But with the timely return of Allison, they were able to uncover how Jack changed, giving him hope that they will somehow be able to fix him. It was the first time in days that Jack finally got a good night’s sleep, but in the morning he’s awakened by a frantic call from Henry – it seems the robot that we met in Episode 1 was at it again, and Jack was needed. And this was on top of him just finding out he changed again.

And now, the continuation...

- - - - -

Jack had just finished helping Andy avert a disaster the day before, and now there seems to be another one in the making.

After a couple of days of investigation, Henry had cleared Dr. Jennifer Connery to start fixing her robot – the one that had rampaged and destroyed a substantial part of Section Nine and caused Jack to turn into a girl, but not before Jack was able to blow its head off with a portable rail gun.

Having gotten the go-ahead from Henry, Dr. Connery replaced the robot’s head that Jack blew off, but hours later, sometime in the early morning, the robot activated itself on its own, inconveniently, or conveniently, depending on your point of view, when the number of people inside GD was at its lowest.

In an apparent attempt to leave the building, it injured several scientists and caused several of the emergency blast doors to be tripped, trapping itself in the building, along with the scientists it had injured.

Because Jo wasn’t there to take care of things, her security staff had to manage on their own. Per protocol, they evacuated all the people they could and sealed the building. At the moment, they were in their tactical uniforms and manning blockades to all entrances of the building.

Henry decided to call Jack to get him to manage the situation.

While Jack listened to the briefing of Henry’s assistant, Larry Haberman, on his phone, he got ready. He rushed to their closet and pulled out his uniform. And then he remembered. He looked into the mirror and saw his new face. He was a blonde again and was almost as slim as he was yesterday morning.

Almost angrily, he thrust his uniform back in the closet. His old uniform just wouldn’t do.

So he went to the guestroom to look at other options.

After putting on some underwear, he looked at his new clothes. While he was thinking what he could use, his eyes fell on Jo’s tactical uniform.

Roughly speaking, he was now the same size as Jo Lupo, except for the fact that he was about seven inches taller than her. The top part of the SWAT uniform, which included a flak jacket, a singlet, a utility harness and a bulletproof vest seemed to fit, but when he put on the flak jacket, it was just too short. So he kept everything on except for the jacket.

He found that the singlet wasn’t really a singlet but more like a stretchy sleeveless bodysuit. Just as well – if it were a singlet, he probably wouldn’t be able to tuck it in and he’d be walking around with his bellybutton exposed.

He then got the bottom part, which were just the boots and the stretchy pants.

Just like the top, the pants’ stretchy material, he knew, was made of the special, super-stretchy fiber that was resistant to bullets, to tears and, therefore resistant to knife cuts or punctures.

So he put it on, and, like the bodysuit, it stretched and fit him like a glove. But given that he was so much taller than Jo, the pants looked more like Capri pants – they came down to between his knees and ankles.

He then saw the boots that he wore yesterday and, laying them beside his leg, he noted the uppers were long enough that they would reach higher than where his pants ended.

He rushed back to their room, grabbed a pair of black, wooly tube socks, sat on their bed and put them on. He then put the boots on, and the socks just made the boots tight enough to be comfortable.

He then stood up and looked at himself in their full-length mirror.

“How do I look,” he asked Allison, grinning.

Allison had been watching Jack as he dressed frantically. All the while, she had to giggle at his fumbling and indecisiveness, but he was actually managing very well, and she decided not to help as she might just slow him down. But it’s Jack, after all – very adaptive.

Jack had morphed into a likeness of Kira Knight, one of GD’s security personnel, and Sergeant Knight was yet another blonde. “You’re looking great, Jack,” she said, smiling, and Jack gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“Yes, indeed, Sheriff,” Sarah said in her new Australian voice. She sounded like Siri, but that wasn’t surprising since Fargo used the same voice actress Apple used.

“You are looking quite attractive,” she continued, “in a deadly sort of way. Jo would be proud.”

“Thanks, Sarah,” he said. “Allison, I have to go.”

Allison shooed him away. “Right. Go, go – take care of GD. I’ll be right behind you after I take care of the kids. Go!”

He gave her another kiss on the cheek, grabbed his belt and other stuff, and rushed out.

Allison followed him as he rushed out, and was actually thinking that he was being quite attractive.

She wasn’t into girls, really, but he was being very capable and very take-charge – such people were always attractive to her. And since it was still Jack underneath that fashion-model face and body, she was feeling something that she hadn’t felt since Jack became a girl.

She shook her head and headed back up to get the kids ready for the day, and to arrange for a sitter or something.

- - - - -

As Jack drove, he called Andy on the radio, briefed him on what’s been happening, and asked him to meet with him at GD’s gate.

Minutes later, they were both at GD and Jack met with Jo’s SWAT team.

The lead commando came up to them and saluted.

“Good morning, Sheriff,” the ex-army soldier said. “Our squad has been assigned to you while the rest are deployed around the building.”

“Thank you, Officer Dalton,” Jack said after he looked at the nameplate on his jacket.

“Do you have anything good enough to disable or subdue the robot?”

“Not really, Ma’am... I mean, sir, except maybe this.”

He handed Jack what was shaped like a sports drink bottle.

“It’s a riot net, with a tensile strength of about a ton. You throw it at the target and the net will be deployed around it.” He gave Jack a pair as well as a utility belt with lots of other stuff, and Andy another pair of the nets.

“Thanks,” Jack said. He slipped the two canisters under his belt and strapped the utility belt he was given around his waist. But it was just too large. Instead, Jack wore the oversized belt bandoleer-style: he threw it over his shoulder and clicked it closed over his hip on the opposite side. For some reason, Dalton found that sexy.

They were fully briefed of the sheriff’s situation, and it was obvious he had mophed into a near-copy of Sgt. Kira Knight. The sheriff’s version of his colleague was similar enough to be recognizable but he was even more attractive than the original.

“Sir,” Dalton continued, “Dr. Deacon said that he detected that the robot has a radio. He believes it can monitor our communications.”

“Got it. Radio silence then,” Jack said to Dalton. “All radios off. You and your people follow the deputy and me. First fire team ten meters behind us, and the second fire team twenty meters after them. That will maximize our deployment. You will be Tail End Charlie and watch our backs. Standard tactics. Clear?”

Dalton nodded in approval. He had heard that the Sheriff knew his stuff, and was glad being changed to a girl didn’t take any of that away. Not that he thought of girls as being less competent. He just imagined how being changed to someone else would mess him up. The sheriff was coping better than he would have.

“Sir!” he saluted and started gesturing to his people.

The eleven of them crouched and rushed the main gate. The commandos deployed themselves against posts or poles while Jack and Andy fetched up against either side of the sliding main doors.

Jack got a couple of the charges from the belt he was given and stuck them to the door’s lock. He then ran back and triggered them.

After a powerful blast, they saw the lock disintegrate into powder.

Andy rushed to the door. With incredible strength, he jammed his fingers into the jamb and, like a cheesy Hercules character from some B movie, he pushed the doors to the sides.

As he did so, gunfire rang out. Andy was hit on the chest with several bullets, and he was thrown backwards. He crashed to the floor and stopped moving.

Although Andy was robotic, he wasn’t bulletproof. Jack should have given him a vest as well.

“Andy!” Jack screamed. But then he remembered Andy was really a robot. He wasn’t really dead – and he could be fixed.

Dr. Connery’s robot could just be glimpsed beyond the now-open doors, so the commandos fired through the gap of the doors at it.

The robot was obviously bulletproof, and was not affected by the bullets but, nevertheless, it moved away and took refuge further inside the building.

That gave them a chance and they all rushed the door and went in. Jack took a moment to lay a hand on Andy’s shoulder. “We’ll be back, Andy, and we’ll get you fixed up,” he said, and followed the others.

“Sheriff!” Dalton called and waved to him. Jack rushed over.

“The robot is in the rotunda,” he said, “probably hiding just behind the doorway, waiting to rush us.” He gestured to the left of the doorway.

Jack nodded. “I thought it was disarmed,” he said.

“It’s probably using some ordnance it found in the security desk.” Dalton pointed at the security desk beside them. The table’s drawers were open and sticking out.

“Good.” Jack took off the belt he was just given, and took all of the explosives off it. “Give me all of yours, too,” he said to Dalton.

Dalton started unclipping them.

“But, Sheriff,” Dalton said, “the robot is bulletproof and armored – I doubt if explosives will affect it.”

“Yes,” Jack said, “but his weapons aren’t armored.”

Dalton nodded in sudden realization. “Wow!” he said, “that’s brilliant!”

He held out his hand, and Jack gave him his explosives. Dalton did something to them so they could be triggered simultaneously, and then slid them on the floor one by one, hooking them and making them go through the doorway and hooking to the left.

“Fire in the hole!” he yelled, and they all took cover. He then pressed a trigger and all of the grenades exploded at the same time. Fire, smoke and debris shot out of the doorway.

They knew the building would be able to withstand it, and with blast doors engaged, the explosion would be contained in the rotunda area. Hopefully, Henry’s office won’t be too damaged.

Ventilation ducts opened up and started to suck enough of the smoke and dust that they could breathe and see again. Jack rushed into the rotunda area.

“Sheriff!” Dalton called, but he was too late. “Dammit,” he cursed. He waved to the others and they all followed.

“Inside, they found Jack standing in the middle of the empty rotunda facing the robot.

Jack was coughing in the smoke and dust, but it was already thinning out.

The robot was prone on the floor, undamaged but was having trouble getting to its feet because of the loose debris and the robot’s general inflexibility.

Coughing, Jack took out his two nets, and threw one of them against the robot.

After a small crack, the canister let loose its net, and it covered the robot. Contact with the air, started to make it constrict, and, soon, it had the robot wrapped in its unbreakable fibers.

Jack threw the other canister and, like the first one, the second net covered the robot as well.

They watched as the robot struggled in the net, servos and motors whining, but it was totally cocooned in the net and couldn’t get out.

They stood around watching it struggle, but, incredibly, after a minute, they heard the sound of rope snapping. Even the unbreakable nets weren’t enough.

“Officer Dalton!” Jack called.

Dalton got his nets and deployed them as well. But, even with the new nets, they knew it was just a matter of time.

Jack looked around and saw a couple of dangling cables.

He saw a thick one, about the thickness of his forearm, and experimentally tapped the insulated part. So, though the bare end was sparking, he wasn’t being hurt.

“Sheriff!” one of the commandos called, but Jack waved him away.

Tentatively, he touched it again, and, experimentally, he grabbed it. He was fine.

He pulled it down, extending the cable out some more. He then approached the robot and touched the sparking end against it.

The robot started squirming as hundreds of amps started coursing through it.

Like a massive Jacob’s Ladder, blue electric arcs started coursing through it and sparks started flying.

The robot squealed like a pig, and the air was soon filled with the smell of burning insulation.

They were afraid it might explode, so Dalton pulled the sheriff away and they all took cover.

After a minute, though, the robot stopped moving.

To be safe, they left it for after another minute. Dalton then tried to kick the cable away but it had melted and stuck to the robot.

Jack went to the opposite wall, opened a switchbox and pulled down a big trip switch. The electric hum and smell of ozone slowly faded away and they watched the robot stay there, unmoving.

Jack asked Dalton to call his people and signal the all-clear while he called Henry.

“Hey, Henry,” he said into his phone. “We got the bastard. It’s all safe now.”

“Good work Jackie,” Henry said. “Anyone hurt?”

“Andy was hit,” he said. “He’s out front.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Henry said. He knew how Jack felt about his deputy. “Don’t worry, we’ll fix him up.”

“Thanks. I’m afraid your office is a mess.”

“Don’t worry about it. See you in a bit.”

He hung up and sat on the stairs.

The squad leader came up to him.

“I’ve called the others, ma’am, and gave them the all-clear.”

Jack looked up and gave him a weary smile. “Thanks. And good work.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, “but it was all you. Good work, ma’am. And don’t worry, I’ll take care of the paperwork.” He grinned.

Jack gave him another smile and a thumbs up.

They all filed past him, some giving him handshakes.

He looked around at the rubble. Not too much rubble, actually, but the front office and rotunda was going to need a shitload of paint.

“So, Sheriff,” someone called, “you got him, huh?” It was Dr. Jennifer Connery, the creator of the robot. She came out from further inside the building. That’s weird, he thought, weren’t all the blast doors closed?

“Yep,” he said, standing up and pointing to the robot.

“I don’t know what happened,” she said, walking towards the unmoving thing. “Something went wrong, obviously. Don’t worry, I’ll get on it right away.” She looked down at the robot, shaking her head sadly.

Jack walked towards her and stood beside the pretty scientist.

“I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again,” she said.

“I’m sure it won’t,” Jack replied. He casually brought out his handcuffs, and before she knew it, Jack had her cuffed.

“Sheriff!” Jennifer cried. “What are you doing!”

“What else? Dr. Jennifer Connery, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you by the courts. Do you understand these rights as I have explained them to you?”

“Sheriff!”

He sighed. He was getting impatient with Dr. Connery’s act. “Do you understand?” he asked.

- - - - -

Henry agreed with Jack’s arrest of Dr. Connery (but he would never override Jack in such matters, in any case), and had her incarcerated in the high-security holding cell in Jo’s office. Good thing Jo was on her way back – she could take charge of interrogating the scientist.

Henry had “Ross” the robot back in Section Ten, and was starting to find out what went wrong with it. He said, hopefully, he’ll have some answers the following day, but his priority at the moment was Andy.

Henry said it was a simple repair – all he needed to do was take out Andy’s internal chest unit, replace it with a spare, and reboot him. At most, it would be a thirty-minute repair job.

As for Jack, he was in Medical with Allison and Grace. He was sitting in a duplicate of the chair he sat in last night, and waited for Allison and Grace to finish some adjustments to something that looked like a computer mouse. As discussed the previous night, it was time to deliberately trigger another morph.

As he looked at the two women working together, he thought of everything that had happened. But all he could think about was Henry calling him “Jackie.” He’d have expected it from others but not his best friend.

He suspected where it came from – it was probably because Grace had been calling him Jackie for a while, already, and Henry just picked it up from her.

It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it was. Because it put into question who he was now. He was still the same person – the same man – but his best friend didn’t see him as the same person – the same man - anymore.

Was it just a physical thing? Or was it something more fundamental?

But he didn’t want to think of that right now. He just wanted to get back to normal. He crossed his fingers that what Allison and Grace were doing will help make that happen.

“Drink this,” Grace said, and handed him a tall tumbler of what looked like orange juice. Jack sniffed it. It even smelled like orange juice.

“What is it,” Jack asked.

“It’s like Tang,” Allison said.

Jack started drinking it, and it was awfully syrupy. “Sweet,” he said mildly. Actually it was incredibly sweet – sweet enough to make the back of his throat tingle.

“It’s actually eighty percent sugar,” she said. “Come on! Bottoms up!”

Jack just swallowed it and trying not to taste it.

“Why?” he asked after he finished it off.

“We need to give you a large bolus of something sugary to help power the change.”

“Ah.” He gave the empty glass to Allison.

“Now hold this,” Grace said, handing him the device they were fiddling with a moment ago. It was in the general size and shape of standard computer mouse without the buttons, wire or little roller ball. On the rounded side was a dial and beside the dial was a little window that currently showed “01” in glowing LEDs.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“That will control your change. Right now, it’s set to make your morph to be like the first morph you went through.” She tapped at the little displayed number.

“Okay...”

“And I am all set with a new outfit,” Allison said. She held up a strapless dress she got from the stuff Jack left at the smarthouse.

“Okay...” He looked at them. “Now what?”

“Now we wait for you to change.”

They looked at each other. But after a minute of nothing happening, they started to get worried.

“I don’t think this is going to work,” Allison said.

“Wait!” Jack exclaimed. He started to feel something. “I think it’s happening.”

Allison activated the chair and it started ticking over, gathering data as Jack started to morph.

And as they watched, they saw Jack slowly morph into his first form – the near-clone of Dawn Cameron, the daughter of Dr. Cameron from Section Fourteen.

“It worked!” Grace said, jumping up and down.

“It did?” Jack said.

“Yes, it did!” Allison said, and started peppering his face with kisses. “That means all we need to do now is wait for when you change back to the old Jack Carter!” She kissed him again.

“That’s great!”

- - - - -

Later on, Jack and the newly repaired Andy went back to the office.

Jack wanted to pick up the latest uniforms from Mary, the proprietress of Mary’s Uniforms and Fashions, as well as some of the uniforms she already made that Jack had been keeping in the office, so he started walking towards Mary’s shop.

As Mary feared, she did run out of material, so the new uniform they made was just a short-sleeved version of his uniform.

Jack didn’t mind – it was still regulation, and after saying goodbye to Andy, he drove home with some of the uniforms. This time, instead of driving to the smarthouse, he drove to Allison’s house, or as Jenna calls it, their townhouse.

He felt very cheerful because they had taken the first step to getting him back to normal.

He also chuckled. Wait till Kevin gets a good look at him with his new morph.

Remembering it was Taco Night, he goosed the accelerator, excited to get home. Mmm... tacos... he thought.

to be continued in Episode 5: “One Fine Day... In Eureka” Jan. 14, Monday 8PM Eastern On the BTTV Network