"All of the agents were poisoned? How did this happen?" Agent S demanded as X faced the monitor screen in Zed's office several hours later, after he and the worms had somehow managed to get a hook-up arranged with some of the MIB's remaining agents, on-world and off. "What about Kay?"
"Kay, we're doing what we can about that." X grumbled. "And hopefully my cousin will be here soon with medical help. She seemed to know what this is. I'm sure that she'll be able to fix it once she shows up. Right now, I'm trying to figure out what assets the MIB has available. Agent D?" He turned towards the monitor connected to MIB Nashville and the fluffy-haired female agent in charge. They were the closest remaining agents, even though X thought they were only a step or two above MIB Hollywood.
"Right." Agent D replied. "I put my agents on alert as soon as you called and let us know what was going on. If you need us in New York, Agent X, we would be more than willing to do whatever you need. There are only the twelve of us here right now, though. We got a report of an unauthorized landing out by Branson from one of our clients. I have four agents there checking it out."
Twelve agents, sixteen if he wanted to pull the four in Missouri. Not good. "What about resident aliens?"
"We have around forty permanent residents in the city right now, and another ten or so that are out on tour." She said as she consulted the papers in front of her. "There are maybe fifty or so tourists, as well. A tour group just came in yesterday, and set up out at the Opry. I've got Agents G and T on their way there now to secure the building, and Miss M is getting as many of the residents as possible moved out there. We're a peaceful little town. We've never had a lick of trouble, not like you get up there, but we thought it was best to be prepared. Agent V's doing the same out in Branson. We've got another fifteen or twenty aliens out there. The only problem I see is Graceland. We had a bus leave not more than a couple of hours ago heading for there. The Colonel's going to try to catch up with them, and get them off the road and somewhere secure, but who knows how long that's going to take."
"So, basically you have your hands full?"
"They're pretty full, but if you need us, we'll do whatever we can to help. They don't call this the volunteer state for nothing, Agent X." Agent D said. "The group we have here are good people. We help them out, guide them the right way, maybe make sure that the younger kids don't get taken advantage of. They don't need a whole lot, as far as policing goes. An emergency like this, they're going to do whatever they can to help make things easy for us."
"Easy or not, there's still close to a hundred or more aliens that you're in charge of." X said. "For now, hold your positions, and keep the residents and tourists in place. Please tell me that there aren't any tourists that might be wanting to catch a flight home soon?"
"No, sir. We got real lucky there. Like I said, this group just checked in yesterday, and I think that the group headed for Graceland isn't scheduled to leave for at least another week. Isn't there something that we could do to help? I hate to think of everyone sick like that up there and us not at least doing something for them."
"I don't suppose there's a change that someone there has medical training, is there?" X asked. The agents, and especially Kay, seemed stable so far, but still, they had a long time to go before Zara would get there, and having someone with proper training would be more than a bit of a comfort.
"The Colonel's the best about patching up minor things, but we don't get a lot of call for doctoring around here. Anything major, we've always sent to the main headquarters. I could have Miss M check out the records when she gets to the Opry. Maybe one of the tourists has some training, but I don't remember seeing any doctors on the lists when they checked in here."
"You know, if you're having a problem, we would be happy to take Agent Kay off your hands, Agent X." Agent E, head of the Hollywood agents, offered.
"I don't suppose that you have someone out there with medical training by some chance, then? X demanded. "
"No, but I'm sure we could figure out something."
"Thank you, then. I'm already figuring out something, thank you very much, and at least I had advice from my cousin to help me figure things out. I'll be sure to share your generous offer to take her boyfriend off of our hands when Agent Kay's actual girlfriend gets here. I'm sure she'll want to have words with you about that little offer." X grumbled.
"Aileen's coming?" E asked with a disappointed look.
"With my cousin. They should be here soon. What about the situation out there? Any sign of trouble yet? It's a disaster here." "Nothing yet, but I've got agents out, pulling our clients in now. Annette and SpaceDemon are opening up their beach house. We're going to stash as many as we can there for the duration." E told him. "We were lucky. The last batch of tourists left here two days ago, so we've just got the locals right now, and half of them are on location. Should we start calling those in?"
"Leave them where they are for now. We don't want innocent aliens out on the road if we can avoid it." X said. "What about the rest of you?"
"I have my group on lock-down right now." The tall black man that was in charge of Hawaii replied. "I'm not sure how long we can count on that blue furball obeying the lockdown order, but I gave it. Hawaii's as secure as it ever is for the moment. Should I arrange transport back to headquarters? The aliens here seem to manage pretty well on their own, without my having to stand right over them. If I explain the situation to Nani, I'm sure they can handle things for a few days."
"Or we would be happy to seen someone over." the head of the Japanese branch of the MIB said. "Now, how bad did you say Agent Kay was?"
"Not you." X snapped as he glared at her. "Every agent with functional ears is still holding the karoke machine you sent over against you."
"Really, are they being that petty? How was I to know that Agent U had that bad of a voice?" Sonomi demanded
"We might have bought that, if you hadn't sent the bottle of sake along with the karoke machine. Just stay where you are, and deal with your monsters and your robots on the loose or something." X grumbled.
"What about me?" Agent C demanded. "What am I supposed to do? Who's going to look after all of these tourists down here? What if something happens?"
"Well, what do you think that Zed hired you for?" X demanded. He wasn't going to mention that he had always suspected that another bottle of sake shipped over from Japan was the explanation for why Zed had hired people like C and U. "You're in charge of those alien tourists until we can get help here."
"Me?" C stuttered. He could handle things normally, but only because he knew he could call for help at any time. "You can't leave me in charge! I wouldn't leave me in charge!"
"There's no one else down there, now is there? That kind of leaves the undersea tourists to you, doesn't it?" X said.
"But I can't protect them! What if someone like Quintoon comes along again? You said a bunch of criminals were on the loose! I just bet he's one of them!" C started to shake harder at the thought.
"But you have to protect them." one of the worms said. "You're the only one who can."
"And I'll bet Zed would be really impressed if you did a good job." Another worm added.
"Yeah, he might even give you a promotion, and let you come back to the city!" the first worm continued.
"But how do I protect them?" C asked. The idea of getting back to the city sure sounded good, and it wasn't like he didn't want to protect the tourists. He just didn't have a clue as to how. Basically, except for the incident with Quintoon, his job had been to check tourists in and out. He was pretty much a desk clerk in a submarine.
"What about the trench? Doesn't the MIB have a place there for emergencies?" the second worm asked.
"Yeah. I remember that. Zed was complaining about having to stock it." the first worm said.
"The trench." C hit a button to pull up a map of the area. "You think I ought to take them there? These people are on their vacations. They aren't going to be happy."
"Well, they aren't going to be happy if they end up attacked by some undersea criminal either, now are they? Tell them it's part of some tour the MIB is offering. I don't care what you tell them. Just get them somewhere out of the way, and stay there until we can get more help onto the planet. Does anyone else have any issues?" "
"X, got a problem!" Frank called as he came hurrying in.
"Yeah. Big problem!" a third worm said as he came in after the dog.
"Just perfect. Everyone, just say where you are for the moment." X ordered. "Keep things under control, and I'll alert you as soon as we have more help here. What's wrong now?" he demanded as he cut the communications off, and turned to deal with Frank and the worms. How could things get worse?