(Untitled)

[most_feared]

Who: Agent K and Narvin (and temporarily guest-starring Data)
What: Data gets slightly damaged and freaks out a local. Agent K has to take care of the situation.
When: Late Saturday
Where: By a Salem garage.
Warnings: Android ouchies, but he'll be okay.

Comments

[timesbureaucrat]

Narvin's first objective upon entering port was to blend in. To that end he ducked into the first appropriate shop he could find--a small clothing store across from a mechanics shop and next to a place that appeared to sell various crystalline rocks. He emerged twenty minutes later in a very undistinguished suit and glasses and looking rather like a tax auditor

[most_feared]

The android had this look as if he'd seen this sort of situation before and had been on the bad end of it. Poor kid. Kay watched as he tucked his arm into his coat, one sleeve obviously now empty and awkward from mid-bicep down

[timesbureaucrat]

Things looked like they were about to get ugly fast. Narvin was beginning to half-regret not taking the safe way out and letting the android deal with it himself. It was too late to back out now, though; he was standing in the middle of a nascent mob.

There was one man who was calm amidst the chattering fear and anger. A gentleman in a black suit whom Narvin recognized as one of new wardens. Agent Kay or some letter of the Latinate alphabet like that. He slipped past a shouting mechanic and to the agent's side.

"I hope you're armed." He glanced at the android. "No pun intended."

[most_feared]

"I am, but I don't think there'll be any need for violence," Kay said before Data could respond. All the better, because Data was occupying himself concealing his lost arm in his coat as if it was something shameful, even if it was obviously missing from it's proper place.

"Hey! I'm still waiting for an explanation here!" One of the wrench monkey's sputtered. "This shit busted up this lady's car!"

"The lady was not watching where she was driving." Data finally responded, and all to calmly too. Probably not a great vote in their favor, but Kay wasn't planning on letting it go beyond this parking lot.

Spare pair of sunglasses. He didn't think the accountant look would stand up to a memory wipe. He knew he had one somewhere? Ah! After patting himself down, he held out an extra pair to Narvin. Quietly said, "Put these on."

[timesbureaucrat]

"You may not think there's a need for violence, but they," he nodded to the angry humans, "appear to disagree."

When Kay held out the sunglasses, Narvin considered arguing that one measly sun wasn't enough to bother his eyes, thank you very much, but something about Agent Kay's tone of voice indicated that the offer wasn't made out of concern for Narvin's retinas.

He replaced his own newly-acquired wire frames with the sunglasses.

"Done."

[most_feared]

As soon as Narvin was properly protected, Kay had the neuralyzer up. And they did look angry, and they did look like they were about to see if the rest of Data's limbs could pop off. But with one flash of that device they were suddenly staring dumbly at the three of them, as vacant as mindless puppets.

"What did you do?" Data asked in confusion, hoping they weren't hurt.

"Low grade memory loss and impressionability, Slick," Kay removed the glasses. "Go take care of that arm. We'll make an excuse for the car, and they'll believe it. They'll be fine. Hurry because we don't have long." And with Kay's advise Data, not wanting to invoke any more trouble, jogged off to take care of his own problem.

[timesbureaucrat]

Narvin took in Kay's explanation and boldly approached the mechanics.

"Gentlemen, I'm from Helping Hand Insurance and as you can see, this lady needs your assistance in repairing her vehicle. She hit a..." Narvin knew the 20th century fairly well but he had never spent time in the 21st century and had little idea of what people might run into with their automobiles. Were elk still commonly around or had the deer flu half-destroyed the population by this time? He was fairly sure they hadn't genetically reconstructed mammoths yet. He looked at Kay to fill in.

[most_feared]

"...An ostrich-" as the dent was rather peculiar. "You're going to owe that farmer a good explanation, ma'am. But as she was on her phone we've decided not to supply her with coverage and she'll have to pay out of pocket. Good day to you gentlemen."

He was met with owlish, vapid blinking. He knew the worst of it was wearing off. One man even dropped the wrench he'd been loosely holding.

"C'mon, let's go before they have a chance to register faces." He flicked the neuralyzer closed and checked his pockets to make sure everything was neatly stashed away, not really caring which direction he was walking in. As long as it was away from them.

Crisis averted and Narvin returns to default mode--ie Suspicious Bastard

[timesbureaucrat]

Narvin followed Kay, itching to get a hold of the device he'd used to render the humans docile. "Is that a long-distance mind wipe? Where did you get that technology?" He couldn't keep the slightly accusatory note out of his voice. Keeping advanced technology away from primitive species was one of the CIA's primary tasks. If Kay was indeed as human as he appeared then his possession of a mind wipe was deeply suspicious.

[most_feared]

"It's a neuralyzer. It's standard issue. It comes with my job." Though he hadn't specifically said where he'd gotten it. Just maintained a leisurely posture as he strolled toward the well-lit shops. He might as well, though. He figured if he didn't, he was going to get a hard time over it.

"Where I'm from Earth is an interstellar neutral zone used to engage and disengage political traffic but concealed from the human populous at large. We use the minimum of technology offered as standard issue with our agents, things that humans are within reach of inventing and have the basic concepts already in formulation. Basically, it was a gift and we accepted only what we would feasibly require. You sound a little accusing there, Sweetheart."

He raised an eyebrow at him, and a pointed look clearly stating he had noticed.

[timesbureaucrat]

"Sweetheart?" In all his centuries, no one had ever called him Sweetheart.

Kay's explanation didn't match human history as Narvin knew it, but given all the possible timelines and parallel universes and the Barge's ability to snatch people up from anywhere and anywhen, that wasn't terribly surprising. CIA procedure for dealing with alternate universe violations was as strict as those for primary universe violations. But in the end practicality made all multiuniversal law and regulations moot. Narvin was one operative without backup and he wasn't about to take on a man with a neuralyzer. He quite liked his memories where they were and wanted them to stay there.

Narvin decided that discretion was the better part of valor and backed down. When next he spoke, there was nothing but professional curiosity in his voice.

"Your job, you deal with aliens, then? As part of a covert agency?"

[most_feared]

"It's just a colloquial thing. Don't worry about it." He waved dismissively at the Sweetheart before he made the poor alien burst a blood vessel. He seemed that he was pretty tightly wound up, and if Kay noted that you were that tightly coiled then there was definitely an issue.

"Men in Black. There are some 1,500 aliens at any given time on Earth. We police and monitor their activity, protect the aliens from human retaliation, and maintain the secrecy of the organization. So what are you? I'm taking it you're not fond of humans, but you were pretty subtle about how you decided to approach those men before they laid into the android." He didn't really look at him as he asked, his eyes trailed over shop signs instead, slowing at particular places with menus in the windows so he could skim.

[timesbureaucrat]

It was decidedly strange even considering talking to an alien about the CIA, but they were colleagues of a sort. Yes, perhaps that was the best way to mentally classify his fellow wardens, colleagues on a multiplanetary, multidimensional task force.

"Celestial Intervention Agency. Spies, essentially. Covert operations. Gallifrey officially functions under a policy of non-intervention, so the CIA is the organization that quietly intervenes in the wider universe when planetary security requires it."

He flicked a glance at Kay, who seemed altogether too calm for a man in an unfamiliar city.

"In my experience, some individual humans are...honorable." His thoughts flashed briefly to Leela, who'd been--not a friend, not really--but a trustworthy ally and always loyal to Romana. "But as a species they cause a tremendous amount of trouble."

[most_feared]

"That's because you talked to people. People as a group are a dumb, stupid unit focussed on protecting itself. Separate people into individuals and they're a whole different ball game. But we simply don't have the time to go to billions of people one by one and explain that we're serving a greater role for the good of the universe by giving a few tourists a place to settle at."

He checked his watch, which was still set to 37 hour time, and then scanned the menu of a seafood restaurant, which seemed to have chowder.

"I'm going to get something to eat," he informed Narvin. Which meant either Narvin could follow him in or he could not. Whichever he wanted to do. But his reaction to hearing of another covert agency lurking around out there was as understated as his one to the city.

[timesbureaucrat]

"Yes! People don't understand that it's for their own good. And there are only so many times we can explain it to them. Especially when they refuse to listen." It was so rare to find someone who understood. Rarer still to find it in a human of all places. The masses may hate them (those who knew about them, that is), but they protected them anyway--whether the masses liked it or not. He still didn't trust Kay, but Kay was the first person on the Barge whom he'd met that he thought was enough of a professional that Narvin might call on him for help if (or knowing the Master, when) shadier control techniques were required.

He checked his computer. "I should return to my inmate. I don't dare trust him alone for long."

((Kay is now in the unenviable position of being the first person Narvin will call on to help him hold down the Master if he decides to erase some of the Master's key memories.))

[most_feared]

"They don't understand because a person is usually alone when you try to explain it to them, and they don't understand a mass reaction. It's the same reason to the opposite end why Earth is a good location for other species, even lone ones. We form groups. It's in our nature. And we'll include in the groups who we like and protect them as our own, even if they're not group animals themselves and completely alien to us. It's just as much in our nature as the other end."

Ah, and before he asked he remembered the announcement. Narvin had been saddled with the Master, the one that attacked someone when he first arrived. "...Yeah, don't blame ya."