"What? You mean someone deliberately poisoned them?" X looked at his cousin, eyes wide with shock. Food poisoning was bad enough, even if it meant he would have a batch of sick agents on his hands for who knows how long, but if someone deliberately tried to poison them, no only did he have sick agents that were now in danger of death, but he had someone out there who was willing to kill hundreds of people, and who might drop in at any moment, thinking the MIB was out of the way. "Some of the agents down in the cafeteria have never seemed to stable to me. I'm sure that they could come up with who knows how many ways to ruin food and make everyone sick. This HAS to be food poisoning!"
"Food poisoning doesn't hit that fast, and aren't there aliens that work for the MIB? Can you wave that around and let me see everyone?"
X held the communicator up and slowly scanned his room for his cousin.
"I'm sorry, but that's not food poisoning. Those big aliens by the monitors? Something that would make that many humans sick wouldn't even bother them. Someone had to have put a toxin into the food."
"Well, what in the world am I supposed to do about it?" X demanded. "Our medical staff's sick! Everyone is sick! I have four worms here for assistance! Do you know how much assistance you can get from worms?"
"Calm down. Calm down." Zara said, although she wasn't feeling the calmest herself, especially since more relatives were wandering over, drawn by her cousin's panicked voice on the communicator. "Show me that little human again. Maybe I can walk you though something. Are you sure hat all of them are still alive?"
"You mean some of them might be dead?"X shouted. "Worms, get over here!" What in the world was he going to do if agents were dead? At least his partner wasn't dead, though. That was one thing. He could hear her moaning. "Take half of the room." he ordered the worms, make sure that they're all still alive."
"How are we supposed to do that?"
Just perfect. He didn't have time to give medical advice to the worms. "Shake them or something. If they moan, it counts as alive." X said as he hurried over to the crumpled trio of Jay, Kay and Zed. At least he was pretty sure that they weren't dead, Kay and Zed were both twitching, and Jay was letting out an occasional moan. "What do I do if they're all alive? I can't get them all to the lab."
"Just keep them where they are for the moment, and try to keep them still." Zara said as she watched X, moving from agent to agent. Oh, this wasn't good. The way those poor humans looked, this couldn't be food poisoning. They were too sick, way too fast. "Do you think you can get them on their sides, in case they start throwing up again?"
"Their sides. Worms!" X shouted for them again."
"What? No one dead over here."
"Lots and lots of moaning though."
"And throwing up. You should see Agent U."
"I would prefer not to." X said. "My cousin says that they need to be on their sides, though. Surely the four of you can manage to move a human that much if you all work together."
"Sure we could. At least I think we could?"
"But why?
"Never mind the whys. Just do what my cousin says. She knows more about this than any of us do. Elle?" X said as he hurried over to his partner again and dropped to the ground beside her, reaching out and carefully moving the shaking human onto her side. "Come on, Little Ears. Open your eyes. Don't you want to yell at me for something? I was late getting back with the ice cream. And I let the worms mess up your nice, neat list. Elle? Zara, do something! She ought to be taking my ears off right about now. You should have seen how obsessed she's been with her little list for the last few days!"
"Okay, just hold the comm closer so I can get a look, okay? Are they all like that?"
"More or less. Zara, please, you've got to tell me what to do." X begged. It seemed like the agents were getting worse right in front of him. He reached out, rubbing his partner's ice cold hands, not even thinking that his entire family could probably see. "Zara, she's freezing!"
"That's not good." Zara said as she frantically thought of what she could tell her cousin. Whatever those poor agents had been dosed with, it had to be compromising their circulation. Can you get into the lab? Maybe if you can get down there, I can show you how to figure out what the poison is, anyway. If we can do that, I can always call poison control and beg them for advice as to how to treat it if I have to."
"The lab? Should I take a human with me?" X asked. He could manage to move Elle, anyway, and he wasn't sure that he should leave his partner to the worms' care while he went looking for whatever was needed to make an antidote.
"Probably better to keep them still for now. Depending on what the poison is, moving them could make it circulate faster. I just hope the equipment's portable." Zara told him. Go on. I'll wait. Aunt Zoe." she called for her aunt as her cousin issued firm orders to the worms to look after the humans and not to let anything happen to anyone, especially his partner, under threats of loosing coffee priviledges for life. "Can you get me my bag, please?" Hopefully the handheld device that she carried for emergencies would have some information that could help, that is, if she could show her cousin how to identify the poison.
"Right here. What's wrong with all of those poor humans?" Zoe said as she came over. "Are they going to be all right?"
"Maybe, at least if I can show X what to do to identify the poison anyway." Zara sighed. Who knows how long it could take to come up with an antidote, though? And with how sick the human were, and how fast the poison had hit them, she knew that at least a few were likely to die before they could get help.
"Okay, I'm here. What do I do?" X said as he came into the lab. He had ran practically the whole way, the image of his partner shaking and cold burned into his mind the whole time. "Zara, please tell me that you know how to fix this."
"Show me the equipment first, okay?" Zara told her cousin and then frowned as X waved the communicator at the machinery. She could see the things that would be needed to figure out what poison had hit the agents, and she could tell her cousin what to do, but the equipment had been modified. "X, there's a little problem. Whoever's in charge of the lab must have modified the equipment. I couldn't even begin to tell you how to turn it on."
"Zealtor." X groaned. It was just like that alien loon, to cause trouble even when he was collapsed in a poisoned heap. It would serve him right if the poison killed him for this. Now whaat were they going to do?