"Mr. Carter, can you give us a description of the three that stayed in the room?" asked Wes, looking at the owner of the motel.

"Please call me Sam, everyone does," answered the old man who ran the run-down motel. Sam appeared to be a man in poor health. He was skinny, he was missing a few teeth, as for the teeth he had they were very yellow. He had little hair on his head which was a mixture of white and grayish hairs.

Wes and Eric had been called down to the old, beat-up motel because of some property damage that had happened late in the night. Not that it made any difference to the place. The motel looked like it was ready to fall apart.

"Can't say really. Only saw the one, the other two were outside: a young man, about eighteen from what I could tell, and the other a young woman. Didn't get a good look at them," answered Sam.

Wes and Eric looked at each other and nodded. Both of them had no idea why they had been called down here when any two of their men would have been perfectly capable of doing the job. Wes had suspected that his father might have had something to do with it, but he would never call him on it.

"What about the one you saw, he was a man, right?" asked Eric, eyeing Sam.

Sam nodded his head. "Yes, but he had sunglasses on… No idea why though, wasn't bright enough to have to be wearing….." answered Sam as he continued to ramble on.

Wes felt annoyed more then ever. His first day back on active duty and he got stuck questioning a guy who if his head wasn't screwed on would probably lose it. "Sam! So you didn't see his face. What color was his hair?" he asked, trying to calm himself down. He was beginning to lose his patience, which wasn't surprising, considering for the last six weeks he had been doing mostly paper work and interviews for new members of the Silver Guardians.

Sam scratched his chin and thought about it for a moment. "Hmm. Let's see, black…. ah no, it was brown, I think."

Wes and Eric glanced at each other, thinking the same thing. This was a total waste of time. Wes groaned silently to himself. "Did anyone see or hear anything last night?" he asked.

Sam shook his head. "No. We had that storm last night, couldn't hear a thing except the thunder..."

Wes and Eric just looked at each other, both of them were on the breaking point of going nuts. They continued the questions until Sam had come up with three different hair colors and styles. As they were leaving the office, Sam did say something that seemed to chill both of them.

"I do remember this, though; he was definitely scared about something…..like in those movies where people are always in hiding…"

"Well, that guy was sure a lot of help," Wes said sarcastically, as he and Eric walked up to the room with the missing door. The two started into the room, finding both beds unmade, leftover pizza boxes on a table, along with a few cans of soda and beer.

"What a dump," said Eric, looking around the small motel room.

"Guess this is what ten bucks a night gives you," commented Wes.

The room was fairly small, just big enough for maybe four people. It was dirty and smelled horrible. The bed sheets looked as though they hadn't been washed in years. You would have to be pretty tired if you were going to sleep on those. The wallpaper on the walls was starting to come off, and the ceiling had cracks all over and along the walls. Both of them were surprised not to find the place infested with creeping crawlers.

"I'll check the bathroom," said Eric as he walked around the door, which was still lying on the ground.

Wes continued to walk around the room.

Inside the bathroom it looked a little better than the main room, but not by much. The bath and shower looked to be in working condition. And the toilet appeared to be working. Eric found a few essentials sitting on the counter near the sink: cheap unused toothbrushes, toothpaste, and an off-brand bottle of aspirin. Nothing seemed to stick out. It just appeared that whoever was staying here had bought the supply from a vending machine or had been in a hurry at the market. Eric looked around, seeing if he could find anything else, and spotted a trash can. He picked it up and dumped it. All that fell out were some used Kleenex, paper towels, food wrappers and then a crumpled up piece of paper. Eric grabbed the paper and un-crumpled it. On the paper he found three different locations.

Silver Hills, CA

Angel Grove, CA

Austin, TX

It didn't provide much information, but Eric decided to take it anyway.

Outside of the bathroom, Wes was walking around one of the beds, searching for just about anything. He was finding nothing but a few pillows and extra sheets lying around the bed. Then something shiny caught his eye. A small object was lying on the table next to the lamp. Wes walked around and picked it up.

"Did you find anything?" asked Eric as he walked out of the bathroom.

Wes turned around. "A ring…" Wes looked at the ring more closely; something was familiar about it.

"What's wrong?" asked Eric.

Wes looked up. "Nothing……It just looks like the ring I gave Jen when I asked her to marry me," he answered as he pulled out a small bag from his back pocket and put the ring in it.

Eric took one more quick look around, seeing if he could spot anything, but found nothing. Nothing seemed out of place to him. Everything seemed to be in order, except for the door. "Come on, let's get out of here. We have more important things to do than find out who broke down a door.." mumbled Eric.

Wes nodded his head, agreeing. The two started to head out until Eric stopped and decided to move the door off to the side so no one would trip over it later. As Eric leaned the door against the wall, something that was imprinted on the carpet caught Wes's eyes: black marks that looked like they had been made recently.

"Hey, Eric, look at this…"

Eric turned around and looked at what Wes was pointing at.

"Doesn't that look like…"

"Yeah," replied Eric. Both of them got down on their knees to get a better look. The more they looked at it, the more they knew what had caused it.

"As far as I know the only ones with blaster guns are us rangers and the Silver Guardians," said Wes.

Eric nodded his head, knowing Wes was right. "It couldn't have been any of the Guardians, none of them were stationed anywhere near here last night." Eric ran his finger over the residue left over from the blaster fire.

"Could it have been a ranger? That guy Sam was pretty sure whoever stayed here was scared about something…"

"Maybe, but if it was ranger business I'm sure we would know something. And besides, that guy Sam was also pretty sure the guy had black, brown, and gray hair..." Eric got back up to his feet.

Wes took one more look. "Yeah, you're probably right." He stood up and began to follow Eric back outside. "Did you find anything in the bathroom?"

"Not much. Some unused toothbrushes, toothpaste, a bottle of aspirin and then this note in the trash," answered Eric, pulling the small piece of paper out of his pocket and handing it to Wes.

Wes looked over the note. The only thing that seemed to stick out was that two of the locations had at one time had power rangers, as for the other location it didn't seem to fit. "What do you think it means?"

"You got me. The only evidence we have are the names of three different locations, a ring, and residue of blaster fire imprinted on the carpet." Eric opened the truck's door. "Come on, let's head back to base."

Hiding behind a clump of bushes, three young people watched as the Silver Guardian truck drove off. All three of them were wearing dark clothing, hats and sunglasses.

"We have to get it back!" demanded the woman, looking at the two men.

"We can't. They have it now," the man told her.

The woman got right into his face. "We have to! It's all I have left…" she cried.

The man sighed, feeling her pain, as if all three of them shared the same burden. He placed his hand on her shoulder. "Once I get back from my little trip, will see about getting it back," he answered softly.

The woman nodded her head and stepped back, looking back in the direction Eric and Wes had driven off in. The man walked over to the younger man, pulling him aside. "Keep an eye on her; there's no telling what she may do, now that we're here."

The young man nodded his head and then eyed his friend. "I will. But I might ask you to take your own advice…"

The man was silent for a moment and smiled cunningly. "Just worry about yourself and her. I can take care of myself just fine. I'll meet you two at Hillside Park in five days."

With that the young man and woman watched as their partner left them, both of them knowing very well where he was headed, and knew it could only lead to trouble. The young woman grabbed the young man by the shoulder. "Come on, we better go find some place to stay. It's too dangerous for us to be out in the open."