Roxy was in her dorm room after being cleared by security. No one really knew what was going on yet, but the building had been shut down. Everyone was barred from leaving and from accessing computers until they had all been interviewed by security. All anyone knew was that there had been a security breach within the building.

Although cleared, Roxy had been instructed to go back to her dorm room, confined to quarters. She imagined everyone else was in the same boat. It was pretty clear from the questions she'd been asked that someone within Grid Battleforce had been leaking information. Although the vast majority of the staff didn't really deal with any kind of sensitive materials or information, everyone needed to be vetted to ensure that no one else had any information regarding the leak.

She was going through the cupboard, looking for some coffee when the door opened and Zoey entered, flanked by a couple of security staff. The door was closed behind her with the kind of finality that seemed more like a prison cell than a dorm room. Roxy just looked to her.

"You alright?" Roxy asked.

"Yeah, the guy with the latex gloves was surprisingly gentle." She replied in a mixture of sarcasm and genuine annoyance.

"I was just looking out the coffee." Roxy told her. "It would have been chocolate but we seem to be out."

"I wonder whose fault that is." Zoey responded, flopping down into a chair. "Man this day sucks. I have a pile the size of the Himalayas in the laundry and it's only getting bigger because they decided they need to question me all freaking day. That's four hours I'll never get back!"

"Four hours?" Roxy asked. This surprised even her. She understood that they needed to question people, but that did seem excessive. Zoey worked in the laundry, which meant she had pretty minimal security clearance these days. While it wasn't outside the realms of possibility for someone with a lower security clearance to break into restricted areas, the lower someone's security clearance, the more likely it was they'd be noticed somewhere they weren't meant to be. "I was only in there for half an hour, why did they need to talk to you for four hours?"

"Mostly they were asking questions about my mom." Zoey told her. "When was the last time I spoke to her, when did I see her last, what did we talk about…?"

"Your mom?" Roxy asked.

"Yeah, my mom!" Zoey told her. "My mom's Muriel Reeves."

"Muriel Reeves…the reporter?" Roxy asked. Zoey just nodded. "They seriously asked you about that?"

"Yeah, over and over. At one point I thought General Burke was about five minutes from having me water boarded." She told her bitterly.

"Well, they can't think you did anything or they wouldn't have released you back to the dorm." Roxy pointed out.

"No, but I can be pretty sure they'll be keeping me under surveillance from now on." Zoey muttered. "I can't believe this…I love my mom, but I know how serious they were about this. I'd never have told her anything about what we're doing here."

"You really think they suspect you of something?" Roxy asked her.

"Let's just say it's not exactly the first time people have been a little reluctant to talk to me once they know who my mom is." Zoey replied angrily. "Now I'm wondering if this had anything to do with why I was cut. I mean, I know I was late and I know I messed up a few things but the General was giving me stink-eye pretty much from the moment I got here."

"Look, whoever they've found and whatever they were doing, I'm sure they're just making sure that's as far as it went." Roxy assured her. "Besides, if they were really that worried, do you think they would have let you get as far as you did?"

"I know." She grumbled. "I guess it was just nice for a moment to think they were looking for an excuse to cut me. Rather than, you know…just admit that I blew it."

"Look, they need to follow up lines of inquiry, the General will have bosses to answer to as well." Roxy reminded her. "He'd probably be seen as negligent if he didn't at least ask."

"I guess." Zoey answered. "Still, it's kind of hard not to take it personally."

Roxy just came over to her, hugging her warmly.

"So, do you want the latte or the latte?" She asked. Zoey just looked at her.

"Do you ever re-stock the cupboard?" Zoey asked.

"Sure." She answered with a shrug. "When it's empty."

"You really are not the domestic type are you?" She chuckled.

"It's part of my charm." Roxy responded, heading back to the coffee machine.

The following morning, the cadets were summoned from their quarters. The rest of the base were allowed to go back to their duties, but there was noticeably a much stronger security presence than there had been before. The whole thing felt a little overbearing. Even Ben and Betty had been drafted to the security side of things. It wasn't as though they didn't help out, but the fact they'd been issued black security uniforms indicated it wasn't likely to be just a temporary thing. The whole thing felt a little more intimidating than it had before.

As they all stood to attention, they couldn't help noticing that there were now only four of them. Blaze, Roxy, Ravi and Forrest. Four recruits when the day before there had been five. Blaze had a little bit of a self-satisfied smirk on his face until General Burke led the review panel into the room to address them. He did not look to be in a good mood.

"Alright, before we go any further, this is rumour control, here are the facts." General Burke snapped as he looked among them. "You will no doubt have noticed that there is now one less of you than there was yesterday. I can indeed confirm that the security breach you were all questioned about was down to Cadet Garnett. Cadet Garnett was seen entering a secure server room without authorisation and upon questioning admitted to downloading data from our servers."

Ravi tensed up, and looked completely furious about hearing this. He'd grown up in a military family, and took loyalty very seriously. He didn't just see it as someone leaking information about Grid Battleforce, he saw it as a personal betrayal as well. Everyone had been briefed on the importance of their work, and everyone had signed up to the responsibility of keeping everyone else in the organisation safe.

Roxy wasn't as upset as him hearing this. She had no earthly idea why another cadet had tried to steal data or what they planned to do with it. The only thing she could think about was how upset Ravi looked, and wishing she could say or do something to ease him, but knowing that it wasn't something she could do.

Blaze already knew the story. He was the one that had reported it. He couldn't believe his luck seeing one of the other cadets accessing the server room. He was trying to think of ways to limit the field and someone had gift-wrapped it for him.

"Now, we cannot discuss the nature of the data Cadet Garnett accessed or what he was doing with it as it is an ongoing investigation. I will not tolerate anyone, and I do mean anyone putting this project or anyone working on it at risk. Is that understood?"

"Yes sir." They all replied. General Burke took a step back, at which Nate stepped up.

"Alright, you've been working for the last couple of days on individual Zord simulations, from now we'll be hooking up the simulators to allow multi-zord scenarios." Nate told them. "That will include not only scenarios requiring the use of multiple individual zords, but also Megazord formation."

There was a little bit of excitement among the last four cadets. All of them had heard stories from their parents about Rangers from before their time. The Megazords were a thing of legend. Mechanical titans that stood as the pinnacle of a Ranger's arsenal. They were very much a weapon of last resort, but that didn't mean that they weren't all feeling a certain level of childish fantasy about the fact they may very well one day be called upon to pilot one of those fantastical machines.

He stood before Blaze and smirked.

"Forrest, Ravi, Roxy, why don't the three of you start the first simulation?" Nate asked. Blaze went to the corner to take a seat and wait his turn while they got into the simulators while Nate explained the first scenario to them. He had managed to get this far, and while Nate wasn't part of the selection committee, he wasn't going to leave it up to that little dweeb to put obstacles in his way. He'd come this far, he wasn't going to fall at the final hurdle. One of them had to go.

Elsewhere in the city, Ben and Betty had been sent out to track down a lead. Garnett had been interrogated at length about the security breach. They'd already scanned the data he'd pulled from the servers, and while it didn't look like anything that wouldn't be available to the public anyway in a matter of a few weeks, once the official press releases came out, the military took confidentiality very seriously. What he had done was not just industrial espionage, but actual espionage. It was a very serious crime which carried with it the potential for very serious sentences upon conviction.

They had questioned him at length about how long he had been taking data, how much, and more importantly who he was communicating it to. They had hoped that the very real threat of a lifetime in a military prison would frighten him enough to loosen his tongue but he had told them over and over that he was only ever given an e-mail address to send the data to. He was only too willing to co-operate, but he seemed to know very little about who he was actually sending the information to.

Nate had managed to retrieve enough of the communications to verify that nothing he was sending out was of an especially harmful nature. He wasn't sending out anything about weapons technology or identities of Ranger candidates or anything else for that matter that the public wouldn't know soon enough anyway, but that just made the whole thing more mysterious. It wasn't like any foreign power or rival company would have any real value for what he had found. It was the only reason that once they were finished questioning him about why he did it he would most likely only face a dishonourable discharge rather than serious prison time. But it did lead to the question who he was sending it to and why they wanted it.

Ben and Betty had been sent out in one of the transports with a tracking device, tracing the signal that Nate had found for them. The only thing they could tell was that it was a computer that was somewhere within a city block, but whoever it was had gone to great lengths to ensure they had covered their tracks.

"You got anything yet?" Ben asked as he drove slowly around the streets.

"Shh…I'm trying to concentrate." Betty reprimanded him as she concentrated on the scanner. "Go slower, the signal is getting stronger around here."

"Go slower?" He asked. "We're barely moving as it is, if I go much slower I'll stall!"

"We don't want to go right past it do we?" Betty asked him. "Alright, the blip is coming from around here. It looks like it's this side of the street."

"Betty…"

"Alright, I'm getting a really strong signal here." Betty told him. "Pull up right here."

"But Betty…"

"Ben, pull up right here!" She told him, gesturing to the pavement wildly. Ben just pulled up the van at which she bailed out quickly. She started to scan around with the device.

"Betty, we really need to…"

"Ben, it's here! It's this building right here!" She said as she checked her readings. "Go and get the universal key!"

"But Betty…"

"We don't want to give this dirtbag a chance to get away!" She yelled back at him. "Bring it!"

"But Betty…" He tried to protest, but as usual his sister was already overly eager to get stuck in. Betty was always the bolder of the siblings, and the more confrontational to boot. Either in spite of, or perhaps because of her small size, she seemed to have a habit of rushing headlong in when her brother was as happy, and often infinitely happier to hang back or even withdraw if a situation looked risky. They had no idea who awaited them in the apartment block, and Ben was hoping they could get out of sight and call in some other units for backup rather than head into a situation that could potentially be dangerous.

Betty barged through the door as an unfortunate resident was trying to leave, rushing out something about official business. Ben could only apologise as he followed her. Betty looked to the stairs.

"We're going to have to go up." She told him.

"There's an elevator right there." Ben protested.

"We don't know what floor it's on. We need to check each one." Betty reminded him. Ben groaned as they started making their way up, Betty with her nose inches from the device the whole way. They finally managed to get to the top floor, with Ben breathlessly coming up behind her.

"Along here." She told him, starting to creep down the hallway. She was almost at the end of the hallway when Ben tapped her on the shoulder.

"Betty?" He asked. He pointed up at the ceiling. "There's a web cam up there."

"It's too late, the signal's coming from right up…" She said, before suddenly the signal died. She just snorted. "So, think turning off the computer is going to help? Too late buster, we're right here!"

She ran full-pelt at the door, throwing out a stiff kick…only to end up flying backwards and ending up staring straight at the ceiling completely winded. The door didn't budge an inch.

"Betty, are you alright?" Ben asked. She just let out a long, low moan, at which Ben started to become enraged. Now his sister was hurt, and as far as he was concerned, it was the data thief's fault. He grabbed the "universal key", a rather affectionate nickname law enforcement gave to a steel battering ram, and bracing it in both hands, swung it, ramming it into the door. It took a couple of swings, but eventually he managed to force the door open. By the time he dumped the battering ram on the floor and pulled out his blaster, Betty was back on her feet, also drawing her weapon.

"OK, freeze scum…" He started to yell, before looking around the room. "…bag."

They had the right place, they could see that there had been a computer set up there, but it seemed like moments before they arrived, likely tipped off by the web cam, the perpetrator had dumped the whole thing into a barrel of chemicals. The smell coming from it made it seem like some kind of corrosive. The window was open, leading to the fire escape.

They rushed over, seeing a car speeding away. It was much too far for them to see the licence plate.

"Come on Ben, let's go!" Betty yelled as they headed back out. They got to the elevator just as someone was getting off, shoving them out the way and heading back down to the ground level. However, as they got outside, Betty was horrified to see that the van was gone.

"What the…someone stole our van!" Betty yelled.

"I…don't think it's stolen." Ben replied, pointing down the street. Betty just looked to see a tow truck driving away.

"But…"

"Betty, that's what I was trying to tell you!" Ben sighed, pointing to the curb. "It was a red zone."

"Oh." Betty sighed. "Dad is not going to like this."

Meanwhile, in her car, leaving the scene, Muriel Reeves checked her rear view mirror, satisfying herself she wasn't being followed.

"That was way too close." She commented.

Back at Grid Battleforce headquarters, Zoey was heading for the mess hall for lunch, when she found her way barred by someone. She was tired, she was fed up, but most of all, she was hungry and she really wasn't in a great mood.

"Excuse me." She said, trying to step around, but the person moved to continue to bar her path. She just looked up at her. "Can I help you with something?"

"You can own up for a start." Forrest sneered at her. Zoey recognised Forrest from her time as a cadet herself. She was quite a bit bigger than Zoey, with burning red hair, and piercing green eyes.

"I'm sorry?" Zoey asked.

"You should be sorry!" She snapped. "Garnett's in a cell right now and you have the gall to show your face around here?"

"I have no idea what you mean…"

"So, did your mom pay you for that leak? Or did you just do it as a family favour?" Forrest asked her. Now Zoey knew what this was about. For some reason Forrest seemed to think she was involved in the leak. She knew that Forrest and Garnett had been friends. It angered her that someone was accusing her about this.

"I was questioned just like everyone else on this base." Zoey responded, getting into her face. She didn't like to be accused of things she didn't do. She definitely didn't like it when people questioned her loyalty or her honesty, both of which she valued greatly. Most of all, she didn't appreciate people getting into her face. "If I was a suspect, don't you think the General would have me in a cell by now?"

"You think you're clever?" Forrest asked, shoving her. "Because of you Garnett could be going to prison…"

"If Forrest was dumb enough not to know what the word 'classified' means then that's on him!" Zoey yelled in response. "I signed the same contract as you, and I don't appreciate getting accused without proof. If you have any, take it to the General!"

Zoey was just starting to make her way past her to the mess hall when Forrest threw something, which hit her on the back of the head.

"Your mom's a hack!" She taunted her. "How long has she been raking through garbage cans and hacking phones? If you think this will get her out of the gutter press then you really are delusional…"

Zoey wasn't thinking, she just saw red. As much as she hated the accusations, she hated when people insulted her mom more. She knew her mom's reputation in the press wasn't the best, but it wasn't her fault she was only ever given weak assignments that led to lacklustre stories that never broke out of the soft news segments. Zoey looked to her and wanted nothing more than to tear straight through her, but she knew that wouldn't do any good. If anything, it would only get her in trouble. Zoey just took a deep breath, before waving her off and turning away.

"Hey, don't you turn your back on me traitor!" Forrest yelled at her. When Zoey continued to ignore her, Forrest decided to take matters further, smacking her hard across the back of the head. Zoey stumbled forward, face-planting to the floor in the middle of the mess hall.

She turned over just as Forrest mounted her, striking her hard across the face. She was knocked senseless, but it wasn't long before Forrest was hauled off by a rather less than happy looking Roxy. Others were swarming around, cheering to egg them on, but once Roxy had a hold of Forrest, it all ended rather quickly. She just forced her down onto a table and held her until she was left under no doubt she couldn't escape.

"Calm yourselves, everyone please!" General Burke roared as he came into view. "Let her up Roxy. NOW!"

Roxy reluctantly let go of the hold, letting Forrest up, but once she had let her go, she made her way to Zoey's side, helping her up.

"Now what in the blazes happened here?" He asked.

"Nothing sir." Zoey replied. "Just…a misunderstanding that's all."

"Roxy?" General Burke asked. Roxy could have gone off right there. She was more than happy to tear strips off Forrest for attacking her friend, but even looking at Zoey, whose nose was bleeding badly, she could only see her shaking her head. She didn't believe in running to the teachers to solve her problems. As much as Roxy wanted to say something, she respected Zoey's wishes.

"I don't know sir." Roxy told him. "I just saw the end of the fight. I separated them."

"Well no one is leaving here until I know…"

"Her mom is Muriel Reeves!" Forrest yelled, pointing at Zoey. "Isn't it obvious? She's the leak! She's probably told her mom all about everything! She probably framed Garnett…"

"We have irrefutable evidence that Garnett was the leak!" General Burke interrupted her.

"You…you do?" Forrest asked.

"We caught him in the act!" General Burke responded. He just contemplated her for a moment, before looking to the rest of the panel. They all just seemed to look wordlessly among each other for a moment before he came to a decision. "Forrest, go to your dorm and pack your bags."

"WHAT?" She screamed.

"Ms. Reeves, do you want to press charges?" He asked. Zoey just held her nose.

"No thanks sir." She responded.

"Are you sure?" He asked. "You'd be well within your rights…"

"I'm fine." Zoey assured him. "I just want to get cleaned up and get some food then get back to work."

He turned towards her and looked to her, seeing her standing bloodied, bruised, but standing unaided before him. He glanced towards Commander Shaw. Now, he finally saw what she had seen in her. It was too late for Zoey in the Ranger program, but he could see why she saw her as a prospect. He put a hand on her shoulder.

"As long as you're sure." He told her. "Roxy, take her to the infirmary, make sure that nose isn't broken."

As Forrest was led away to her dorm to pack, Blaze just watched the whole thing from his table. He couldn't believe his luck.

"Two birds, one stone." He said with a smug little smile. "Blaze Winchester, Power Ranger…I like the sound of that."