It could almost have been an amorphous lifeform, but the man once known as Daniel McKniff knew it wasn't. It could have been once, though. Peering through a layer of hot vapor rising out of it, his pale blue eyes locked in a battle of wits with the oozing tan substance; here and there, a small, hard clump stuck up from the mass with an intent to be free. A small blackboard sitting on the counter behind him read, 'Egg Salad', but, according to the older man he sat on the bench beside, that message had been there since before 8-track players.
"Kay... What do you suppose this is? Beef suprise, or turkey suprise?"
Agent Kay, Kevin Brown in a past life, barely glanced in the direction of the noxious entity that agent Dee was brandishing a spoon at. "Does it matter?"
Lunch in the MiB commissary. Another fine reason to return to a relatively normal life.
It took a moment before, by sheer force of will, Dee's teeth gritted around the handle of his spoon. He swallowed, and immediately wished he hadn't. A hank of unruly brown hair fell over his eyes as his gastronomic system fought to cast out the evil invader, coughing and spluttering valiantly. "Oh, man... You'd think I'd learn by now -- I wanna bring lunch in a brown bag." He pulled a face at the plate of soupy mixture and pushed it aside; an assitant with more blue heads than arms came to take it away, scooping the muck into a silver trash can.
Wiping his mouth vigourously with a napkin, Dee looked at the tabloid that Kay's nose was buried into. "So what's up with Jay? Haven't seen him around."
"A misunderstanding with the Cryllisian delegates, kid. He'll be in the infirmary a while."
Dee looked confused; he tapped two fingers to his dimpled chin, then pointed them at his shoulder. K shook his head, repeating the tapping motion, only his fingers thumped once against his chest.
Suddenly, Dee understood, and turned a darker shade of green than he had when the maybe-turkey-possibly-beef suprise disappeared down his gullet. "Oh, man... Did the medics put everything back on?"
The greying agent nodded, taking a sip from a mug of coffee at his right. "Jay's hips will click a little from now on, he'll never play baseball, but he'll be fine in a month or two."
"So that's why they assigned me to you."
"Brilliant deduction,
junior."
Over his shoulder, Dee heard the
familiar sound of plates hitting the floor, then loud curses being exchanged in
several alien tongues. Looking back he saw what had transpired. The
multi-headed blue Danubian had tripped and spilled a large quantity of the
offensive foodstuff onto the black tiled floor; a thick-set Trasphytal was on
his back, all twenty legs thrashing frantically in an effort to return to his
favoured vertical position.
Heaving a sigh, Dee looked back at Kay, engrossed in his paper again. "Has Zed given us anything?"
"Nope." Kay stood explosively, shoving his chair out and clutching the paper. His brows knitted together. "Dee, we need icecream."
***
Outside. In the park, with a fresh breeze ruffling his hair, Dee felt as though anything could happen -- it usually did for an agent of the Men in Black, but his spirits were up where the wind chased itself around the clouds and the birds discovered new forms of aerobatics with each flick of their wings, goading each other with raucous birdsong. Around him there were children playing, couples sharing picnics with each other, the elderly content to sit and watch the world revolve around them. A thin smile found its way onto his lips, and he did nothing to dissuade it.
Nobody would convince him of how bizzare he looked; a black-suited figure with an icecream cone slowly disgorging its former contents over his fist from the precariously perched sphere of deliciousness it held. For the first time he could remember in months, Dee felt good. About the world, about himself. If he would forever be a non-entity for the sake of the planet, then this was what he did it for.
"Outta my way, asshole." A youth on a skateboard clamoured past Dee, shoving him in the chest and careening off through the park. Pigeons clumped around a tightly-shawled old woman scrambled out of his way.
In an instant, Dee's good mood had been completely shot to hell. Disgusted, he threw the icecream in the trash with a grunt. He wiped his hands on his trousers and looked at Kay.
He had never seen Kay eat icecream before; the young agent had, in fact, wondered if Kay ate at all. He was, after all, the single most feared human in the universe, and something of a mythos had built up around the cynical old man. Watching his tongue make long, calm swipes across the sweet sphere on its crispy cone, Dee wondered at the famous agent's private monologue.
Sensing eyes on him, Kay turned around, tongue plastered against his icecream in mid swipe. "Don't goggle at me like that, kid. You're scaring me, and that's really something."
"Sorry..." A tinge of red crept over Dee's smooth cheeks as he fought to compose himself, looking distractedly into the canopy of leafy green park trees. "So, why did we come out for icecream, Kay?"
Kay reached into his jacket and began to rummage. A sound not unfamilar to the melodic chiming of fine silverware could be heard from deep pockets as items of 'foreign' technology chittered and scraped against each other. He pulled out the paper, and pointed a finger to the entertainment section; the movie reviews.
"Men in Black," read Dee, a curious expression on his stocky features. "Agents Kay and Jay protect the earth from the scum of the universe in this comedy sci-fi flick. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones star."
Snatching at the paper, Kay thrust it back into his jacket. His lips were pursed together tightly. It was the most distressed anyone could ever see him. "Means we've got us a major security breach, so we're going to have to do something about this little cinematic phenomenon. Got your neuralyzer handy, kid?"
Dee nodded, patting the pocket where the memory eraser lay hidden. "Yeah... We're going to nuke some Hollywood braincells?"
With his teeth clenched irately, Kay stormed off in the direction of the LTD. "It never occurred to me that anyone on or off this planet could be stupid enough to cast Tommy Lee Jones as me. The guy belongs in a geriatric ward, not a black suit."
Strangely enough, Dee could feel the good mood well on its way to returning. Here he was, going to Hollywood with agent Kay to erase all proof of a film that should never have existed. He had infinite technology from around the universe. He had a black suit. He had black shades. This was going to be... Fun. "Hey, Kay! Road trip!"
Slamming the door of the black classic sedan shut, Kay shifted in his seat, poking his head out the window. "I haven't been out of Manhattan in a while. I'll take you to see if that place where they sell the nachos I like is still around."
"Nachos?"
"Nachos, kid. With three kinds of cheese."
"Cool." Dee clambered into the LTD and shut the door, pulling his safety belt on. Kay gunned the engines and they leapt off with a roar as the gasoline beast under the hood screamed defiance against its metal confines. The streets, the people he had seen, the very city itself turned into a blur as the tall young agent laid his head back against his seat. Things could only get better from here.
Kay looked over and saw that Daniel McKniff was in his LTD, grinning mischievously.
