"Elle?" X looked frantically around the room for his partner before he spotted her, a crumpled blonde heap on the floor, wedged in between a paper pusher, and a table.
"Elle?" He hurried over to the little human's side, and started to pull her free, shaking his head as he spotted what was sitting on the table, the cake that she had obviously been eating, and then another large slice that he guessed she had saved for him. "Thanks for the thought, but I think I'll pass." At least she was moaning, though, as he moved her. Surely that was a good sign.
"Elle? Come on, Little Ears, time to wake up." As he shook the little human a bit, trying to wake her, he looked around the room. His first thought was to get Elle down to the lab for help, but he wasn't sure what good that would do. He could see Zealtor crumpled in a corner, moaning and twitching slightly.
"The four of you drop the coffee and get moving. There has to be someone in here that isn't sick! Surely Elle missed a paper pusher somewhere when she was alerting everyone about this." X called to the worms before turning his focus back to his partner. "Elle? Come on, open those beedy little eyes now. Elle?"
This wasn't good. The little human was deathly pale, shaking slightly and as X tried to move her to make her a bit more comfortable, he could feel that she was already ice cold. "Elle?"
Before X could do anything else, or could give in to his first reaction to start screaming, which still seemed to be a pretty good one, since he was stuck with who knows how many sick humans, he heard a beep.
"There you are." His mother Zoe said as soon as he pulled his communicator out and turned it on. "Come and wish your aunt a happy birthday. We're having to have the party early, because that hospital where your cousin works is making her pull a triple shift again."
"Mom, don't mention birthdays." X moaned as he looked at the communicator and then around the room again. There was Zed, crumpled up by Kay and Jay. Maybe they ought to just give him the day off and skip the party next year? That is, if the food poisoning that was his gift this year didn't finish off the human.
"Son, what's going on there? What's that noise that I'm hearing in the background?"
"You probably don't want to know." X said as he looked over just in time to see U being violently sick before collapsing in a twitching heap again. What in the world did the cafeteria agents do to poison everyone like this? "Mom, I really can't talk right now. Everyone's sick."
"What? What do you mean everyone's sick?"
"I mean just what I said. They're all sick. Every agent in the building, unless those worms manage to find someone Elle forgot to invite to Zed's birthday party. They're all on the floor, twitching and throwing up!" X said as he waved the communicator around so that his mother could see what he was facing. "The cake must have been bad!"
"Oh, my goodness! Stay right there! I'll get your cousin." Zoe said as she put the communicator down and hurried off through the crowd of Jeedangians filling her living room in search of her niece. "Zara, get in here! Your cousin needs help!"
X sighed as she waited for his mother to come back. She might be right, though. Maybe Zara could help. She dealt with disasters all the time. Surely one of those disasters had been a mass outbreak of food poisoning. How in the world did this happen? Everyone was passed out, even the twins, drapped over their monitor console. And what was he supposed to do if a transport full of tourists wanted to land?
"X, what's going on?" his younger cousin Zara said as she appeared on the communicator. "Aunt Zoe said that all of your little human friends are sick?"
"They've got food poisoning, the lot of them. Take a look for yourself." X said as he held the communicator so that Zara could see at least Elle. "You like disasters, right? Surely you have some idea what to do about something like this. They're all just lying there, twitching and throwing up!"
"I don't like disasters. I just happen to be good at handling disasters. How in the world did it happen?"
"The cafeteria agents must have done something wrong with Zed's birthday cake. I said we should give him a tie or the day off, but Elle just had to go with the party that Agent Jay suggested, and now look at what happened. Tell me that you found someone else." X called as the worms came hurrying back in.
"Not a soul."
"What are we going to do?"
"Make coffee?"
"No coffee! Get over here and help me!" Although X wasn't sure just yet what help he actually could expect from the worms. "Zara, do something! I'm the only one here on my feet except for four worms! What do I do?"
"There isn't anyone there with medical training?" Zara knew her cousin ought to know a bit about first aid from his time with their planet's peacekeepers, and then with the MIB, but she was sure that didn't cover mass food poisoning.
"One of our doctors is sick, and even when he's well, half of the time everyone thinks he's insane, and as for the other one, just take a look." X said as he waved the device at Elle again. "Zara, please, what do I do? They're all like that."
"First off, calm down." Zara told him. "If it's food poisoning, given some time, it ought to run its course. Why aren't you sick too?"
"I was on an ice cream run, and then dragging the worms out of the coffee aisle. Run it's course? How long do I have to wait for that to happen?"
"Wait, this happened while you were at the store? How long were you gone?"
"A couple of hours. Have you ever tried shopping with worms, and I couldn't just lock them in the car. They snatched a bunch of human suits that made them look like kids. I would have got pulled in for child abuse or something."
"Okay. Do you have any clue when they started eating the cake? Are you sure it was the cake?"
"There isn't anything else that it could be." X said as he looked around the room. He doubted that the bowls of chips, crackers and nuts were leading causes of food poisoning. I guess that Elle could have held them off for a bit, waiting for me to get back, but the party was supposed to start an hour ago."
"Okay, X, we have a little problem then. If they're that sick after less than an hour, that's not food poisoning that you're dealing with. You're looking at a real poison. Someone just tried to kill all of those poor humans, and if they don't get help fast, whoever did it might end up suceeding."