"So, I was thinking..."
Nikki looked up.
"Yes?"
"What if there were a way for you to officially extract yourself from the Fudge Gang without getting yourself into trouble," Isaac asked. "Well, not too much trouble?"
"I'm not going to the police," Nikki replied, frowning.
"Oh, I don't mean the police," Isaac replied. "See, there... YIRAAS have a security division - y'know, they keep a check on the alien criminals and hunters and stuff."
"I see."
"You could tell them. They wouldn't persecute you because of the spying or the murder or whatever, because they would consider that a human matter."
"Human matter?" Nikki repeated.
"Well, the Fudge Gang is primarily human," Isaac pointed out. "And I'm assuming that this guy of yours wasn't an alien, so yeah. Out of their jurisdiction so to speak."
"Hmm... okay..."
"I'm just sorta thinking, y'know, in case the Fudge Gang do come back after you, I'd like some kind of protective barrier."
Nikki nodded slowly. It would be nice to be able to extract herself from the Fudge Gang for real, although she sincerely doubted they'd be able to do that. That said, going along with the plan may give her a chance to go after some of these people that My Lady wanted her to plant bugs on.
"Okay, " she agreed.
"It wouldn't be all that much different from a police interview," Isaac went on hoping to assure her. "They'd tape it and everything. Oh, and they might have an empath sit on it."
"An empath?" Nikki frowned.
"Yeah. Y'know, that way they can confirm you're telling the truth."
"Or that you're lying."
"Well, that too. It does tend to make investigations go more smoothly," Isaac shrugged. "Not foolproof though. There are tricks to deceiving empaths, which y'know, given my mother is one I have leant a few tricks myself. But it's a bit of an art really, and the empaths in security are particulary good at figuring out who's trying to deceive them."
"Oh? You know this from experience?" Nikki asked, half teasing.
Isaac chuckled.
"Not personal," he replied. "I read a lot."
"I've noticed that."
"But anyway, the one time I got empath scanned, y'know, I wasn't really interested in deceiving the empath."
"Oh? YOu've done one of these interviews yourself?"
Isaac nodded.
"Y'know that whole thing with Tad that you helped us with last year?"
"Yes?"
"Yeah, he was a YIRAAS agent. He eventually reported to his superiors about that little prank - fell for it hook line and sinker, by the way -"
Nikki chuckled.
"And yeah, we got called in to answer for that and a few other little fantasies that Tad had managed to concoct. Including some bizarre idea that I was a member of the Fudge Gang or something."
"Oh!"
"Anyway, yeah. It was Tad we were setting up. We weren't actually trying to get ourselves in trouble."
"I can see that. What did happen to Tad?"
"Reassigned. But by that point we didn't really need him too much any more. So it was all good. But he was a real bastard."
Nikki nodded.
"Okay, so when do we do this?"
"I'll make an appointment this afternoon in the next couple of days?"
"Okay."