Meet At Joe's

Epilog Part 1 Good Intentions

POV: 3rd person omniscient

John and Mike are having a beer at one of the outside tables in front of Joe's.

"So, what's the next step for our group, John?" Mike asks.

"I'm not sure there is one, Mike." John takes a sip of his beer. "The FBI knows what we were planning, and they have the preliminary version; so, it is very unlikely we can go undetected now. Besides I'm not so sure we could ever accomplish what we were hoping to."

"So, you're giving up?"

"Saving the world from itself is a young man's game, Mike. You can continue if you want, but one thing this whole episode has taught me is there are always going to be people out there working against you no matter how well-intentioned you are. There are going to be bad guys like Fink who are pretending to be good guys and there are going to be good guys like Lee who didn't realize we were good guys or at least trying to be. And then despite our good intentions, you have a well-intentioned person like Cheryl and our software ends up in the hands of the bad guys anyway."

"Yeah, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions," Mike agreed. But that doesn't mean we quit trying, does it?".

"Not quitting, my friend. Just scaling back on the objectives. The tallest mountain isn't climbed with a single leap, but one step at a time. We were tackling too big a problem and there is never a quick or easy solution to such problems as much as we would like to believe there is.

"I think we tackle the big problems to distract us from the smaller more personal ones we should be focusing on. For now, I am going to focus on the love of my life and making her life as good as I can. You might want to do the same."

"Yeah, you've solved the hardest part of that problem. You found Julie. I'm still looking for the love of my life." Mike stared into his beer pensively.

"You just have to keep looking, Mike. And that doesn't mean asking every girl with a pulse if she wants to sleep with you," John finished with a grin.

Mike chuckled at the gibe then asked, "John, do you think Cheryl might be interested in me?"

John almost spewed his beer. "I think she's too good for you, but who knows? We've all matured a lot recently — even you."