p class="MsoNormal"Chapter 15 – A New Start/p
p class="MsoNormal"Frank and Jack escorted the wolfbloods back upstairs once they had found and removed the trackers, and they went their separate ways from the carpark. Jack and Frank sat in silence as they drove to the CHERUBs house to mee with the others. "Frank,"Jack said as the car pulled up outside the house, Jack pulled the paperwork Frank had given him the other day out of his jacket pocket, and handed it to him. "Just needs your signature" he said, Frank smiled and ruffled Jacks hair. Jack smiled, he was finally going to have a proper family./p
p class="MsoNormal""So," Frank said as he and Jack walked through the door, "any updates?" Lauren made space for Jack on the sofa,/p
p class="MsoNormal""Yeah" Kerry said as she pulled out her phone, "Lauren and Jack were right, Brian Evans is in town, he was talking to this group of girls in our year this morning" Kerry showed Frank the photos she had taken. "I'm going to try and get in with them tomorrow."/p
p class="MsoNormal""I've got in with a group of lads, one of them babysits Evans' son, its something to explore" Kyle said as he got up from the sofa, "have you guys got anything?" he asked, Frank shook his head, "oh," Kyle said, "We thought you might have had a breakthrough when you didn't show earlier," Frank shook his head and Kyle left the room. Oscar followed him into the kitchen,/p
p class="MsoNormal""So, is everything good with James now?" he asked him, Kyle shook his head, "He's still being funny about Jack to be honest mate, but he's always been like that" Oscar shrugged, "We're a close knit team, we don't normally do inter agency work" Kyle laughed, "Yeah, we're the same, we normally just work on our own, I've done a few missions with other agencies, John used to work for MI5 we met him on a mission and he came to work for us."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"The next day came around and both teams went to school as normal, Laruen called Jack at lunch and asked to meet, she said she had something important that she needed to talk to him about./p
p class="MsoNormal""Frank," Jack said as he entered HQ, Frank was deep in conversation with John Jones and Zara Asker, who had come down to help with the mission as they couldn't find another female mission controller who had high enough security clearance to work with the MI9 team. Frank and Zara turned around as he entered, Zara started to walk to the back of HQ, but Jack stopped her, "it's mission related, you can stay" he said, Zara smiled, Frank motioned for him to continue, "Lauren said she's got something, so can you cover for me this afternoon?" he asked,/p
p class="MsoNormal""What's this afternoon?" Zara asked him, "English mock paper" Jack replied,/p
p class="MsoNormal""You guys aren't here for long, just the mission right, so why do you need cover" Zara asked, Frank and Jack smiled, "This is our permanent base, they're not like your kids, they haven't got qualifications coming out of their ears by the time they're twelve, they'll take them at the same time as everyone else" Frank laughed, "So we're in the school, right now?" She asked, Frank nodded, "Deep cover, when this team ages out at 18, I'll get a new team, and these guys will go on to be full time MI9 – if they want to, I've never had a team leave the service after graduating from the programme" Frank replied./p
p class="MsoNormal"Frank agreed to cover for Jack, and he left to meet Laruen up on the moors at lunch. They walked back to the house, Lauren wouldn't give him any details until they were sure that they were out of sight and earshot of everyone else. Jack made lunch whilst Lauren loaded up the laptops,/p
p class="MsoNormal""Brian Evans was at Burneywood again this morning, he came in to do a presentation on global warming, So, I snuck out to his car whilst he was doing that, I got these photos and copied over the contents of his laptops onto here, and now our job is to dig through all of this" she explained. The process was long and boring, and by the time the CHERUB agents had finished school for the day they were still going through the contents of the first laptop. Lauren and Jack took their work into Lauren and Kerry's room, where Kerry joined them in the search, they found several encrypted documents that they couldn't get into, so Jack called for Rose to come over and help them. Rose arrived and she was able to get into the documents in minutes which impressed Kerry and Lauren, they found bank transfers from Hard Tent Gamers, which Jack and Rose knew was one of the bank accounts from The Grandmaster and SKUL, but they also found documents linking Brian Evans to KORPS including emails from the Crime-minister, most of them were fantasy and seemed like they were just planning for world domination, but some were more serious detailing time and dates of meetings, and more lines of code that took longer to crack. Rose took Lauren's laptop back to HQ so she could run the encryptions through MI9's software which she couldn't give to Lauren and Kerry, they were curious, but they understood, even though this was an interagency mission, they still weren't allowed to share patented technology. Frank picked up Jack not long after Rose had left, and there was a lot to discuss, so they headed to a restaurant out of town so they weren't bothered by any of the St Hopes students in the village./p
p class="MsoNormal"Jack waited whilst Frank ordered their food at the counter, he kept looking around to make sure that there was no one he knew around, he saw someone familiar out of the corner of his eye and he turned around to see Brian Evans. Jack kept his eye on him and he told Frank when he came back to the table. Frank called John Jones and asked for him and his agents to get to the restaurant as fast as they could, MI9 wasn't interested in Brian Evans, even though he was one of the leading forces behind Help Earth, and he was their one link to KORPS, they had nothing on him. They had no grounds to arrest him, and they had a lot of paperwork to fill in and have solid evidence that he was in the area conducting illegal business before theyspan style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spancould put an MI9 tail on him. By the time Frank and Jack's food had arrived, John Jones, James and Kerry had arrived at the restaurant. They sat in the booth behind Brian Evans and when he moved they followed. They were tailing him for now, and they'd be responsible for him for now./p
p class="MsoNormal"It wasn't the way they wanted to start their stress free dinner, but nothing could be done about it, if they hadn't called for the CHERUB team, then they might have lost Evans, but at the same time, they wanted it to be just them. Jack was enjoying his meal, Frank had ordered him a double decker burger and fries, and it was something that he hadn't tasted before./p
p class="MsoNormal""Good burger?" Frank asked, Jack nodded as he took another bite. "Here" he said as he slid a document wallet across the table, Jack stopped eating it and opened it, it was a plan detailing the move from his foster home to Frank's, Jack smiled. "So it's all official?" Jack asked him, Frank nodded and reached for his drink, he pushed his straw around in the glass as he spoke "I do have one question, do you want to keep the last name Stark gave you?"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanhe asked Jack, who thought for a minute before shrugging his shoulders, "I don't know, Tomasz is a good name, it made me fit in, but I still cannot spell it. What would the others thing, or everyone else at school if I took yours?" Jack asked. Frank didn't know, he wanted Jack to make his own decision, he didn't want to take away from this moment for him, "I think I'll change it. In the wild, everything depends on your family, and your blood. You've given me a family – you're my family, that means something to me, Jack London it is. I do want to keep Tomasz in there somewhere if you can do that?" Jack said answering his own question. Frank smiled and handed him a new MI9 ID card, "You already had this printed?" Jack laughed, Frank shrugged and took a bite out of his own burger. "So what now?" Jack asked, it was all good and well having a plan of moving, having a new ID, but what happened next./p
p class="MsoNormal"Jack found out the answer to his question the next day as Mrs Vaughn told him he wasn't going to school that day. There was a knock at the door, and Jack answered it to see Stark and Frank, Stark was there under the pretence of Jack's social worker overseeing the move. Jack felt guilty as he hadn't told Rhydian that he was moving, he would only find out when he got home and found that Jack was no longer living there. Frank helped Jack pack his belongings, he still didn't have a lot, what he had the first time he was staying at the Vaughn's was still in MI9 storage, and he hadn't really had a chance to collect a lot of things – he still only had a few pairs of clothes, and so packing was quick and easy. When everything was in bags, Frank gave Jack a minute alone in the room. He sat on the bed and looked around, and Mrs Vaughn knocked on the door before entering./p
p class="MsoNormal""This house has been home to many boys, for many of them it's their last chance at living with a family, you've always been different, but in a good way". She said, Jack stood up and hugged her "thank you" he whispered in her ear, he let go and saw she was crying, she wiped her eyes and told him not to worry and that she was happy for him to find a forever home. Jack took one last look around the room and started to leave, "Jack!" Mrs Vaughn said calling him back into the room, "Did you not want to take this?" she asked him, holding a stuffed bear out for him. "I didn't know I could" He said taking the bear. "It's yours, when you came to me, you had nothing, this bear was the first thing that was yours, cherish it, keep it as a reminder of the good times we've had here" Jack nodded and headed downstairs to Frank. He shook Mr Vaughn's hand on the way out and waved to them as the car pulled away./p
p class="MsoNormal"By lunch, Jack and Frank were back at St Hopes, Stark had come with them to sort out the paperwork at the school, Jack didn't realise how much paperwork was involved./p
p class="MsoNormal""Mrs K." Frank called for the deputy head, "Mrs K, I need to ask a favour" Frank said as she came over to them, "what is it Frank. What's he done this time" Mrs King seemed angry, Jack felt slightly offended that she thought he was in trouble again, although he usually was, so he could see where she was coming from. "Nothing Mrs K. I just need a witness to sign this" Frank said as he held up the adoption papers. Mrs Kind smiled, something Jack had never seen before, and she took the pen and signed her name along the dotted line, she stayed to help out with the rest of the paperwork, and proudly handed Jack his new school ID card. "Now get yourself back to lesson Jack London" she said as Jack left the room, new ID card in hand smiling all the way to his classroom, he was so happy that he didn't even care that he had to listen to another lecture from Mr Jeffries./p
p class="MsoNormal""You kept that a secret" Mrs King said to Frank, Stark smiled and closed his briefcase and left the room, "Yeah, well, didn't want to get anyone's hopes up in case it didn't go through" Frank replied./p
p class="MsoNormal""You fostered him right?" Mrs King asked, Frank nodded,/p
p class="MsoNormal""Yeah, when he first arrived, traveller family, didn't know nothing, he's grown a lot Mrs K, I put a lot of that down to you, but yeah no I missed him when he went to The Vaughn's so I got in touch with the social to see if I could get him back. He's a good kid." Frank said smiling,/p
p class="MsoNormal""He is a fast learner, he just needs to stay in lesson Frank, can you try to get him to do that, exams are only a year away"/p
p class="MsoNormal""I have been trying, sometimes I feel like I cant get into his head, but he is trying. A lot of it comes from fear though, he doesn't want to disappoint people or make a fool out of himself in front of people. So he'll just leave instead of trying and failing in front of everyone." Frank replied, Mrs King nodded./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"Jack didn't go to lesson, he headed straight down to HQ, he placed his new ID's on the table and logged into the MI9 server, he started to look up all the information that MI9 had on KORPS, a lot of files he found were encrypted, and he couldn't breakthrough the encryption. He spun around in his chair a few times, deciding whether it was worth calling Rose or one of the CHERUBS to come and break through the wall, he picked up his phone to call one of them, but he hesitated. He sent Frank and Oscar a text asking to cover for him if anyone asked where he was going, they both agreed and didn't ask where he was going, but asked for an update later on. He picked up his ID cards, and a fully charged spy pod from the other side of HQ and headed for the lift./p
p class="MsoNormal"The other three agents were in science listening to a lecture in chemistry,/p
p class="MsoNormal""So, Jack's got something?" Rose asked Oscar as he put his phone away, Oscar shrugged, "Either that or he's going to meet Lauren, there's something going on there, I just can't figure out what"/p
p class="MsoNormal""I thought that Lauren was related to him, that's just weird" Kara said from the other side of the table, Rose, Carrie, and Oscar hadn't realised the K's had moved onto their table, "Yeah, I mean I think they're planning something" Oscar lied, "Oooh party" Katrina said, Carrie laughed, "Like Frank and John would ever let those two throw a party."/p
p class="MsoNormal""What's the caretaker got to do with anything?" Kara asked, Oscar just rolled his eyes and went back to his work./p
p class="MsoNormal"Meanwhile Jack had arrived at MI9 HQ, he knocked on a door and entered and sat at the desk, Agent Stark looked up from his computer, he hadn't realised who had entered his office, he nodded, allowing Jack to start talking./p
p class="MsoNormal""Sir, I'm having some doubts" he said, he wasn't really sure what he was doing in Stark's office, he needed to speak to someone about the mission, and as much as he liked and valued Frank, he wanted to speak to someone more superior. "Go on" Stark said sitting forward looking interested. "May I speak freely sir?" Jack asked him, Stark smiled, he really didn't like the child agents, but Jack was something different, he was a good agent, one of the best in MI9 history, he was the only one on that team that he valued, both as an agent and a person. "Permission granted agent." "I think this interagency mission isn't working, we often work fast, we're a tight knit team, I know you probably don't like us that much" "That's not true Jack, you're a credit to MI9 – we'd be lost without you" Stark interrupted, Jack smiled half-heartedly, and Stark laughed. span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span"This is bigger than us Sir. I know we're up to it. I know that we can do it, but we can do it at our own pace – we won't catch the masters of KORPS in a few days, or weeks or maybe months, look at SKUL, we'd still be after them if KORPS hadn't come in and take them all out for us. We put together undercover missions with zero notice, look at the last few missions, I've not transformed for this mission, I've not been able to – I get Sir that some missions don't call for it – I understand that, but we could get to Brain Evans the same way we got Lord Baelish – the set up is there for that to happen." Stark nodded,/p
p class="MsoNormal""So what you're saying is the issue this mission hasn't progressed is because of the CHERUB agents?" Stark asked him, Jack nodded. "We've been on this mission for almost a month now, operation Mockingbird took a while, but we took down Segolia, a massive organisation, we put hundreds of corrupt officials and law enforcement officers behind bars, and it saw the end of SKUL. But we could have had Evan's by now. There's strong evidence pointing to the links between Evans and KORPS, there's a file on the MI9 database on Evans and his links to SKUL, but I can't access it because of the links to the CHERUB agents, because we can't share that information because it involves other MI9 operations. Taking down Help Earth and Evans won't stop KORPS, we both know that, but we can damn well try Sir." Stark nodded, he was moved by Jack's optimism and his passion and love for MI9,/p
p class="MsoNormal""What are you suggesting?" Stark asked, "You want to change things, what do you want to do? More specifically, what do you want me to do?" "Stand CHERUB down?" Jack suggested, "like just try it, a week or so see if we can do this, we know Evans is in the area, me and Lauren spotted him when we were just on a walk through the area, it wasn't planned, but it happened. Evans is using the moors, he comes in and out of them each day, I want to tail him, I can do that covertly, but…" Jack sighed, "But you're having issues with the CHERUBs?" Stark suggested, Jack nodded, "Yes, I've heard about you and James, okay." Stark said, Jack looked confused, "I'll speak to the head of MI9, but I need you to do something for me first." Stark asked, Jack nodded, "What do you need Sir?" He asked, "two things – first I need you to speak to Frank about this, convince him, I'm going to need something more than your word to convince her, plant the seed of doubt in Frank's mind, it should be easy for you to do" Jack nodded, "and then I need you to find me some solid evidence that the CHERUBs are sitting on information, they want to take it slow, why? Are they sitting on evidence before they act, or have they not found anything yet, which one it is."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Jack called Lauren and asked to meet her at hers on his way back from meeting Stark, she told him that they were all out, but to feel free to wait there until they get back in a few hours. It was the perfect time to search the files they had collected. There was a spare key in the wheelie bin, and Jack let himself in, he had a quick look around the house to make sure no one was in, and he set to work. He opened up one of the laptops and placed his spy pod on it and it began downloading the data, it only took a few minutes and he moved onto the next laptop, making sure he put back each laptop where he found it. Jack turned on the television, he wanted to make it look like he was just waiting if anyone came home, he turned the sound down so he could hear anyone approaching, but it wasn't too low that would make it look like a façade. Once he was finished with the laptops he made himself a drink, and when in the kitchen he smelled something familiar, he opened up the cupboards trying to find the source of it, at the back of the utensils draw he found a small piece of cloth, he took his phone and took a photo of it, then he heard a car pull up outside and the voices of Zara Asker and John Jones, Jack quickly shut the cupboards and sat on the table waiting for the kettle to finish boiling, John and Zara entered cautiously, Jack had left the front door unlocked, and he didn't know whether Lauren had told them he was coming. He realised that she hadn't when he heard a gun click, "no, no, no, no, don't shoot" Jack said as he came out of the kitchen with his hands up. "What the hell are you doing here?" Zara asked him, she seemed quite angry, "Lauren said to wait here for her." He said, "How'd you get in?" she asked, "Lauren told me about the key in the bin, she said to wait here till you guys got back, I was just watching TV." Zara rolled her eyes and flopped onto the sofa, "She's a good girl, but she does lack common sense, anyway, now you're here, what did you want? I take it its mission related?" She asked, Jack nodded, and pulled out his spy pod, he made sure that the files he copied from all the laptops were secured and hidden, before pulling up photographs, "we cracked the encryptions on the copied hard drive from Evans, we found this." He showed Zara and John the image, it was of a blue print, "what is it?" John asked, "it's a biological weapon, we have the original blueprints in the archives," he studied John and Zara's faces, "hey look we didn't design the thing, we just confiscated the blueprints a few years ago, the thing is, there were flaws in the original that meant the weapon wouldn't work, they needed something that I can't tell you, and MI9 stopped them from getting it, this blueprint, its fixed some issues, but it still won't work." John and Zara were still confused, "Look it doesn't, but the issue is they've got this, it could in theory work if someone was able to fix it, I can't tell you anything more, but you guys are the ones digging into Evans, we got this off Evans computer because your guys couldn't crack it, we just thought it could help you, and obviously I'm not going to tell you over the phone, so I'm going now." Jack said as he took the spy pod back off Zara and headed out of the house. They did find those blue prints on Evans' hard drive, but MI9 knew that the weapon wouldn't work without the component MI9 had destroyed several years previously. Jack texted Lauren to tell her that he had briefed Zara and John on the information, and that he had to go, before hopping on a bus and heading to MI9 HQ./p
p class="MsoNormal"Frank and Jack escorted the wolfbloods back upstairs once they had found and removed the trackers, and they went their separate ways from the carpark. Jack and Frank sat in silence as they drove to the CHERUBs house to mee with the others. "Frank,"Jack said as the car pulled up outside the house, Jack pulled the paperwork Frank had given him the other day out of his jacket pocket, and handed it to him. "Just needs your signature" he said, Frank smiled and ruffled Jacks hair. Jack smiled, he was finally going to have a proper family./p
p class="MsoNormal""So," Frank said as he and Jack walked through the door, "any updates?" Lauren made space for Jack on the sofa,/p
p class="MsoNormal""Yeah" Kerry said as she pulled out her phone, "Lauren and Jack were right, Brian Evans is in town, he was talking to this group of girls in our year this morning" Kerry showed Frank the photos she had taken. "I'm going to try and get in with them tomorrow."/p
p class="MsoNormal""I've got in with a group of lads, one of them babysits Evans' son, its something to explore" Kyle said as he got up from the sofa, "have you guys got anything?" he asked, Frank shook his head, "oh," Kyle said, "We thought you might have had a breakthrough when you didn't show earlier," Frank shook his head and Kyle left the room. Oscar followed him into the kitchen,/p
p class="MsoNormal""So, is everything good with James now?" he asked him, Kyle shook his head, "He's still being funny about Jack to be honest mate, but he's always been like that" Oscar shrugged, "We're a close knit team, we don't normally do inter agency work" Kyle laughed, "Yeah, we're the same, we normally just work on our own, I've done a few missions with other agencies, John used to work for MI5 we met him on a mission and he came to work for us."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"The next day came around and both teams went to school as normal, Laruen called Jack at lunch and asked to meet, she said she had something important that she needed to talk to him about./p
p class="MsoNormal""Frank," Jack said as he entered HQ, Frank was deep in conversation with John Jones and Zara Asker, who had come down to help with the mission as they couldn't find another female mission controller who had high enough security clearance to work with the MI9 team. Frank and Zara turned around as he entered, Zara started to walk to the back of HQ, but Jack stopped her, "it's mission related, you can stay" he said, Zara smiled, Frank motioned for him to continue, "Lauren said she's got something, so can you cover for me this afternoon?" he asked,/p
p class="MsoNormal""What's this afternoon?" Zara asked him, "English mock paper" Jack replied,/p
p class="MsoNormal""You guys aren't here for long, just the mission right, so why do you need cover" Zara asked, Frank and Jack smiled, "This is our permanent base, they're not like your kids, they haven't got qualifications coming out of their ears by the time they're twelve, they'll take them at the same time as everyone else" Frank laughed, "So we're in the school, right now?" She asked, Frank nodded, "Deep cover, when this team ages out at 18, I'll get a new team, and these guys will go on to be full time MI9 – if they want to, I've never had a team leave the service after graduating from the programme" Frank replied./p
p class="MsoNormal"Frank agreed to cover for Jack, and he left to meet Laruen up on the moors at lunch. They walked back to the house, Lauren wouldn't give him any details until they were sure that they were out of sight and earshot of everyone else. Jack made lunch whilst Lauren loaded up the laptops,/p
p class="MsoNormal""Brian Evans was at Burneywood again this morning, he came in to do a presentation on global warming, So, I snuck out to his car whilst he was doing that, I got these photos and copied over the contents of his laptops onto here, and now our job is to dig through all of this" she explained. The process was long and boring, and by the time the CHERUB agents had finished school for the day they were still going through the contents of the first laptop. Lauren and Jack took their work into Lauren and Kerry's room, where Kerry joined them in the search, they found several encrypted documents that they couldn't get into, so Jack called for Rose to come over and help them. Rose arrived and she was able to get into the documents in minutes which impressed Kerry and Lauren, they found bank transfers from Hard Tent Gamers, which Jack and Rose knew was one of the bank accounts from The Grandmaster and SKUL, but they also found documents linking Brian Evans to KORPS including emails from the Crime-minister, most of them were fantasy and seemed like they were just planning for world domination, but some were more serious detailing time and dates of meetings, and more lines of code that took longer to crack. Rose took Lauren's laptop back to HQ so she could run the encryptions through MI9's software which she couldn't give to Lauren and Kerry, they were curious, but they understood, even though this was an interagency mission, they still weren't allowed to share patented technology. Frank picked up Jack not long after Rose had left, and there was a lot to discuss, so they headed to a restaurant out of town so they weren't bothered by any of the St Hopes students in the village./p
p class="MsoNormal"Jack waited whilst Frank ordered their food at the counter, he kept looking around to make sure that there was no one he knew around, he saw someone familiar out of the corner of his eye and he turned around to see Brian Evans. Jack kept his eye on him and he told Frank when he came back to the table. Frank called John Jones and asked for him and his agents to get to the restaurant as fast as they could, MI9 wasn't interested in Brian Evans, even though he was one of the leading forces behind Help Earth, and he was their one link to KORPS, they had nothing on him. They had no grounds to arrest him, and they had a lot of paperwork to fill in and have solid evidence that he was in the area conducting illegal business before theyspan style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spancould put an MI9 tail on him. By the time Frank and Jack's food had arrived, John Jones, James and Kerry had arrived at the restaurant. They sat in the booth behind Brian Evans and when he moved they followed. They were tailing him for now, and they'd be responsible for him for now./p
p class="MsoNormal"It wasn't the way they wanted to start their stress free dinner, but nothing could be done about it, if they hadn't called for the CHERUB team, then they might have lost Evans, but at the same time, they wanted it to be just them. Jack was enjoying his meal, Frank had ordered him a double decker burger and fries, and it was something that he hadn't tasted before./p
p class="MsoNormal""Good burger?" Frank asked, Jack nodded as he took another bite. "Here" he said as he slid a document wallet across the table, Jack stopped eating it and opened it, it was a plan detailing the move from his foster home to Frank's, Jack smiled. "So it's all official?" Jack asked him, Frank nodded and reached for his drink, he pushed his straw around in the glass as he spoke "I do have one question, do you want to keep the last name Stark gave you?"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanhe asked Jack, who thought for a minute before shrugging his shoulders, "I don't know, Tomasz is a good name, it made me fit in, but I still cannot spell it. What would the others thing, or everyone else at school if I took yours?" Jack asked. Frank didn't know, he wanted Jack to make his own decision, he didn't want to take away from this moment for him, "I think I'll change it. In the wild, everything depends on your family, and your blood. You've given me a family – you're my family, that means something to me, Jack London it is. I do want to keep Tomasz in there somewhere if you can do that?" Jack said answering his own question. Frank smiled and handed him a new MI9 ID card, "You already had this printed?" Jack laughed, Frank shrugged and took a bite out of his own burger. "So what now?" Jack asked, it was all good and well having a plan of moving, having a new ID, but what happened next./p
p class="MsoNormal"Jack found out the answer to his question the next day as Mrs Vaughn told him he wasn't going to school that day. There was a knock at the door, and Jack answered it to see Stark and Frank, Stark was there under the pretence of Jack's social worker overseeing the move. Jack felt guilty as he hadn't told Rhydian that he was moving, he would only find out when he got home and found that Jack was no longer living there. Frank helped Jack pack his belongings, he still didn't have a lot, what he had the first time he was staying at the Vaughn's was still in MI9 storage, and he hadn't really had a chance to collect a lot of things – he still only had a few pairs of clothes, and so packing was quick and easy. When everything was in bags, Frank gave Jack a minute alone in the room. He sat on the bed and looked around, and Mrs Vaughn knocked on the door before entering./p
p class="MsoNormal""This house has been home to many boys, for many of them it's their last chance at living with a family, you've always been different, but in a good way". She said, Jack stood up and hugged her "thank you" he whispered in her ear, he let go and saw she was crying, she wiped her eyes and told him not to worry and that she was happy for him to find a forever home. Jack took one last look around the room and started to leave, "Jack!" Mrs Vaughn said calling him back into the room, "Did you not want to take this?" she asked him, holding a stuffed bear out for him. "I didn't know I could" He said taking the bear. "It's yours, when you came to me, you had nothing, this bear was the first thing that was yours, cherish it, keep it as a reminder of the good times we've had here" Jack nodded and headed downstairs to Frank. He shook Mr Vaughn's hand on the way out and waved to them as the car pulled away./p
p class="MsoNormal"By lunch, Jack and Frank were back at St Hopes, Stark had come with them to sort out the paperwork at the school, Jack didn't realise how much paperwork was involved./p
p class="MsoNormal""Mrs K." Frank called for the deputy head, "Mrs K, I need to ask a favour" Frank said as she came over to them, "what is it Frank. What's he done this time" Mrs King seemed angry, Jack felt slightly offended that she thought he was in trouble again, although he usually was, so he could see where she was coming from. "Nothing Mrs K. I just need a witness to sign this" Frank said as he held up the adoption papers. Mrs Kind smiled, something Jack had never seen before, and she took the pen and signed her name along the dotted line, she stayed to help out with the rest of the paperwork, and proudly handed Jack his new school ID card. "Now get yourself back to lesson Jack London" she said as Jack left the room, new ID card in hand smiling all the way to his classroom, he was so happy that he didn't even care that he had to listen to another lecture from Mr Jeffries./p
p class="MsoNormal""You kept that a secret" Mrs King said to Frank, Stark smiled and closed his briefcase and left the room, "Yeah, well, didn't want to get anyone's hopes up in case it didn't go through" Frank replied./p
p class="MsoNormal""You fostered him right?" Mrs King asked, Frank nodded,/p
p class="MsoNormal""Yeah, when he first arrived, traveller family, didn't know nothing, he's grown a lot Mrs K, I put a lot of that down to you, but yeah no I missed him when he went to The Vaughn's so I got in touch with the social to see if I could get him back. He's a good kid." Frank said smiling,/p
p class="MsoNormal""He is a fast learner, he just needs to stay in lesson Frank, can you try to get him to do that, exams are only a year away"/p
p class="MsoNormal""I have been trying, sometimes I feel like I cant get into his head, but he is trying. A lot of it comes from fear though, he doesn't want to disappoint people or make a fool out of himself in front of people. So he'll just leave instead of trying and failing in front of everyone." Frank replied, Mrs King nodded./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"Jack didn't go to lesson, he headed straight down to HQ, he placed his new ID's on the table and logged into the MI9 server, he started to look up all the information that MI9 had on KORPS, a lot of files he found were encrypted, and he couldn't breakthrough the encryption. He spun around in his chair a few times, deciding whether it was worth calling Rose or one of the CHERUBS to come and break through the wall, he picked up his phone to call one of them, but he hesitated. He sent Frank and Oscar a text asking to cover for him if anyone asked where he was going, they both agreed and didn't ask where he was going, but asked for an update later on. He picked up his ID cards, and a fully charged spy pod from the other side of HQ and headed for the lift./p
p class="MsoNormal"The other three agents were in science listening to a lecture in chemistry,/p
p class="MsoNormal""So, Jack's got something?" Rose asked Oscar as he put his phone away, Oscar shrugged, "Either that or he's going to meet Lauren, there's something going on there, I just can't figure out what"/p
p class="MsoNormal""I thought that Lauren was related to him, that's just weird" Kara said from the other side of the table, Rose, Carrie, and Oscar hadn't realised the K's had moved onto their table, "Yeah, I mean I think they're planning something" Oscar lied, "Oooh party" Katrina said, Carrie laughed, "Like Frank and John would ever let those two throw a party."/p
p class="MsoNormal""What's the caretaker got to do with anything?" Kara asked, Oscar just rolled his eyes and went back to his work./p
p class="MsoNormal"Meanwhile Jack had arrived at MI9 HQ, he knocked on a door and entered and sat at the desk, Agent Stark looked up from his computer, he hadn't realised who had entered his office, he nodded, allowing Jack to start talking./p
p class="MsoNormal""Sir, I'm having some doubts" he said, he wasn't really sure what he was doing in Stark's office, he needed to speak to someone about the mission, and as much as he liked and valued Frank, he wanted to speak to someone more superior. "Go on" Stark said sitting forward looking interested. "May I speak freely sir?" Jack asked him, Stark smiled, he really didn't like the child agents, but Jack was something different, he was a good agent, one of the best in MI9 history, he was the only one on that team that he valued, both as an agent and a person. "Permission granted agent." "I think this interagency mission isn't working, we often work fast, we're a tight knit team, I know you probably don't like us that much" "That's not true Jack, you're a credit to MI9 – we'd be lost without you" Stark interrupted, Jack smiled half-heartedly, and Stark laughed. span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span"This is bigger than us Sir. I know we're up to it. I know that we can do it, but we can do it at our own pace – we won't catch the masters of KORPS in a few days, or weeks or maybe months, look at SKUL, we'd still be after them if KORPS hadn't come in and take them all out for us. We put together undercover missions with zero notice, look at the last few missions, I've not transformed for this mission, I've not been able to – I get Sir that some missions don't call for it – I understand that, but we could get to Brain Evans the same way we got Lord Baelish – the set up is there for that to happen." Stark nodded,/p
p class="MsoNormal""So what you're saying is the issue this mission hasn't progressed is because of the CHERUB agents?" Stark asked him, Jack nodded. "We've been on this mission for almost a month now, operation Mockingbird took a while, but we took down Segolia, a massive organisation, we put hundreds of corrupt officials and law enforcement officers behind bars, and it saw the end of SKUL. But we could have had Evan's by now. There's strong evidence pointing to the links between Evans and KORPS, there's a file on the MI9 database on Evans and his links to SKUL, but I can't access it because of the links to the CHERUB agents, because we can't share that information because it involves other MI9 operations. Taking down Help Earth and Evans won't stop KORPS, we both know that, but we can damn well try Sir." Stark nodded, he was moved by Jack's optimism and his passion and love for MI9,/p
p class="MsoNormal""What are you suggesting?" Stark asked, "You want to change things, what do you want to do? More specifically, what do you want me to do?" "Stand CHERUB down?" Jack suggested, "like just try it, a week or so see if we can do this, we know Evans is in the area, me and Lauren spotted him when we were just on a walk through the area, it wasn't planned, but it happened. Evans is using the moors, he comes in and out of them each day, I want to tail him, I can do that covertly, but…" Jack sighed, "But you're having issues with the CHERUBs?" Stark suggested, Jack nodded, "Yes, I've heard about you and James, okay." Stark said, Jack looked confused, "I'll speak to the head of MI9, but I need you to do something for me first." Stark asked, Jack nodded, "What do you need Sir?" He asked, "two things – first I need you to speak to Frank about this, convince him, I'm going to need something more than your word to convince her, plant the seed of doubt in Frank's mind, it should be easy for you to do" Jack nodded, "and then I need you to find me some solid evidence that the CHERUBs are sitting on information, they want to take it slow, why? Are they sitting on evidence before they act, or have they not found anything yet, which one it is."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Jack called Lauren and asked to meet her at hers on his way back from meeting Stark, she told him that they were all out, but to feel free to wait there until they get back in a few hours. It was the perfect time to search the files they had collected. There was a spare key in the wheelie bin, and Jack let himself in, he had a quick look around the house to make sure no one was in, and he set to work. He opened up one of the laptops and placed his spy pod on it and it began downloading the data, it only took a few minutes and he moved onto the next laptop, making sure he put back each laptop where he found it. Jack turned on the television, he wanted to make it look like he was just waiting if anyone came home, he turned the sound down so he could hear anyone approaching, but it wasn't too low that would make it look like a façade. Once he was finished with the laptops he made himself a drink, and when in the kitchen he smelled something familiar, he opened up the cupboards trying to find the source of it, at the back of the utensils draw he found a small piece of cloth, he took his phone and took a photo of it, then he heard a car pull up outside and the voices of Zara Asker and John Jones, Jack quickly shut the cupboards and sat on the table waiting for the kettle to finish boiling, John and Zara entered cautiously, Jack had left the front door unlocked, and he didn't know whether Lauren had told them he was coming. He realised that she hadn't when he heard a gun click, "no, no, no, no, don't shoot" Jack said as he came out of the kitchen with his hands up. "What the hell are you doing here?" Zara asked him, she seemed quite angry, "Lauren said to wait here for her." He said, "How'd you get in?" she asked, "Lauren told me about the key in the bin, she said to wait here till you guys got back, I was just watching TV." Zara rolled her eyes and flopped onto the sofa, "She's a good girl, but she does lack common sense, anyway, now you're here, what did you want? I take it its mission related?" She asked, Jack nodded, and pulled out his spy pod, he made sure that the files he copied from all the laptops were secured and hidden, before pulling up photographs, "we cracked the encryptions on the copied hard drive from Evans, we found this." He showed Zara and John the image, it was of a blue print, "what is it?" John asked, "it's a biological weapon, we have the original blueprints in the archives," he studied John and Zara's faces, "hey look we didn't design the thing, we just confiscated the blueprints a few years ago, the thing is, there were flaws in the original that meant the weapon wouldn't work, they needed something that I can't tell you, and MI9 stopped them from getting it, this blueprint, its fixed some issues, but it still won't work." John and Zara were still confused, "Look it doesn't, but the issue is they've got this, it could in theory work if someone was able to fix it, I can't tell you anything more, but you guys are the ones digging into Evans, we got this off Evans computer because your guys couldn't crack it, we just thought it could help you, and obviously I'm not going to tell you over the phone, so I'm going now." Jack said as he took the spy pod back off Zara and headed out of the house. They did find those blue prints on Evans' hard drive, but MI9 knew that the weapon wouldn't work without the component MI9 had destroyed several years previously. Jack texted Lauren to tell her that he had briefed Zara and John on the information, and that he had to go, before hopping on a bus and heading to MI9 HQ./p