"Well, how long is finding a detour going to take?" Zara asked.
"I don't know. I just hope that was the only bank that Drek knocked over. Zed isn't going to be happy, especially with all of these people running around without being neuralyzed. We'll probably have to zap the city into forgetting a week when the agents finally get back on their feet." X grumbled as he finished tossing the groceries in and got behind the wheel. Really, Zed would probably argue that he should neuralyze the humans before leaving, but X just didn't see how he had the time. Zed might be willing to sacrifice fingers, but he was sure that Elle wasn't, not to mention, he wasn't willing to sacrifice his ears to the explosion should his partner wake up to find a few fingers missing. Wait, Zara had said something about how the agents would be lucky if they just lost fingers. Ears counted as extremities, he was sure. What if the humans lost those? He didn't want to think of how Elle would take that, and he was sure that she would blame him. "Zara!"
"Just get there as fast as you can. I've got to go. Looks like a worm might be getting a clue that Agent Kay's jacket shouldn't be beeping like that. Call me back as soon as you've found that detour, okay?" Zara told X before he could start yelling about the loss of extremities that she had warned him about earlier. Somehow, she didn't think that poor little Aileen needed to hear something like that now. With the way that she was looking at Agent Kay while awaiting the worms catching on about the comm, Zara had a feeling she was more than a little attached to that human's extremities.
"Hello?" One of the worms called after rummaging around in Kay's jacket and retrieving his communicator. "I'm afraid that Agent Kay can't talk right now. He's taking a sick day. Can I take a message?"
"Worm?" Aileen said. She could never recall the worms' names, and even if she could, with those four, it was almost impossible to tell them apart.
"Aileen? What are you doing calling?" the worm asked.
"Listen to me very carefully, and try to stay calm, all right? There are Fmecks in the building. You have to protect...."
"Fmecks?" The worm shouted as he dropped the communicator with a bang that made Aileen wince. He looked at his buddies as panic washed over him, "Run!"
"I can't believe those four." Edie grumbled as the worms all darted out of sight. Sure, they were small, but how could they just abandon their sick friends to the fate they would suffer if the Fmecks got them?
"It's not their fault. They're not agents. They're not trained to fight. Wanting them to stand up against the Fmecks was more than we should have expected." Aileen whispered as she looked down at the communicator. When the worm had dropped it, it had landed by Kay, and she could at least see his face, he was deathly pale, with sweat dotting his forehead as he twitched slightly. She somehow got to her feet, biting her lip to hold in a sob. "I'll be back." she murmured as she stumbled into the kitchen. Tears started to roll down her cheeks as soon as she was out of view, but somehow she held back the sobs. If Kay was in any condition to hear right now, he didn't need to hear her giving in to hysterics.
"Kay?" She called his name as she dropped into the kitchen chair and placed the comm carefully on the table, burying her face in her hands for a moment to muffle a sob she couldn't keep in before turning back to the communicator and starting to talk. With the worms gone she didn't see anything else she could do, and maybe somehow he would be able to hear her.
"Kay? It's Aileen." she whispered. "I'm here." He was moaning. She could hear that now, and the tears came harder at that sound. When she found whoever had done this, she didn't know what she would do, but she knew it wouldn't be pleasant. She couldn't think of that now, though. Vengence could come later. "Kay? I'm here, and I'm not going to leave, even if I can't be there in person. I'm right here. I love you." Please, if he couldn't hear anything else, let him hear her tell him that. Why had they wasted so much time, not actually coming out and admitting their feelings, letting work come in between what they could have had together? "I love you, and you don't know how sorry I am that it took so long for me to tell you that. I love you, and I hope that if you don't hear anything else, that you hear that."
"Aileen?" one of the worms poked his head out from behind a desk that all four were clustered under for safety, listening for a moment before ducking back. "She's crying."
"Crying? Aileen doesn't cry." a second worm said as he looked at his buddies. Aileen was like Kay that way. She was crying, though, even though they could tell she was trying to hold sobs back. The four worms looked at each other as something they had never felt before, even after raiding Zed's personal stash hit them, guilt. They had made Aileen cry. Because they had ran away in terror, she thought she was going to loose Kay.
"We can't do it."
"But what can we do about the Fmecks? We're cowards."
"Devout cowards."
"Biggest ones around."
"Pull yourselves together, wormies." the first worm said as he looked over the edge of the desk again, and his antennae twitched at the sound of Aileen talking to Kay and the sobs that they could hear her trying to hold back. "Can we really abandon them? Can we abandon a lady in distress?"
"Jay is awfully good to us."
"Zed too, even if he won't share his good coffee."
"And Kay."
"And Elle."
"Even U isn't that bad."
"But how do we stop the Fmecks?" Even though the worms were bigger, the Fmecks were armed and Zed had made doubly sure that the worms couldn't get into the weapons lockers after an incident with an icer, and an attempt to make a chilled mocha latte.
"Wait, I think I've got an idea." a second worm said after another glance out, and then a glance in the direction of Zed's office. "Come on. I've got a plan." He told the others as they all put their antennae together to talk.
"Aileen?" Edie called her partner's name as she popped into the kitchen a few minutes later, stopping short for a moment when she saw the tears running down her cheeks. "Hey, you aren't going to believe this, but the worms are back, and they're armed. Well, sort of armed. Come on." She said as she came over to her, taking a moment to collect a wet towel for Aileen's tear-soaked cheeks and eyes.
"They came back?" Aileen whispered as she stared at Edie in shock. Was there a chance that she wasn't going to lose Kay after all?
"It surprised me, but they're there. Well, three of them, anyway. I'm not sure where the fourth one went to." Edie said as she helped her partner up and led her back into the living room. "I have no idea what they're up to, though."
Three of the worms were on the screen, coffee pots on their hands like helmets, one worm clutching Zed's fishing net, another armed with his fishing rod, and the third toting a spatula from the kitchenette.
"What in the world are they doing?" Aileen murmured as she sat down again, holding the comm close, wishing that it was Kay she was holding.. And more importantly, where was the fourth worm?