The CIA Files: A Christmas Coincidence

by Sogo

WOMP is throwing their annual Christmas Party, John is fanboy, and Marvin accidentally joins a robotic uprising. Oh, and MAD might be up to something. Just another day in WOMP's Cryptic Intelligence Agency. Third in the CIA Files.

Welcome back to the madness that is WOMP's CIA! I just want to announce that the members of the CIA are now making a very special cameo appearance in SilverWarriorWolf's "Inspector Gadget: ReInitiated". It's a great story and I highly recommend it. The CIA folk appear in Assignment 9.

Now, just a reminder of who everyone is:

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)

Marvin: Sue's Pet Robot with Slight Homicidal Tendencies

And now, on with the show!

CIA File 3: A Christmas Coincidence

WOMP is throwing their annual Christmas Party, John is a fanboy, and Marvin accidently joins a robotic uprising. Oh, and MAD might be up to something. Just another day in WOMP's Cryptic Intelligence Agency.

White flakes floated through the air, spinning downwards. They landed on the huge Christmas tree, the food laden tables, and the people below.

John looked at the scene with wide eyes. "How'd they get it to snow inside?"

"Apparently the AC is on the fritz," Wayne informed him. "You heard the explosion earlier, right? Damaged the circuits, and people liked the snow effect, so they decided to leave it until after the party."

"Oh," John said. He tilted his head. "Who-?"

"Either Sue let Marvin experiment with the taser again, or it was you-know-who," Wayne said with a shrug. "I don't think it really matters either way."

"Yeah, cause the same person is going to get blamed," John muttered. He shivered. "It's cold."

"That would be the AC," Wayne reminded.

"...Right. Knew that."

The two spent a moment longer admiring the view.

"Um," John coughed slightly, "so is everybody affiliated with WOMP going to show up?"

"Most of them." Wayne looked oddly over to the intern. "Why do you ask?"

"I just… I'd really like to meet someone, that's all."

Wayne frowned as he mentally ran through everything he knew about the younger man, which wasn't as much as he knew about the rest of his co workers simply because John was newer. "I…" And then he realized. "You've never actually met Gadget, have you."

"No, but I've heard so much about him!" John said excitedly, really getting into it. "I mean, the man must be brilliant! I know what everyone says about him, but you just have to look at his record-"

Wayne bit back a groan. This was going to be a long night.

x-x-x

"Are you sure it was a good idea to bring Marvin to the party?"

Dana and Sue both leaned against the wall, away from most of the partying.

"I don't see why not," Sue said. "Marvin has to learn socialization skills someday."

"I'm not saying he shouldn't learn socialization skills, just that… this may not be the appropriate venue to learn them in," Dana tried. "He still has some rather serious bugs, doesn't he?"

"They're being worked on," Sue assured her. "I've been in contact with Gadget's niece, Penny. Now there's a girl I'd love to have as an intern. Twelve, with a pair of highly capable high functioning AIs already under her belt…"

Sue trailed off wistfully.

"You may be working on the bugs, but what about tonight?" Dana questioned.

"...It should be okay. You know, probably."

"Right…" Dana drawled. She pushed away from the wall. "I think I'm just going to stop in my office."

"Why?" Sue asked, baffled.

"Because I have a nasty feeling about the way this night is going to end up, and I want to see if I'm going to leave myself any notes on how this whole thing is going to shake down," Dana said dryly. Then she brightened. "Ooh, I might get to bug Elliot with a prediction!"

The so-called psychic disappeared into the crowd.

"...I'm supposed to hope that you don't have to, right?" Sue called. "Right?"

x-x-x

Caz hummed lightly to herself as she wove through the crowd. She wasn't exactly big on parties (they required human contact, and she had never been particularly good at that), but the WOMP Christmas party was usually pretty relaxed despite the agency's high profile.

Also, it was a chance to flirt with the nerdy office types in other departments and laugh when they panicked and ran.

Now, where was that cute blond from accounting who spent too much time at the water cooler?

x-x-x

"Hello, Chief," Wayne told his superior, tilting his glass in greeting.

"Bremer," Quimby answered, returning the nod. "You know, I got a few complaints about you."

"Oh?" Wayne asked nervously.

"Yes, apparently there have been some troubles with your phone. It's hard to get in contact with you."

"Imagine that," Wayne said slowly.

"You know, back when I was police chief, I had a lot of similar problems," Quimby offered. "Usually only happened when a certain someone was on duty."

"Those darned coincidences," Wayne agreed.

"I'm glad we understand each other," Quimby said with a grin.

"Speaking of a certain someone," Wayne began, "John has been begging me to introduce him to Gadget tonight."

"Just don't do it near me," Quimby decided.

"I don't want to do it near me," Wayne muttered. He peered suspiciously into his glass. "Do you think someone might have spiked the punch?"

Quimby frowned, sniffing at his own glass. "I don't believe so."

"That's what I thought," Wayne sighed, disappointed. "It's too bad. I could really use the extra courage."

x-x-x

"...such a disappointment!"

Elliot's eye twitched.

Carlotta, while usually tolerable, was, when at one of the low key WOMP parties, not so much. It wasn't that she was purposefully annoying, or anything, just that she had plenty of opinions and no trouble expressing them.

And usually she was in her office working on her newest disguise, so he didn't have to see her at all.

Tonight, she looked like the belle of the ball, with a long silvery dress, long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She was also expressing her sorrow over the fact that so few other people had bothered to dress up.

This was true. Because the WOMP Christmas party was casual, there were mostly people in standard work attire. A few had even dressed down to jeans and t-shirts. Elliot was one of those who had thrown on awful Christmas sweaters, though he was now regretting that choice.

Mostly because Carlotta was now berating him.

Elliot thought fast.

"Hey, is that well-dressed man looking at you?" he asked, pointing in a random direction.

The ploy worked. Carlotta turned to look.

Elliot high-tailed it out of there.

x-x-x

Dana sighed as she entered her office and immediately chucked the shawl she was wearing over the edge of the chair behind her desk. Most of the office was filled with supposed fortune-telling equiptment, but there was a computer there, half buried under a pile of incense and tarot cards.

She calmly turned the computer on and opened the file she always left her notes in.

Oh, there was a message. That… wasn't necessarily good. Unless it was information tipping her off on where to be to get the best blackmail. Which was always fun.

Dana started reading. Slowly, the blood drained from her face.

Okay, definitely not good.

x-x-x

"Sue! How are you?"

Caz disentangled herself from the crowd to greet the scientist.

"I am… fine," Sue decided. She swirled the punch in her glass. "How are you?"

"Enjoying the night," Caz declared with a grin, leaning up against the wall next to the older woman. "I've made three guys from R&D cry so far."

"Hm." Sue still seemed more interested in her glass. "I was considering trying my own luck tonight."

"I don't think you'd need to search out a particular type to terrify," Caz said dryly. "You seem to do quite well with John."

Sue blinked in surprise. "Johnathan? Really?" She paused. "To be honest, I hadn't noticed."

"..." Caz shook her head to clear it. "Anyways, have you seen Marvin?"

"Not recently," Sue admitted. "Last I saw, he was speaking to the Gadgetinis."

"...And that didn't send up any red flags?" Caz asked slowly.

"Not really. I felt it would be good for him to connect with others of his own kind."

"And you didn't worry that he might, say, infect them with some of his more… dangerous idiosyncrasies?"

"That seems a little far fetched," Sue said calmly, sipping her punch.

"Haven't you ever seen Terminator?" Caz asked. "The Matrix? Colossus?"

Sue blinked. "Are those art pieces? Because I've never really been a fan of modern art."

Caz groaned. "That explains so much…"

x-x-x

"Carlotta!"

Dana pushed through the crowds, easily able to pick out the seamstress, with her eye catching clothing. "Carlotta!"

Carlotta glanced around for a moment before she caught sight of Dana. "Dana? ...What are you wearing?"

Dana was caught off guard enough to look down in confusion. "...The same thing I always wear?"

Carlotta's lip twisted. "And that, my dear, is precisely the problem! This is a Christmas party, not a Christmas-wear-your-everyday-clothes-gathering!"

"First off, you can hardly classify what I wear as everyday clothes," Dana argued, holding up a finger.

Carlotta tilted her head as she considered. She'd have to give the psychic that.

"Secondly, we have a problem!"

"What kind of problem?" Carlotta asked, not entirely willing to drop the clothing argument yet.

"The kind where I just saw that MAD is infiltrating this party! Right now!"

Carlotta's mouth fell open. It took her a second to say anything more. "Like, right now?"

Dana nodded.

"Now, now?"

Dana nodded again.

Carlotta thought for a moment. "Well, we should probably do something about that, shouldn't we."

Dana nodded a third time.

x-x-x

Elsewhere, three small figures were deep in discussion.

"Really, all we want is equal treatment!" the blue figure rallied, waving an arm. "It shouldn't be too much to ask for the same sort of contract everyone else has! We're not even getting paid!"

"Being paid is good, correct?" the red and silver one asked.

"Yeah," the orange one agreed. "It's a… Digit?"

"It shows that you're valued," the blue one explained. "That you're important."

"And this paid would put us on equal terms with the Flesh Sacks, yes?" the red and silver one pressed.

The two others exchanged a glance. "Uh…"

x-x-x

John stood, shivering, as the cold of the broken AC nearly frozen his now sodden clothes.

"So," Wayne said dryly, "what did you think?"

"I think I ha-hate you," John whimpered.

"I did try to warn you," Wayne pointed out.

"So m-much," John added.

"That that would happen."

"Evil."

"And so would this."

"You are evil." John wrapped his arms around himself in a vain attempt to keep warm.

"In all seriousness, though," Wayne broke in, "what did you think?"

"I can not believe the Chief dealt with him on a regular basis for as long as he did," John admitted. "I think I have a new hero."

"Well, that's one way to take it," Wayne decided. He slapped the smaller man on his back, causing John to stumble forwards slightly. "Let's go see if there are any changes of clothes around here. I know I have one in my office… I mean, this is hardly the first time Gadget's soaked someone. Probably not even the first time tonight."

He suddenly slapped his forehead. "So that's why Dana wanted the infirmary to stock up on electric blankets! Damn it, if I find out she was expecting this the whole time…"

x-x-x

"CAZMADISTRYINGTOINFILTRATETHEPARTYANDWEHAVETOGETELLIOTANDWHEREISELLIOT?!"

Dana was never a subtle person.

Caz turned from a panicked looking man (who fled the moment she wasn't looking) to frown at her friend. "What?"

Dana stood a little taller and cleared her throat. "I have foreseen-"

"Oh, for-save the dog and pony show for Elliot, and tell me what's happening," Caz sighed.

Dana wilted a little. "MAD's trying to infiltrate the party and Carlotta ran off to find a costume for the Chief, and I can't find Elliot, and-I-don't-wanna-talk-to-Gadget!"

Caz glanced across the hall, where she could see Wayne reentering the party. John was trailing behind him, clad in a pair of pants about an inch and a half short and a truly hideous Christmas sweater she was certain he wasn't wearing earlier. "He's having trouble with the shower head thing again, isn't he?"

Dana nodded morosely. "If I had known that was why I told myself to tell the infirmary staff to stock up on electric blankets, I would have also told myself to just stay home. Of course, if I had done that, then I wouldn't have known about the problem in the first place to tell myself. Or about the MAD plot!"

Caz had a rather high IQ and she still took a moment to unravel Dana's words. "O...kay. MAD plot? Details?"

"I'm not sure," Dana admitted, wringing her hands. "Which is really not comforting. How do you people live with not knowing? Ah… nevermind. I think there's a bomb. There might be a bomb. MAD agents like bombs, don't they?"

(That was true. But…) "You're panicking, Dana."

Dana took a deep breath. "Yes. Probably. Sorry. But there's a plot and it's happening right here and I don't know what to do I usually sit on the sidelines and I'm a psychic not an agent and I'm not supposed to be in on the action!"

Caz looked skyward. "Dana. Breathe."

Dana did so, slightly rapidly.

"Alright, so here's what we're going to do," Caz decided. "You are going to find Elliot and tell him we have a problem. Put on your dog and pony show for him, that should keep you from panicking. In the meantime, I'll head to the security booth and check all the cameras for someone who doesn't belong. Can you do that?"

Dana nodded quickly.

"Good," Caz declared. "I think Elliot was heading that way, last I saw." She pointed in the direction she'd last seen him. "Come get us when you're done. And then Sue and Carlotta can work their magic."

Dana nodded again and went dashing off into the crowds.

"I don't think Sue needs to do anything, what with Quimby and General Sir both already being here," Wayne said calmly as he approached. "But why do we need them?"

"Come on," Caz said, catching his arm and dragging him off. "We need to search through a lot of video feeds."

"Doing actual work?" Wayne asked, sounding mock-horrified.

"Of course not," Caz snorted. "I have a program that will do all the work. But I do have an episode of an old eighties cartoon that's going to win me back the ten dollar bill in your pocket."

"I feel like there's a joke there," Wayne admitted. "But it's just not coming to me."

x-x-x

Elliot was enjoying the night. He was making important small talk with other department heads (one of these days, he was going to get out of the CIA and into something much less headache inducing. Like accounting, for instance), he'd finally spoken to Miranda Welsing for the first time (the beautiful brunette working in the PR department who he was definitely not having Caz stalk for him), and he hadn't run into Gadget once.

And then Dana came running into him.

"Elliot! Oh, darling, there you are! I've been looking all over for you! I've just had the most tremendous vision, you simply must hear of it! We are all in the gravest of danger!"

Good-bye peaceful night. Hello migraine.

x-x-x

"So our hope is that by going on strike, we'll get people to acknowledge that we're important," the orange figure finished proudly. "Especially to the Lieutenant."

"If he even notices," the blue one added dryly.

"So striking is a way of proving equality?" the red and silver one questioned. "It does not prove superiority?"

"That's… not really what we're going for, here," the orange one said slowly.

x-x-x

"There, there, and… there."

Caz had frozen three different security screen, each with a different face. Elliot and Wayne watched as she proved her skill with computers, capturing the faces, zooming in, and clarifying them.

"MAD agents, I'm sure of it," she said seriously. "I'm cross checking their faces with the agents we have on file right now."

"She was right?" Elliot sighed.

"She's always right," Wayne pointed out.

"I hate you all," Elliot decided. "I'm going to go find the Chief."

"Carlotta has a costume for him, too!" Caz added, perking right up.

"I'm almost afraid to ask," Elliot said warily.

"It's a snowman," Wayne told him, the corner of his lip twitching. "It should fit right in, shouldn't it?"

Elliot pinched the bridge of his nose as his migraine flared again. "Okay. I'm done talking to the two of you for tonight. In fact, after this, I think I'm going to go straight home."

"That's probably a good idea," Caz admitted. "Honestly, this MAD plot is only my second biggest worry tonight."

"What's the first one?" Elliot asked sardonically. "Gadget wrecking your dress?"

Caz tilted her head in thought. "...Third biggest."

x-x-x

"I think that may have been one of the bravest acts I've ever seen," John commented, wide-eyed as the smoking snowman tottered away from Gadget.

"I think you need to reevaluate your scale, Jonathan," Sue said dryly.

John glanced at his mentor before realizing something. "I've changed my mind. The fact that he comes to you all the time to be sent out to do that is probably the bravest thing I've ever seen."

"You'd better believe it."

x-x-x

"Found 'em," Caz said cheerfully, pausing the youtube video they were engrossed in to check the results of her search. "Yep, all of them are known MAD agents."

"Oof," Wayne hissed. "Bad rap sheets?"

"Nasty ones," Caz agreed. Her fingers flew over the keys. "I'll send them a heads-up."

Wayne blinked-he'd heard the explosion, which meant Chief Quimby had already gone, but who…? "To Gadget?"

"Don't be stupid," Caz snorted. "Of course not. I'm sending it to his niece. She'll know what to do with it."

"Ah," Wayne nodded. That made much more sense.

x-x-x

Dana watched the scene in front of her in utter confusion. She really wished she'd stayed home tonight.

It had been… a curious course of events. Most of the audience was still trying to figure out what had happened. What was clear what the Gadget had probably saved the day again… somehow.

What was less clear was pretty much everything else.

It hadn't been a bomb, thank goodness. No, the MAD agents had snuck in some other sort of device, to do what, Dana wasn't entirely sure, but it had been hidden in the cake. (Of course it had been hidden in the cake. If she'd been thinking clearer earlier, she would have remembered that it's always in the cake.)

Gadget had, at the time the agents were getting ready, been berating one of the waitstaff (the poor man still had a handcuff around his wrist). His niece had been trying to get his attention. She was… less than successful.

Luckily, before the trio could activate the whatever-it-was, another trio had made a rather fortuitously timed entrance.

"WE WILL STRIKE THE FLESH SACKS TO SHOW OUR EQUALITY!"

And that was when Marvin let loose the flamethrower. Clearly, Sue had to work on his syntex recognition.

Somehow, Marvin had missed the "flesh sack" he was aiming for and had hit the cake. This had the lucky side effect of pretty much destroying both it and the device. And then Gadget had swooped in with some more handcuffs and arrested the three men for owning a renegade robot.

During this, he missed a frowning Sue deactivating Marvin before dragging both him and and worried looking John back to her lab.

Yeah, Dana was definitely ready to go home.

x-x-x

"You know," the blue robot said to his brother, "it suddenly occurs to me that there may be a reason most people are hesitant to recognize us as equals."

"Speak for yourself," the orange one returned. "I never want to be recognized as whatever the hell that was ever again!"

x-x-x

"You know, the guys from R&D are talking about how this was the most exciting experience they've ever had," Caz told Wayne cheerfully, leaning back in her chair.

The two had, after another twenty minutes of mingling, given up on the party and retreated to Caz's office for more geek-time.

"Wusses," Wayne declared, mimicking her posture.

"I know, right?" Caz snickered. "And these are guys in a lab. I'm kind of wondering if all of Sue's projects are… you know, legal."

"Probably not," Wayne admitted. "But let's face it: it's a lot more fun this way."

"True," Caz agreed.

There was a moment of silence. And then:

"Alright. Let's see if I can't win back my ten dollars."

"Well, you can try," Caz declared.

The rest of the night was spent with too much soda, loud shouting, and one ragged ten dollar bill changing hands several times.

Fin

And so ends another installment in the CIA Files. It is really so much fun coming up with stuff these guys get up to, but kind of hard, too. So, no promises on when and where anything else may or may not crop up. In the meantime, please review! Thanks for reading!