"I'm here, I'm here." X called as he came hurrying in, dragging a cart loaded down with the supplies from the store, Frank trotting along at his heels. "What do I do now?" At least it wasn't as bad as he had expected. The Fmecks were all locked up, although X didn't want to know what the worms had done with Zed's fish, and somehow, they had the punch bowls ready, and by some miracle it looked like none of the agents were dead yet.
"Whoa. They really are sick." Frank said as he trotted past X, and started to poke around the piles of collapsed agents. "This looks like one of those horror movies or something. So, how did the five of you miss this?"
"We were out replacing the ice cream that you ate." X grumbled. He couldn't believe it, but they might honestly owe Frank one. If he hadn't munched down all of that ice cream, they would have been poisoned too, and then X didn't want to think of what might have happened. "Zara, what do I do?" His first instinct was to run and check on Elle, but he knew that he couldn't, not until he had something fixed to treat the agents. And he could hear her moaning. Even though the sound was unpleasant, he had to take it as a good sign. At least she wasn't dead.
"Put the tea and the orange juice in with the ice cream. Try to get the proportions as equal as you can." Zara told him. "Then you're going to have to get at least one of those punch cups down each of those poor things."
"I have to feed them? How do you expect me to do that?" X demanded as he started to dump the tea and orange juice together.
"You can manage it. I'm sure you can manage it." Zara said. She really hoped her cousin could manage getting those poor agents awake enough to swallow, anyway. Everyone was doing a good job so far, but she really, really didn't want to have to try to walk her cousin and the worms through how they would do something like this in the hospital, using tubing to force the mixture into the stomachs of unconscious or uncooperative patients. And she was sure that the poor agents wouldn't like it very much either.
"Hey, Kay is sick." Frank said as he finally spotted the senior agent and went trotting over, looking down at him in shock. He had always thought of Kay as invulnerable, but seeing him like this... "Hey, did whoever did this manage to get the wardrobe agents too? I'm going to need to get this suit cleaned for the..."
Before Frank could finish the sentence, the worms tackled him.
"No, nothing you're going to need that suit cleaned for."
"Absolutely nothing."
"Taking care of sick humans doesn't require a clean suit."
"Hey, X, have you got that stuff mixed up yet?" the fourth worm said as he drug Frank away from Kay, and more importantly, the communicator that Aileen was talking to him though, before he could bring up funerals. If she started crying again, they didn't want to think of how Kay would react.
"I think so." With the ice cream, the mixture was more than a bit thick and lumpy, and X really wasn't sure how in the world he was supposed to get it into the agents. He didn't see that he had any choice but to try, though. Zara?"
"It won't be as hard as it looks." Zara told him. "Most of them sound like they're moaning, right? They've got to be at least semi- conscious. If they are, it shouldn't be that hard to get that stuff down them. You need to start with poor Agent Kay first, though."
X hesitated for a second. He really wanted to look after Elle first. But he knew Zara was right. Kay was definitely the worst of the agents. How in the world did that happen? He filled one of the punch glasses, and hurried over to the crumpled agent. "Zara? Little problem here." He said after a moment.
"Little problem?" Aileen said as she looked up at Zara and then back down at the communicator. The twitching had increased, and Kay's skin was slowly taking on a grayish color. If he couldn't get that treatment fast...
"Here, let me see." Zara said as she leaned over the back of the chair that Aileen was in, and looked at the communicator. After a moment she let out a sigh of frustration. The poor human's jaw was clamped tightly shut. Just perfect. Why couldn't the sickest one of the lot be moaning, and at least semi-conscious like the rest? "X, do me a favor and scan him again for me, would you? I might need to try to tell you how to do something else to get that stuff down him. Don't worry. We'll get the stuff into him. No problem.." She tried to reassure Aileen. She really didn't like the way the poor man's heart rhythm looked on the scanner, though. The tubing was uncomfortable to say the least, and adding more pain on top of the pain he had to already be in wasn't going to be a good thing. Pain was a small price to pay if it saved the human's life, though.. "X, think you can give him a dose from the orange injector before I tell you what to do?"
"You are explaining this to Zed if something goes wrong." X grumbled as he picked up the injector. "What do I do with this, anyway?"
"Take off the seal and put it against his neck." one of the worms said as all four came trotting over. "The push the little button."
"It's a lot easier than operating an espresso machine."
"Wait. Let me try something." Aileen said a second later before Zara could tell X anything else to try. She really didn't like how uncertain the JeeDangian looked about the other ways to get the mixture into Kay. "Kay?" she called to him. He wasn't as unconscious as they thought he was, and he was obviously trying to fight the pain somehow. "Kay, we're trying to help you. Kay?" No, trying to talk him into relaxing would take too long. There had to be a faster way. "Kay?" She said as an idea hit her. If this didn't get him to drop that jaw, she didn't know what would. "I think I just saw Jay driving off in the LTD."
"Good, good. X, do it fast!" Zara ordered her cousin as the human's jaw dropped.
"You're lucky that didn't give him a heart attack." Edie chuckled as X poured the mix down Kay quickly. "I hope he doesn't remember that when he wakes up, or Jay's going to want to kill you."
"A heart attack would be easier to fix than this." Zara grumbled. "Can you scan him again? And you might want to try to get some more of that stuff down him too, while he's halfway cooperating."
"Okay. That's a little better." She said after a moment. A little better still wasn't good, but she would take anything she could get. "You need to do the same thing with the rest of the agents. Hopefully they'll be a little more cooperative." As she talked, she started taking notes on a pad. Who knows how much the MIB actually had on hand as far as drugs were concerned. She would have to call the hospital and see what they could spare to be on the safe side. Even with treatment, those poor humans were going to need a lot of help.
"Kay?" Aileen called his name again as X moved off with the worms to start on helping the others. Even with the treatment, he still looked awful and she had to bite her lip for a moment to hold back a sob. "Kay, I'm right here, and you're going to start feeling better soon, I promise. You just have to relax and let us take care of you. Kay? I made a mistake. It wasn't Jay that I saw in the LTD. The car's fine. Everything's fine, I promise. Just let us take care of you now. Kay? I'm right here. Everything's fine, I promise. Just let us help you. I love you. It's going to be okay."
"How fast can you get those peacekeepers, and get some sort of transport?" Zara asked Chief Zeredon.
"I've already got a call in to the academy, and my second in command is seeing what officers we can free up now. Give me a few hours, and we can be ready to go." he told her before motioning for Zara to follow him into the hallway. "What sort of chances do they have?" He didn't want to ask specifically about Kay, even if he thought they were out of Aileen's hearing. From what he had seen, he didn't see how that human had a chance at all.
"They get treatment, I think they've got a good chance, even that poor Agent Kay. They need people with more medical training there, though." Those poor things were going to be in severe pain for who knows how long even with treatment. The only thing that Zara could think of to do for them was to sedate them until the worst of the poison was out of their system, and for that, they needed someone with more training. "I'm going to call, and see about getting more supplies together. Let me know as soon as you know what transport you find so I can see about getting it moved."
"And I'm going to go home and pack a bag." Zara's mother called as she came out of the living room, followed by at least a dozen other relatives. "I might not have the training that you do, but at least I can fluff pillows or something."
"Thanks, Mom." Zara said. With those poor humans in the shape they were in, she was going to need all of the help that she could get.