Mark pulled up in front of Sarah’s two-story apartment in his maroon-colored minivan. He sat alone in the front seat, but the rest of the van was infested with children. Ranging in age from four to eight were Brian, Hazel, and Edith. They were unquestionably adorable, but also unquestionably ages four through eight, so a bit on the annoying side. Mark tapped the horn lightly a couple times.

Almost immediately the front door to Sarah’s apartment opened and out she came.

“Wow,” said Brian, the awe in his voice making this favor worth it for Mark.

“Dad, you have super cool friends,” Edith added in a voice that implied her dad might not be considered in the same light by those friends. It’s never too early to start practicing being a teenage girl.

Hazel just stared as Sarah approached the van and slid the door open. She reached up and lifted her helmet off, a big smile on her face.

“Hey kiddos,” she said in greeting.

“New cape?” asked Mark.

“Good eye,” Sarah said. “The one it came with wasn’t quite right. I found this on eBay. Homemade, if you can believe it.”

Mark could believe it. Just looking at Sarah, he was impressed by the sheer level of geekness necessary to create the spectacle that was his colleague. Sarah was dressed head-to-toe in a very realistic version of Star Wars bounty hunter Boba Fett’s uniform, including a holstered blaster, which she removed and handed to Hazel, so she could sit down in the empty seat catty corner from Mark.

“I assume that thing isn’t loaded,” Mark said.

“I wish,” Sarah replied, sadly.

“Where did you get all this?” Edith asked reaching over the seat and patting the armor protecting Sarah’s shoulders. The shoulder and chest plates were olive green over a khaki shirt and cargo pants covered with pockets of all sizes. The helmet resting on Sarah’s lap was matching olive green and dented in several places to enhance its authenticity. A pair of Army boots and utility belt with various pockets completed the look.

“What’s in all the pockets?” Mark asked. “Ammo?”

Sarah smiled. “Probably supposed to be, and rations. But for today, it’s business cards, notebooks, and pens. This is work after all.” Then looking at the kids, she said, “We are all sworn to secrecy, right?”

All three nodded solemnly.

“I doubt the Administrator is going to grill my kids,” Mark pointed out.

“You can never be too safe. Us bounty hunters have to be careful, you know. Lots of enemies,” she whispered at Brian. He nodded in conspiratorial understanding. “Let’s go,” she said. “And thanks for the ride. It’s impossible to drive in this outfit and Ubering just gets weird when you’re a bounty hunter.”

“I can imagine,” Mark said. “And, no problem. As you can tell, as soon as the kids heard you were going in costume, driving you was no longer optional. And their mother appreciates some alone time.”

“I’ll bet. Your kids are horrible,” she said glaring at each in turn as they giggled.

“So, you really think you might learn something useful from these, um, people?” Mark asked as he pulled out of the parking lot and headed downtown toward the convention center.

“Maybe. I don’t know. A lot of obsessives hang around these conventions and while their hold on reality can be a bit tenuous, they do tend to know their fringe science. And I think we may be dealing with something along those lines here.”

“You know, it could just be someone with an agenda inside the agency. I hate to even think it, but someone with that kind of access would have the easiest time screwing with the data and covering their tracks,” Mark said.

“God, I hope that’s not it. People died. How could you do something like that just because you hate your boss or something?”

“I was thinking something a little more nefarious than office politics, but I agree, it’s hard to imagine. It’s just seems a bit more realistic than aliens,” he joked.

Sarah pointed her blaster at Mark for emphasis and said, “It’s not like we haven’t tried it before. Stormfury. Project Cirrus.”

“Sure, but even if you believe they had any effect at all, they were trying to weaken hurricanes, not steer them at states they didn’t like,” Mark pointed out.

“I think the nice people in Savannah would disagree with you.”

“That was bullshit.”

“Bad word!” Edith scolded.

“You’re right, sweetie. I apologize,” Mark said.

“We need her at the office,” Sarah suggested.

“Funny, but seriously that debacle set any serious efforts to control hurricanes back for decades. What if we accidently steered a hurricane into New Orleans instead of out to sea. No one’s going to sign off on taking that risk. I think whatever is going on here is either subtler than brute force hurricane control or it’s someone who doesn’t care if they can’t control what they’re doing. Or, worst case, both.”

“Jeez, you’re killing my Boba-buzz. So, you think this is a waste of time?” Sarah asked.

“Absolutely not! The kids will be talking about that outfit for days.”