A/N: It's official. McGee's muse has gone off at a tangent. Seriously. It now wants to write an arc - using the last installment as a springboard. We're going to assume that he has the flu and has been overdosing on cough syrup. Once it's over it will be back to oneshots. There's just no way all of the plot bunny can be developed in a oneshot. So the next three or four chapters will have the same title but be designated i, ii, iii, and iv.

Thanks for your patience. Please bear in mind that this is going to be total crack!fic.

Rating will start off as K+ and pretty much end up as M by the end of the arc.

Tommy Di Amo was feeling decidedly surly. The theater was packed to capacity and everyone was looking decidedly competitive.

"Someone should have told me it was an interagency talent show."

"I take it you didn't see the memo," came the Director's voice across the seats.

"What would you have done?" McGregor asked. "A striptease?"

"I'm a man of many talents," Tommy replied belligerently.

"That is a matter of opinion," Lisa said – her eyes running over him. "Honestly, what would you have shown them? Your sword?"

"His attitude," Tibbs contributed from his seat beside the Director.

"Lisa," a voice hissed. "Come on ..."

"Excuse me .." she said as she patted Tommy's cheek and slipped past him.

"Where are you going? The show's about to start."

"You didn't think we'd let Pimmy go out there on his own, did you?" Amy said as she followed suit and joined Lisa and Li Michelin in the aisle.

"But Lisa can't sing to save her life" Tommy confided in the others as the girls hurried backstage.

"I am not putting them up there because of their vocal capabilities," the Director said with a knowing smile. "It's an all-male panel. I'm well acquainted with all of them, and lets just say their taste runs to eye candy."

"Is that why the BSIS budget has increa – oww. Shutting up now, Boss."

"Now, Di Amo?"

"What are our odds of winning, Director?" Ronald Gosling asked.

"Good. Very good. I've arranged for them to go on last."

"Very wise."

"I thought so," she acknowledged as the lights dimmed.

She allowed herself a small smile as she looked at the men surrounding her. They had no idea what was coming their way. She was only sorry she couldn't be up there with them herself.

Tommy let out a guffaw and then tried to stifle it as an ICE agent ended his Napoleon Dynamite dance routine; and barely refrained from cheering along with everyone else.

"Ours is better than that, right? Director?" he said, when she looked pointedly at him.

"Our committee proposed that, among other things. I vetoed it."

"So ours is better .."

"Di Amo," Tibbs said wearily. He wasn't sure how much more of this he could handle. "How much longer?" he asked Goose.

The Medical Examiner peered at the program.

"The FBI are up next," he said.

"Has anyone seen Agent Floorwell?" McGregor asked, looking round.

"He's probably too embarassed to show his face," Tommy said as seven members of the sister agency ran onto the stage wearing white trainers with blue duct tape stripes on them and practically got booed off the stage.

"Dear God," Gosling said – more to himself than anyone else. "Aren't they a bit old to be prancing about pretending to be the Brady Bunch?"

"Ours is better, right?" Tommy whispered again as it drew to a close.

"Yes," the Director whispered back. Only to follow his frozen stare as the curtain opened on the next group.

Five people sat around a large table. Four men and a woman; and there was no doubt who the woman was meant to be.

"I think we're done here," one of the men said.

"The hell we are! BSIS is conducting an investigation into a murder. This is our jurisdiction no matter which way you look at it. And I can assure you, I will bring down the full weight of my service if ..."

A look of unadulterated lust passed over the men's faces.

"Don't make me smack that smile off your face, Fred."

"Oh you can smack me anywhere you like."

The audience laughed, and Tibbs looked over at his Director to find her watching with lips compressed in a hard line.

"Are you or are you not observing the railway station, Martin?" she said as she turned to an agency director who had CIA pinned to his suit. "And stop looking at my chest," she hissed.

"We may be observing the railway station" he said with a leer.

"That's a little vague."

"I can't tell you any more. You know that."

"Well, I hope we don't get in each other's way."

"Of course if your people find anything ..." another man said.

"You'll be the last to know" she said as she swept papers from the table and prepared to leave.

"That only works if you're at the top of the food chain, Gwen," one of the other directors called patronisingly after her.

She stopped in her tracks - and when she turned round her face was deadly serious.

"Don't underestimate me, Paul."

Hearing the threat in her tone he sat bolt upright.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," she said as her gaze swept the table, "that I am going to instruct my agents to investigate any and all aspects of your private lives. NOTHING will be off limits!"

"Go BSIS!" someone in the audience shouted as the curtain dropped.

"You guys should be on Saturday Night Live" someone else called.

"Lets hear it for Army CID" the Master of Ceremonies said as the theater erupted in catcalls, hoots, and snickers.

Tibbs watched the Director lean forward in her seat and tap the shoulder of the man in front of her.

"Nice one Fred," she said. Her tone cool and dangerous.

"I had no idea they were doing that," he said. "I swear."

"Likely story," she muttered as she settled back into her seat.

"That how things usually go?" Tibbs leaned over and whispered.

"Why don't you ask me how much damage control I have to do at those meetings because of you?" she snapped back.

It didn't take much to figure out that there was more truth to the skit than she cared to admit.

"So .. ours is better, right?"

"Ask me that one more time, Di Amo, and I'll have you keelhauled."

"Whoa," McGregor said as people across the theater started to jump out of their seats.

"Show offs," Tommy spat as the agents in question joined forces on the stage for the penultimate act. Wearing dark suits and sunglasses, and brandishing all sorts of gadgets.

"At least they're poking fun at themselves," Goose pointed out as the theme from Austin Powers started to play. "Rather unusual for the CIA, you have to admit."

"Jokers!" Tommy was saying, just as he heard the medical examiner add, "oh Lord, who let him in?"

The music morphed seamlessly into the James Bond theme as Brent Fort stalked onto the stage. Two female agents wrapped themselves around him as the rest of the agents twirled around them in tight choreographed movements. A cell phone rang, and Fort held out his hand. The female on his right pulled it out of her cleavage and placed it in his hand.

"No" he said as the music dipped. "It's need to know, and he doesn't. He's an accountant. A bean counter. More interested in his numbers than my instincts."

"Is that so?"

The theater fell apart with laughter as the Director of the CIA stepped onto the stage.

"Son of a bitch," the Director swore under her breath.

"Which one?" Tibbs asked in confusion, pinning her hand to the armrest as she tried to rise from her seat. Sensing she was about to do something rash.

"It is specifically against the rules for Directors to be involved in any way," she said – anger radiating off her in waves.

"So what are you going to do? Go up there and make a scene?"

"More like upstage him," she said. So softly he almost didn't catch the words.

But as she spoke she brushed the collar of her coat – and suddenly he realised that she was wearing a coat identical to the one the other three women in their party were wearing. His eyes flickered downwards, but before he could query her about it the theater erupted in laughter again. He turned his head back to the stage in time to hear the Director of the CIA say, "utter one more syllable and I'll have you killed."

There was no denying the CIA had outdone everyone so far. Fort's rough gruff sex appeal seemed to have most of the women in the audience squirming in their seats, and the males in the audience were beside themselves in a mixture of pride and mirth. Despite himself, Tibbs smiled.

But the smile didn't last.

"Jareth .."

"Yeah?" he answered without pulling his eyes from the stockinged legs of the CIA agent to the left of Brent Fort.

"I think we have a problem."

He turned reluctantly to Gosling, and then followed his gaze over to the Director. Or rather, to where the Director should have been. He wasn't sure what it said about him that he hadn't sense her slip away, but one look at her retreating form told him that he needed to follow her.

Pronto.

A/N2: Yep .. am aware that the theme song from Austin Powers is really called Soul bossa Nova by Quincy Jones and that it was not written for the movie, but rather appeared in the early sixties. But I suspect more people know it as the Austin Powers theme. Although I could be wrong.

A/N3: I couldn't resist the whole Bond / M thing – sorry. Borrowed rather blatantly from (if I remember correctly) GoldenEye and Casino Royale.