The CIA Files: The Problem with Programmingers

by Sogo

Caz has just gotten into a new gaming site, Sue wants a pet robot, and Elliot is the only one doing any actual work. Just another day in WOMP's Cryptic Intelligence Agency. Second in the CIA Files.

Welcome back to the CIA! Where stuff gets done… somehow. Just a reminders of the Members of the team:

Chief Quimby: Head of CIA

Elliot: Second in Command

Dana: Team (Fake) Psychic

Carlotta: Disguise Artist

Caz: Tech Analyst

Wayne: WOMP Liaison

Dr. Susan Blake: Scientific Director

Jonathan: Scientific Intern (Yes, that's the official title)

So, without further ado, I give you the CIA Files!

CIA File 2: The Problem with Programming/ers

Caz has just gotten into a new gaming site, Sue wants a pet robot, and Elliot is the only one doing any actual work. Just another day in WOMP's Cryptic Intelligence Agency.

"Wayne!"

Dana swept into Wayne's office with all the subtlety of a brick smashing through someone's window.

Wayne, who was asleep at his desk, jerked awake. "What. What? I wasn't sleeping."

"You're in your office!" Dana cried.

"Yes, I am," Wayne agreed. "So are you. I wasn't sleeping."

"You're never in your office," Dana pointed out.

"That's not true!" Wayne protested as his phone rang. He picked it up. "Good afternoon, you've reached the office of Agent Wayne Bremer."

There was a moment of silence.

"No, sir, that is not WOMP policy."

Another pause.

"I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding."

Wayne yanked the phone away from his ear as the man on the other end shouted furiously. "Yes, sir, I'll be sure to pass the message along to Lieutenant Gadget!" he called into the receiver. "Have a nice day!"

He slammed the phone back into the cradle.

"And that's why you're never in your office," Dana said flatly.

Wayne sighed. "I know. But Caz has gone crazy. She's found this new MMO RPG, and hasn't been the same since."

"...I'm going to pretend I know what that is," Dana decided.

"It stands for Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game," Wayne defined. "It's basically an online computer game, only more addictive and with monsters you kill."

"Ooh," Dana winced. "Do you want to come back to my office instead?"

"Thanks for the offer, Dana, but that incense you like to burn gives me a headache," Wayne explained.

The phone started to ring again.

Wayne shot to his feet and grabbed several of the files on his desk, heading for the door. "On the other hand, a headache is usually less permanent than deafness. Let's go."

x-x-x

John sprinted into Elliot's office and quickly slammed the door shut, causing Elliot to look up and raise an eyebrow.

"...Do I want to know?"

"Tell me Chief Quimby needs to be teleported somewhere," John gasped. "Please."

"The Chief is at a world meeting of CIA leaders from each of the thirty CIA teams across the world," Elliot answered, still looking confused. "Why do you ask?"

"Never mind," John sighed, sliding down the door to sit on the ground. "Just out of curiosity, is your door reinforced with anything?"

"...Wood?" Elliot suggested.

There was a knock on the door, and John nearly jumped out of his shoes. At it was, he clutched at his chest and staggered away from the door.

Sue opened the door and stuck her head in, face covered in grease. "Jonathan. I apologize for the malfunction. It's been taken care of."

"So the project has been called off?" John asked cautiously.

"Of course not," Sue said with a frown. "It just means it needs more extensive testing."

With those words, she withdrew her head, slamming the door shut.

John let out a little whimper.

"I don't want to know," Elliot decided, turning back to his paperwork.

"She's insane!" John cried. "Do you have any idea what she's doing?"

"Something with grease?" Elliot suggested, not looking up.

"She's building a robot!" John exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. "She's brilliant, she really is, but her prototype just went on a rampage and tore up the east hallways. And it smashed Colonel Nozzaire's office!"

Elliot glanced up worriedly. "Does he know who caused it?"

"No. It's a robot, he's convinced Gadget's behind it," John admitted.

"Then I don't care," Elliot declared, turning back to the paperwork.

"What happens when Dr. Blake blows up your office?" John demanded.

"If she does, we'll discuss it," Elliot said. "And she'll get to do all my paperwork."

John stared at him for a moment. "You are a terrible person."

"If you'll excuse me," Elliot commented, ignoring John, "I'm waiting for a phone call."

John threw his hands into the air again as he stalked out of the office.

"Just one day, you have to be the boss," Elliot muttered to himself. "Just get the work done, and you can go home. You can go home."

x-x-x

Carlotta knocked cautiously on the door of Caz's office. "Hey, Caz? Honey?"

"Come in!"

Carlotta poked her head in: today she looked like a friendly middle-aged woman with short black hair. "Caz, are you alright?"

Caz sat in front of her monitors, cross legged in her chair, looking nothing like herself. Her hair was twisted up in a messy bun, her pants were pajama bottoms, and she was wearing a thick sweatshirt. She wore a headset and didn't look away from the computer as Carlotta entered.

"I'm fine, make it fast."

"Caz, dear, you're scaring people."

"Good," Caz snapped, furiously inputting commands. "No, no! That two faced-"

"Caz," Carlotta said again, trying to drag the younger woman's attention from the screen. "Can you look at me? Away from the screen?"

The older woman was forced to duck as an empty and twisted can of an energy drink went flying over her head. "NO DISTRACTIONS!"

Carlotta regarded Caz with wide eyes. "...Should I come back later?"

Caz let forth a veritable torrent of curses at both Carlotta, the screen, and the mothers of the other players.

"That's a yes, then," Carlotta agreed, ducking from the room. Really, she had a new dress to finish sewing that she was certain the Chief would look great in.

"That's not a healing spell!" Caz shrieked as the door closed.

x-x-x

"So, it's decided," Dana declared loudly. "We're holding an intervention for Caz."

"I'm not the one who's going to tell her," Wayne added, hiding behind his book.

"Do you think three people will be enough?" Carlotta asked.

"It can't be too difficult, can it?" Dana asked.

"Yes it can," Carlotta and Wayne said simultaneously.

"You didn't see her," Carlotta said, shaking her head. "She threw a can at me. At me."

"Whenever she gets into one of these games, she turns psychotic," Wayne warned. "It's best just to ride this out."

"You've seen this before?" Dana asked.

"Oh, sure," Wayne agreed, turning a page. "Two years ago, Dragon's Roar. Five years ago, Spaceships and Spells. Six years ago, Call of the Wind-"

"So, this is normal?" Carlotta near squealed. "Oh, sweetie…"

"I'm not sure normal is the word you're looking for," Wayne commented, still not looking up.

"But we can stop this, can't we?" Dana asked. "I mean-"

"You can't," Wayne said seriously. "You really, really can't."

x-x-x

Sue frowned as she studied the plans for the robot she was building. It was supposed to be knee high and rather cute.

After all, that would help catch people off guard when it whipped out its flamethrower and chainsaw.

The problem was, the robot on her table was twice as tall as she was.

Sue scratched her chin. She could fix this.

"Oh, Jonathan? Would you mind disassembling the chassis here while I fix the programming?" she called to her assistant, who was currently pressed up against the far wall, getting as far away from her as he could manage.

"Disassemble?" he asked, perking up at her question.

"Yes, it seems I made a small mistake on the sizing. That may explain the homicidal tendencies."

"Oh, joy," John sighed, but did pick up his tools and move towards the robot.

The moment he touched the arm, it moved.

Sue frowned again. It seemed she had forgotten to deactivate it. She knew she was forgetting something.

x-x-x

Elliot looked up in surprise as a scream cut through the air, pulling him out of his work.

For a moment, he considered tracking down the source.

And then decided to go back to his paperwork.

He was so not getting involved today.

x-x-x

"Let me just go over this again," John said. "You know, just to make sure I have this straight."

Dana and Carlotta both nodded eagerly.

"You want me to stop working on whatever vitally important thing I'm working on to go and kidnap Caz from her office, thereby preventing her from doing her job, because you want to hold an intervention because she's scaring you, and Wayne refuses to help you because she's scaring him?"

Dana and Carlotta both nodded eagerly again.

"Once again, with no regards to anything important I may be working on, something that may very well be vital to the survival of the world as we know it."

Once again, Dana and Carlotta both nodded eagerly.

John sighed.

There was a knock at the door, and Sue stuck her head in. "My apologies, Jonathan. The robot prototype has been completely deactivated now, and there is no chance of it attacking you with a chainsaw. When you have sufficiently recovered, I could use your assistance with the new chassis."

John looked at her. He looked down at the large slice in his lab coat. He looked over at Dana and Carlotta's smiling faces.

He sighed. "Sorry, Doctor Blake, but Dana and Carlotta need my assistance."

"Of course," Sue agreed. "When you're done, then." She slipped out, shutting the door behind her.

"Why do I have an awful feeling that I'm going to regret this?" he wondered aloud.

Dana and Carlotta just grinned.

x-x-x

Elliot scowled again as John again sprinted into his office and locked the door. "...What."

"I am so, so sorry," John gasped, panting for breath. "Believe me, this was not part of my plan what-so-ever."

"I do not want to know," Elliot asserted. "I have to get through one day as the boss. One day being responsible."

"You call that responsible?" John demanded, pointing at the door. As he did so, a loud thump came from outside, making him jump with a little yelp.

"I see nothing," Elliot decided. "I hear nothing. Plausible deniability."

"This is-" John squeaked as sword stabbed through the door. "You do realize Caz has lost touch with reality, don't you?!"

"I'll have to have someone come look at the door tomorrow," Elliot declared.

"How can you still claim your deniability is plausible?!" John near shrieked, even as there was shouting and the sound of someone tackling someone else outside the door.

Elliot looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

John thought it over. "...Oh. Gadget. Right…"

x-x-x

Sue tapped her chin as she looked at the small robot in front of her. "Yes, this should work much better…" she mused.

Turning from the chassis, she returned to the computer. "Let's see, now we just need to fix the flaws in the AI program. How to stop an AI from turning homicidal…?"

She paused a moment. "Should also probably come up with a name for the little thing. I don't think John's name of 'that massive killing machine' is very appropriate."

x-x-x

"Okay, so what have we learned from this experience?" Wayne asked calmly.

"That Caz is a psychopath?" Dana suggested, holding an ice pack up to her black eye.

"No," Wayne said.

"That Caz needs help?" Carlotta offered from where she was hand sewing a large rip in her shirt close.

"No," Wayne sighed.

"That Caz should not be removed from her video games when she's like this, or else she turns crazy violent?" John tried.

Wayne spun to point a finger at him. "Ding ding ding, we have a winner!"

"That just means we have to come up with a better plan," Dana said firmly. "She certainly seemed more controllable when we tackled her."

"That's probably because you tackled her," John deadpanned.

"This time, I have a plan!" Dana declared.

"I give up," Wayne sighed, sinking back into his chair. He reached across the desk to swipe the asperin off of Dana's desk and quickly popped two. The problem with Caz was just making his already awful headache from Dana's incense even worse.

"Is this a plan you've Seen?" John demanded. "Because your last plan, which you didn't See, didn't go so well."

Wayne groaned. "John…"

"Of course I've seen it!" Dana said with a sniff.

"You have not!" Wayne argued. "You haven't Seen anything!"

"What?" John asked, confused.

Wayne stood up, crossed the room, and banged on the closet. "Dana isn't psychic, John. She nicked a time machine Professor Von Slickstien was using a while back, and keeps jumping a few hours back in time to leave herself notes of what's going to happen that day."

John's mouth fell open. "...Wha…?"

"Everybody but Elliot knows," Wayne added. "Which really ticks him off."

"But why don't you tell him?"

"Because otherwise I wouldn't be able to blackmail Dana," Wayne said.

"Because otherwise Elliot would make sure Quimby fired me," Dana said. "Oh, he doesn't know either."

"Because it's funny," Carlotta said.

Everyone looked at her.

"What? It is. Elliot gets so mad…"

"So, is this a plan you left yourself a note of?" John asked Dana.

"Well, no," Dana admitted. "But really, can it be any worse than our last attempt?"

x-x-x

Sue looked up from her programming at the sound of a scream. Clearly something interesting was going on. She hoped it didn't take John the rest of the day. Someone needed to tighten up the screws on the flamethrower, and it wasn't going to be her.

x-x-x

"GO, GO, GO!" Dana shouted as John burst into Caz's office and tackled her off of her chair.

"No!" Caz screeched as she clawed at John in an attempt to make him let go. "No, no, AFK! AFK! LET ME GO! THE ORCS ARE ATTACKING! THE ORCS ARE ATTACKING!"

Between John, Dana, and Carlotta, they managed to drag the younger woman out of the office… before it all went wrong.

x-x-x

Wayne looked up at the sound of yelling and slamming.

"I tried to warn them," he muttered, grabbing another aspirin and downing it before returning to his book.

x-x-x

"Okay," Dana said from her bed in the infirmary. "I think I'm ready to give up."

"Seconded," Carlotta and John chorused.

"I almost think helping Dr. Blake may have been less… terrifying," John admitted, before he was interrupted by the arrival of their doctor.

"So, how were you injured again?" the doctor taking care of them questioned.

The three exchanged glances. On one hand, they could tell the truth, and get a good (albeit apparently psychotic) friend (as well as quite possibly themselves) in a lot of trouble, and on the other hand…

"Gadget," they all said together. Just another injury to add to the very long list of injuries caused by the hapless Lieutenant.

"Hey, guys," Wayne said cheerfully as he walked into the infirmary.

"You're in a cheerful mood," Carlotta observed. "What happened?"

"I moved out of Dana's office, and my headache cleared up," Wayne explained.

"But I thought your office…" Dana began.

"Oh, I wasn't in mine," he added with a grin. "Look who else came to visit."

A much neater, normal looking Caz stepped into the room. "Hey all. Whoa. What happened to you?"

"I'll explain later," Wayne told her, patting his best friend on the shoulder. Especially as it seemed everyone else was too busy staring at her with open mouths to answer.

"Hey, Caz, can you go get me a soda from the vending machine?" he asked suddenly, passing her a couple bucks.

Caz shot him an odd look but nodded and headed back out.

"Wayne?" Carlotta asked.

"I told you not to bother," Wayne said with a shrug. "Yeah, she gets crazy, but it never lasts long. It only takes her a day or two to level her character up to the max, and find all the secret items and cheat codes and such. Then she never plays again." He paused. "Makes her a bit of a legend in the gaming communities, though."

"So all we had to do was… wait?" Dana asked slowly.

"Pretty much," Wayne answered. He glanced out the doorway. "Well, I'll see you later. Caz thinks she's got a nerdier fact than me this week. We're bingeing the 1963 episodes of Doctor Who to see."

With that, he left, whistling the Doctor Who theme song.

There was a moment of silence.

"I'm still not sure if this was worse than working with Dr. Blake," John declared.

On cue, Sue burst in the door, grinning wildly. "Johnathan! Wonderful news! I have Marvin up and running!"

As she turned to motion, John shot a look at Dana and mouthed "Marvin?"

"Now, he's not totally 100 percent yet," Sue continued as she pulled the small red and silver robot into the room. "I'm going to have Caz take a quick look at the programming. But until then…"

The small robot stood there staring blankly ahead.

Sue cleared her throat. "Marvin? You can say something."

"The Flesh Sacks deserve death," the small robot intoned, before his left hand turned into a chainsaw.

John shrieked.

"Okay… there may still be a few bugs," Sue admitted.

x-x-x

Elliot finished the last of his paperwork and placed it in the OUT box. With a smile, he exited his office. Time to go home.

He looked down the hall to see John running from a small robot shooting flames out of its arm.

…

Elliot turned the other way. Plausible deniability. And if Nozzaire's office got trashed again, well, it wasn't coming down on his head, anyways.

Fin

So, another day of madness and insanity and really, how do these guys get anything done? Read and Review… If there's any interest, I actually do have a couple more ideas for these guys!

Also, did you know programming can be spelled with either 1 or 2 "m"s? I didn't.