VII

A Place in the Halls of Wax

"Damn, damn, damn," Zed swore under his breath as he marched down the halls of the MiB the next morning, looking everywhere for Agent Kay. He had thought of and checked in every practical place in the MiB, like the lab, the cafeteria, even in Burger King: Kay did love his Cinni Minis. However, sensible places having been exhausted, Zed was now frantically searching in places he knew Kay would never be, like the ladies bathroom, or the refrigerator in the break room. As he threw open the doors to the shower room, and after nearly being trampled by a half dozen naked, screaming agents, Agent Jay caught sight of him and hurried over.

"Zed?!"

"Jay! There you are! I –" He sighed at being drowned out by the screeching coming from the few agents left in the shower room. He turned to them impatiently. "You know, we're all naked underneath our clothes!" he said poetically.

Shielding his eyes, Jay quickly shut the doors. "That's definitely going on my top ten "Least Wanted to See" list," he muttered.

"Jay, where's Kay? I've looked everywhere!"

"Kay? Didn't he report in this morning?"

"No, and I've got another riddle from the Dlrow. Have you seen him?"

"No."

"Any idea where he'd be?"

Jay rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I have a real good feeling as to where he is…"

______________________

"More Srennars eggs?"

Elizabeth looked warily at the wobbling mass of pink at the end of the spatula Kay was holding out to her. "I…think I'll stick with toast this morning, thanks," she said, biting into a piece of toast as quickly as she could.

Kay shrugged and loaded a pile onto his plate. "They're an acquired taste, I guess."

Elizabeth chewed thoughtfully. "Don't you have to be at work?"

Kay shook his head. "Nope. There's really nothing to do until the Dlrow make the first move."

Elizabeth smiled. "You know, this is kind of nice. I haven't eaten breakfast with someone in a long time."

"Neither have I," Kay said, smiling back. "How's the nursery doing?"

"Really good," she answered, buttering another piece of toast. "We just built a new greenhouse. We're the biggest nursery in the county now." It struck her as odd to be having a normal conversation over breakfast with her estranged husband while within the bowels of a gigantic, secret organization being pursued by aliens, but she supposed stranger things, at one time or another, had happened. There was a sudden knock at the door.

"Come in!" Kay called. Zed and Jay entered the room, both with questioning looks on their faces. Kay wiped his mouth. "Hi fellas. What's new?"

"Apparently a lot," Zed said, arching an eyebrow at him. "But there's no time for that now. The Dlrow have sent another riddle. I think they want to talk with you somewhere, and this riddle may lead you there."

Kay sprang into action. "Thanks for the breakfast, Liz."

"Be careful, Kevin."

"I will."

All three strode briskly down the hall. "Be careful, Kevin!" Jay imitated in a high voice, clasping his hands together and batting his eyes. Kay shot him a look.

"Kay, we'll talk about this later, and believe me, I do want to speak to you about it," Zed said in a stern voice, shooting Kay a look of his own. Kay grimaced. "But there's more important things happening right now." Jay shut the door behind all of them as they entered Zed's office. Sure enough, another riddle was shining brightly on the monitor.

"'We look exactly like you to the max, but when you find us we'll be covered in wax,'" Jay read off the screen. "What does that mean?"

"It means they need to take an English class," Kay muttered.

"Wait a minute." Jay read over the riddle again. He snapped his fingers. "'We look exactly like you to the max, but when you find us we'll be covered in wax.'  Madam Tussaud's. The wax museum downtown."

"Wonder why they would want to talk to us in a wax museum."

"I don't know, but they just unveiled a wax statue of The Rock!" Jay said excitedly, grinning from ear to ear. He caught Zed and Kay looking at him strangely. He cleared his throat. "Come on. Aliens wait for no man."

________________

"This is odd," Kay noted as walked into the main gallery of Madam Tussaud's. "There's no one here."

"That shouldn't be such a surprise," Jay said, examining a very eerie looking Robin Williams. "Who in their right mind would pay twenty five dollars to see a life size statue of Susan Sarandon?"

"Good point."

A sudden thought struck Jay. "Kay!" he whispered fiercely. "What if one these statues is the alien?"

Kay nodded. "Good thought," he whispered. "No use in taking chances - search and destroy, kid."

With a war cry, the duo began to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting statues. Dean Martin was decapitated by a shoe to the head, while poor Marilyn Monroe went a little bit more painfully as Jay ripped through her. Elvis never stood a chance as Kay fired a gun at him, and Bruce Lee finally met his match in Jay's noisy cricket. As Kay rounded the corner to continue the siege, he stopped cold at the sight in front of him. "Jay? You might want to come take a look at this."

Jay followed the sound of his partner's voice and also came to an abrupt halt. There, standing in front of them, were exact replicas of Jay and Kay. A second later, the statues morphed into two members of the Dlrow. They looked exactly as Kay had remembered them – slimy, smelly, and stupid. A deep rumbling from within the creatures worried Jay.

"What is that?" Jay whispered. "What's that noise?"

"They're laughing," Kay answered.

"Let me guess. A laughing Dlrow isn't a good thing."

"Nope."

Suddenly, the two Dlrow disappeared into thin air. Wasting no time, Kay marched out of the museum, Jay in tow. "Where we going?" he panted. "What just happened?"

"They're shape shifters, kid. They can morph into anyone they want and be completely convincing." He sighed. "I just hope we get to Elizabeth before they do."