A Thread Unravels....
MiB Headquarters,
Post-Black Oil Infestation Recovery Operation: Day Twelve,
Main Hall
Agent K was barely out the Front Door of Milliways when his phone began ringing. It was a priority ring pattern too. At least it wasn't Priority Alpha--K had heard enough of those to last him a while. But something was up.
The Door took him to Sublevel C again. It used to connect to the MiB locker room, but ever since Zed had retasked it during the Black Oil crisis, the Door had been bringing him here instead. Didn’t matter much. He was only a jury-rigged stairway from the Main Hall.
Hell, he could just lift himself up through the big damn hole in the ceiling. There were still scorch marks on the floor underneath it, left behind by the jumpjets on Duo’s Stiletto when he and Shulkie touched down, just before they joined the showdown with Marvin, the giant Unipod worm. The Headquarters reconstruction might have been ahead of schedule, but the place remained a complete mess.
K went up the stairs to the Main Hall and found Zed, standing right by that gaping hole. Zed nodded. “K.”
“Chief,” K nodded back. Agents B and R were standing nearby. Neither was saying a word, but they didn’t look happy.
Zed was pointing to something on the floor. "Take a look at these. Cleaning crew just uncovered them a few minutes ago.”
K hunkered down for a closer look. Just before his visit to Milliways, he had noticed the cleaning crew had reached the Main Hall and were starting to clear away the debris that still filled the enormous room. Now he could see they'd uncovered two sets of shoeprints, flash-burned into the floor. The pair of prints nearest the hole were noticeably smaller than the enormous pair that faced them several feet away.
“Looks like we had some kind of a standoff during the fight.” K looked up at Zed.
“Looks like. That smaller pair by the hole matches the foot dimensions of the Black Suit we had made for Stephanie Brown.”
K glanced down again at the pattern in surprise. Then looked at the larger pair again. “What about those?”
Zed shook his head. “Unknown.”
“Stephanie say anything to you about it?”
This time Zed didn’t even bother to shake his head. “Not a word. And nothing from the rest of Team Delta either.”
“What do we think caused these patterns?”
B spoke up. “Best guess is a photonic blast pattern.”
“Photonic?” K glared. “Don’t tell me it matches--.”
“-Spectroscopic analysis confirms a rough similarity to neuralyzer technology," Zed replied. "But there are no recorded instances of our neuralyzers ever leaving anything close to a blast pattern like this. I think we might have hit the next layer of the conspiracy already, old friend. You’d better talk to Stephanie. Make certain she's all right.”
“I’d recommend asking her how well she’s been sleeping, K,” Agent R added. “We’re still analyzing these patterns, but that flash was strong. Ms. Brown’s Black Suit should have compromised the effect to a significant extent, but if you go over the events of that day with her, she might be able to recover intact memories of whatever happened here."
“Right,” K said. He stood up again and met Zed’s glare with one of his own. Something had happened to Stephanie here, when she was putting herself at risk for their sake. Someone had messed with one of their own, and the Men in Black were going to make goddamned sure whoever they were learned how serious a mistake that was.