Epiloge (for now)

Chris, Jill, Barry and Officer Jenny walked up to the door of the mansion. They all looked and felt like hell and had barely gotten any sleep over the night. They were getting ready to knock when it opened before they could.

“Please come in,” called the man standing in the center of forayer.

Standing with a pair of security people in suits was Romus Giovanni, the head of the Giovanni group wearing a black suit with a white button-down shirt with a mandarin collar. At his side was a Golden Retriever.

“Elly, heel,” Giovanni said, “Come in special agents. I was expecting you. Gentlemen, give it to them.”

Instead of a fight, a group of men came in from a side hallway carrying crates and deposited it at the feet of the PBSA agents. One of them came over with an envelope and a clipboard.

“Please sign that you have received the materials,” the man said holding the clip board.

“What is this?” Barry asked.

“A request to file charges against the now former employees of the Giovanni Group that you have uncovered and maybe a few more. You will find their work computer terminals, their work issued phones and any other evidence we secured last night when we heard about the attack on Professor Oak. It seems they really were working for Umbrella,” Giovanni sighed like he was actually hurt.

“You knew about this?” Barry asked.

“It is all legit,” Jenny said looking over the papers she was handed.

“Elly, Stay,” Giovanni said, “Some months ago, Grey came to me with concerns, he had over heard his security people talking about ‘liquidating the boss and his boss’ when they didn’t know he was behind a corner. I had them get new company phones and took their old ones to have analyzed… While they were cleaver and able to cover their tracks, my… contact in a certain European security agency… was familiar with the software they used to cover their tracks, and was able to recover enough to show that they were nearly as loyal to my company as they were to Umbrella. My contact also noted they were talking with specific individuals in and out of the company and was able to trace a few. I had my personal staff identify the network.”

Giovanni was walking around the room and gesturing with his hands as he spoke, some times to the boxes and other times to various pictures on the wall or just in general.

“So when I heard about the attack on Professor Oak on the news, I figured they were throwing off their pretenses,” Giovanni said, “So we grabbed all of the computers and had them who we could identify turn in their phones this morning for ‘upgrades’. There should be instructions in one of these boxes on how to access their new phones and the outstanding old company phones for the police to use for their investigations.”

“So you knew about the Rockets?” Barry snapped.

“ROCKETS?” Giovanni panicked, “Umbrella gave them missiles?”

“NO, they were calling themselves Team Rocket,” Chris groaned.

“Oh…” Giovanni sighed in relief, then paused and turned to look at Chris side eyed, “They were calling themselves ‘Team Rocket’? That sounds like something from a Japanese Kids Cartoon.”

“Yes,” all four of the police agreed at once.

“I have a question,” Jill asked, “What was it all about?”

“I am not sure, but from what I was given, it had something to do with those bizarre animals running around these days,” Giovanni said, “I am guessing they were one of Umbrella’s ‘gifts to humanity’ that so far have been less dangerous than some of their other projects.”

“Listen here you…” Barry said grabbing Giovanni by the collar of his jacket and pointing his forty-four magnum revolver in the man’s face.

“Protect!” Giovanni snapped and raised his hands.

Chris and Jill drew ready to shoot the dog, but the dog fled down a hall to the left, so they trained their pistols on the security guards.

“Everyone just relax and put your hands up,” Giovanni ordered.

“Seems like your dog deserted you,” Chris noted.

“She wasn’t trained to sacrifice herself for me,” Giovanni said, “I trained her to protect what is really important.”

“What was that?” Chris asked.

“I’ll show you,” Giovanni said.

Barry let go of the man and he took a second to take a deep breath. Giovanni put his fingers interlocked and his hands over his head with his palms facing up. He led Barry and Jill down the hall where Elly had fled and into a side door for a gym area that had been turned into a dog kennel, Elly was seated in front of a Black Lab in a doggy bed with a raised edge around it.

“Elly, Maria, puppy parade,” Giovanni spoke.

The black lab and Elley got four black lab pups out of the big bed and Shepard’d them out into the yard via an open glass door.

“If my dogs are going to sacrifice themselves for something, it isn’t going to be for my vanity,” Giovanni said, “You can of course inspect the room.”

“Cover him,” Barry said.

Giovanni stayed still as Barry moved the bed and looked in the various cabinets and drawers only finding the normal dog training stuff, not even police or guard dog training equipment.

“Come on, lets get the stuff,” Barry said in disgust.

“I hope you have better luck dealing with those rocket people,” Giovanni said.