Disclaimer - I don't own the Men in Blsck.
Please leave feedback - this is my first Men in Black story, and I hope you enjoy it.
Impending Retirement.
From his place in the driver's seat, Agent Kay watched as his old friend and partner walked over to the entrance of the hospital where he'd get the best of care. A part of Kay, the part of him that was sentimental that hadn't been completely destroyed by his extremely long period as a member of the secret Men in Black organisation, hoped the former agent turned around to wave goodbye, show some kind of recognition.
But it never happened, and Kay knew it would never happen. The neuraliser had done its job extremely well.
The former Agent Dee, founding member and veteran of the Men in Black was no more, now he was a neutral. Kay had brought him to the hospital because the doctors and nurses there would have the knowledge and resources to help him, though they wouldn't be able to restore the years of memories that were now blanked out.
Sometimes Kay hated his life in the Men in Black since it's policy of removing the memories of the operatives who found they could no longer live in secrecy anymore, who could no longer keep up with the rigours of preventing the alien trash who came to the planet, breaking treaty after treaty, and threatening the lives of Earth's people because of some weird plan they had in mind. But Kay, a lifetime member of the organisation and founding member, who had accidentally wandered into the middle of a first contact situation with the intergalactic refugees who had put MiB on the map, understood the need for secrecy.
Kay knew humanity wasn't yet ready to encounter aliens, though when that actually happened he didn't know.
But now…
Dee had been having problems for a long time, and Kay had been worried about his friend, though tonight he knew he wouldn't have to worry anymore since Dee had his memory erased. It wasn't all bad. Dee had been keeping track of his family over the decades, checking to see if they were alright, checking to see if they'd moved from where he'd seen them last. It was against MiB rules for that to happen, but it was one of the rules which were frequently broken by the agents and operatives in the organisation. Kay knew about Dee's actions because the older agent had confessed to him long before they'd tracked Mikey down he was considering retirement, and he had his sister's address in his pocket on a piece of paper, knowing when his memory was erased he would know where to go.
It had been a risk for Dee to tell him that, but Kay didn't care. He and Dee had been through a lot, and as he sat there in the parking lot of the hospital watching as the wiry frame of his friend walked to the entrance, knowing the pocket would be checked and Dee would be able to restart what was left of his life. Kay thought back to that scene in the desert after he and his old friend and lifetime partner had taken Mikey before that stupid sheriff had climbed that small hill to find out what was going on with that immigrant… only to see Mikey in all his flippered glory, only to be charged by the furious Samurian. Kay had seen out of the corner of his eye Dee struggling to take out his weapon and shoot Mikey after he'd been shoved to the ground, but the task had fallen to Kay.
Dee had been shaken by the event since in the past he'd had done it in a heartbeat and killed someone like Mikey before he'd gotten more than halfway to his victim.
Kay had not wanted to wipe his friend's memory, but he had no choice since he could see for himself Dee was tired and wanted out of MiB. It was the least he could have done.
Kay knew he had to return to the office, report to Zed what had happened to Mikey, though he probably already had heard the story from the containment crew who'd been sent after both himself and Dee to mop up the mess since there were unawares in the area where the alien had been found. If there was one thing MiB had learnt during since operations had begun in the 1950s, there was no guarantee the aliens would be friendly, and more often than not there was bound to be bloodshed, go through the Samurian government to let them know about Mikey's death though it was likely they wouldn't care since Mikey had been a claw in their sides for a long time, and this was before he became a political refugee and got himself into trouble for starting that rabies outbreak twelve years before which had taken the Men in Black over three weeks to clean up before his trial.
But he couldn't leave, not just yet.
Because he felt tired.
Kay sighed and closed his eyes, resting his head gently on the steering wheel of the car. He had been a member of MiB for so long, he had almost forgotten what it had felt like to have a normal day, never once wondering if there was life beyond Earth's atmosphere. But ever since first contact with the Baltians when he'd gotten lost on the wrong back road on a journey to meet up with his girlfriend, Kay's life had been swamped with all kinds of knowledge, the meeting of so many alien races, dealing with the knowledge that individual members of those races, some of whom were so super intelligent, were capable of committing evil acts until his mindset had become so cynical he couldn't look at an alien without thinking if they were planning something dangerous.
Lifting his head, Kay looked out of the window. There was nothing for him here, he decided, so he started the car up and drove off.
Dee deserved his retirement in peace.
Zed was busy in his office while he waited for Kay to arrive, working on the death certificate for Mikey which would be sent to the Samurian government as was the custom of MiB had with the races they had a treaty with when dealing with alien criminals. As the head of MiB, it was part of Zed's remit and list of extensive duties that made him responsible for this type of work.
Personally, Zed would not miss Mikey; he had met many Samurians over the years, and while Mikey was not exactly a typical member of his race, he had come with all kinds of problems.
Mikey had only come to Earth because it was convenient because the treaties that the Men in Black enforced had not yet come to deal with criminals of his ilk at the time, but that didn't mean anything to the MiB. They would have arrested or killed Mikey if he had caused more harm, treaty or no treaty though he hadn't realised that until he had arrived on Earth, and to be honest there were calls among many of the agents involved to simply have Mikey executed after that rabies outbreak.
But truthfully Zed was doing this to take his mind off of the news Dee had been rendered a neutral. He knew it had been coming for a long time; Dee was a veteran agent, he had been in MiB since the very beginning, and there were very few founding agents left. Zed was one of the last, as was Kay.
The last of a dying breed, but once which had shaped the Men in Black into the organisation it was today, enforcing and negotiating treaties while ensuring the aliens who came to Earth obeyed the rules MiB put into place. Zed knew the organisation would last long after people like himself and agents like Kay either died or retired, old-timers who had worked for years to keep Earth safe against harm.
Men in Black was a flexible organisation. While their real purpose was to make contact with aliens, which had been considered a joke by the US government who had only formed the organisation in response to the number of UFOs that had been coming to the planet ever since the end of the Second World War, when the first of many first contacts came, the MiB had discovered a new purpose; to protect the human race from harm, and they had done a good job thanks to the alien allies they had made over the years even though more than a good few of them saw humanity as nothing more than de-evolved creatures not worthy of sentience.
Zed shook his head and rubbed his eyes - sometimes he cursed the twins need to keep them on a daily cycle which was 37-hours - and he kept working.
He was still working when he heard a soft tap on the door, and he looked up and saw Kay outside. "Come on in, Kay," he said, and he waited until the other man walked through the door and sat down on one of the visitor's chairs in the office. "Tell me what happened."
Kay sighed. "Dee and I tracked down our alien in a party of immigrants who were intercepted by the police - I don't know what Mikey's plan was, whether he planned to find another disguise so he'd be able to avoid contact with us, so don't ask, though my guess was he was planning on staying in the shadows for a bit, but you know Mikey; he was never that bright despite being good with spice trafficking and testing viruses on unsuspecting planets," he added.
Zed nodded, making a note on his notepad to have a few agents look into the alien black market dealers to find out if Mikey had planned to steal some kind of disguise. MiB had only just managed to find out an illegal alien was passing through with the human type of immigrant, good cover if you wanted to hide, though it came with many drawbacks, so they didn't have a great deal of information about what Mikey's plans were.
"Go on," he said.
"I went down the line of immigrants the local police had found at the back of some van," Kay went on shaking his head at the dim memory of seeing the van where the immigrants had been stuffed into like a can of sardines, knowing there were alien shuttles with more space, "I gave the sheriff and his deputies an INS cover, and left it at that. I spoke to all of the immigrants in Spanish until I came across one who didn't speak it."
Zed sighed, it sounded typical of Mikey and a host of other aliens; they had the means to create disguises which would fool the unawares, but not good enough for a professional MiB agent who knew what to look for.
"Dee and I took the 'migrant' over a hill and out of sight, and I stripped Mikey of his disguise. He offered the usual excuses; he didn't know how many treaties he'd broken, how he was a political refugee, stuff like that," Kay went on, "but just as Dee and I were about to take him into custody, the sheriff came over the hill and saw him, and Mikey heard his gasp."
Zed closed his eyes.
"Mikey went berserk, Zed. He knocked down Dee, who struggled to get his gun out and shoot him, and all the time Mikey ran towards the sheriff who just stood there, screaming in panic. He would have been torn to pieces if I hadn't shot him. I erased the memory of the incident from the sheriff and his deputies while the containment crew were destroying the entrails," Kay said solemnly.
Zed nodded. "What happened with Dee?"
"He was tired of MiB; he said he was still willing to be a member, but he just couldn't keep up anymore. I had no choice," Kay looked down at his feet.
Zed closed his eyes and nodded sympathetically as he remembered his old friend and fellow veteran agent. No MiB agent liked the thought of wiping god knew how many memories from the minds of their fellow agents, but it was important. MiB's integrity was only maintained by the secrecy of the organisation, though Zed knew he had the authority to let everyone know what was going on if the need was there and they couldn't handle a situation themselves.
"Where did you take him?" Zed asked; if Dee had been neuralised in the city or a town, he wouldn't have been worried, but out in a desert, miles from the nearest town, it would be inhuman, even to the coldest agents. Besides he knew Kay would never do such a thing.
"I took him to a hospital," Kay replied, his face its usual stoic mask which was the persona he usually presented towards unawares and other MiB agents, but Zed could tell the act alone had hurt Kay. "He'll be alright."
Zed nodded, pleased to hear that. Dee had been a good friend…
"Zed, I've been thinking… I want to leave MiB," Kay said, dropping the bombshell.
Zed looked up into Kay's face, reading the truth there, but he also read in the other man's expression he had more to say. "Go on," he went on, deciding not to pull out a neuraliser, or his sunglasses to protect his eyes from the laser light which would isolate the memory for the time being.
"I want to train a Replacement," Kay said seriously, "Dee didn't have time to pick one for himself, but I want to train someone and then move on."
Replacements were newcomers into MiB who had their eyes opened to the realities of alien life, and they were partnered to older, more experienced agents who taught them what they knew before they handed over a neuraliser to them so they could have their memories erased. The first agent to have a Replacement had been an agent in the early 60s who'd had enough, though no-one blamed him for what had happened, and it was a new thing.
The idea of Replacements in MiB had come about as a result because the agent had been afraid his knowledge of MiB operations would be lost even though there were other founding agents, and the idea had become stuck as a result.
"Do you want to keep an ear out for someone who's encountered an alien, or do you want me to do it?" Zed asked though he knew what his friend's answer would be.
"I'll keep an ear out," Kay said, thinking for a second about that bizarre incident that had happened years ago when he had encounter Agent Jay, his partner from the future during that business with Boris the Animal….
Until the next one..
AN - I made up the name "unaware" to act as the Men in Black equivalent as muggle is in the Harry Potter franchise which means non magical person, only to the MiB, the average person who doesn't know about aliens are unaware.