The Meeting: Mission Creep

  "Now, I know Rex is all excited about his space dust, but something more urgent has come up at the University," said Drachir. "Dr. Reimer has locked himself in his laboratory and won't come out."
  "So?" said Rex. "Get somebody to bust the door down."
  "They tried. It won't budge. They tried a sledgehammer on the door and on the wall -- didn't even dent it. They even got some demolitions experts from Military Science..."
  "Oh. Heck. Maybe he got that stasis field thing to work," said Rex.
  "That's what we're thinking. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to be able to turn it off. It's attracting attention. We don't want anyone paying attention to it just yet. I'd like Rex to accompany me to the University later this morning. Mal, I'd like you there too -- maybe you could help us with damage control."
  Mal agreed. Rex seemed to chafe a little but he said "Okay."
  "Now, before we get into what is likely to be a long and detailed discussion...," said Drachir, glancing at Rex. Rex returned his glace with a glower. "...does anyone else have anything requiring our near-term attention?"
  Mal shifted uneasily. He glanced at Rex, then turned his eyes to the floor.
  "Yes, Mal?" said Drachir.
  "One of my street contacts mentioned the possibility of a large shipment of 'heavy metal' coming into Baltimore within the next week or so," said Mal to the floor. "I nosed around a bit and got some confirming noises."
  "Thanks, Mal. I'll make sure hints are dropped into the appropriate ears," said Drachir.
  "Excuse me, but how is that our problem?" exclaimed Rex.
  Drachir smiled a small, rueful smile. "Mission creep," he said.
  "I can't help what I hear on the street," said Mal. "You wanna just hand a bunch of assault rifles over to the Vast Right Wing or whoever?"
  "What are you supposed to be accomplishing on the street, anyway? I've never been clear on that," said Rex.
  "Primarily, I'm looking for evidence that They might be manipulating human affairs through clandestine activity. Secondly, a lot of contraband is produced in out-of-the-way wilderness areas. That's also the sort of place where the most anomalous sightings occur. Sometimes people in the business see things of interest to us. And sometimes I turn up things that our buddies in Homeland Security are interested in."
  "I'd guess that's most of what you turn up."
  "Well, yeah. There's a lot more of that kind of thing than what we're interested in."
  "Why don't we let Homeland Security take care of the Earth? We've got the rest of the universe to worry about."
  "Homeland Security is aware that there's a fair-sized off-the-books operation going on," said Drachir. "They even know some of the people and organizations involved." He looked around the room. "They know that a lot of the people who hang out here at the Engineering Technology building have jobs that don't have much to do with engineering. If we keep feeding them nibbles, they'll remain convinced that we're on their side, and they'll keep looking the other way."
  Rex sighed. "Okay," he said. He looked at Drachir with raised eyebrows.
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Author's note:
The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: http://www.vastrightwingconspiracy.com/. There seem to be a number of competing versions -- try googling "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy." The Vast Right Wing in the story is a militant splinter group that is ticked off about War-on-Terror-related gun control measures that have been enacted ten years into the future.
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