Zedd never found it. He was looking in the wrong place."

He then went back to Lord Zedd's codex and held it up.

"It looks like I'm going to find that power sooner than I thought." He commented. "Now I just need to figure out how to find it in a whole mountain range. Still, once I have that power in my hands, all the hard work will be worth it."