(Untitled)

[k_in_black]

The Front Door opens, and here comes a Man in.... Yellow-Green. And Black

Comments

[gone_byebye]

There's something making small whizzy beeping noises from very nearby.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

[gone_byebye]

"He's lost them, all right. The President fired nearly everybody that ever worked with him. Most of the rest've been exiled to Guam and the Federated States of Micronesia. Besides, they're too busy running the National Paranormal Activity Survey as an official government project these days."

[k_in_black]

K shakes his head. "'Official project.' Those guys just never give up. Got a back door into the NPAS system?"

"I mean, hell, I suppose even bureaucrats might stumble across some useful intel now and then. Might be worth data mining the thing."

[gone_byebye]

Ray coughs and fishes an identification card out of his duct-tape wallet. "I've, uh, got clearance two levels higher than my three other colleagues," he says. "Which isn't too bad even if they are running this as a public project on the same order as the USGS."

[k_in_black]

K takes the ID card for a second and gives it a close look.

"Not. Bad. Not bad at all," says K, who knows a thing or two about falsified documents. He hands the card back.

"So? Are they getting anything good or just collecting stories about bent spoons and poltergeists in TV sets?"

[gone_byebye]

"It helps to know students at Columbia," says Ray. "And yeah, they are. The NPAS agents are getting us a lot more information about Peck than the FBI's manhunters, mostly because they're at the same places he's trying to go- or they show up there not long after he's left. They're getting a lot of dreck, of course, but they've had some confirmed hot-spots too. I'd be careful walking through the old town in St. Augustine after dark on the new moon, if I were you."

[k_in_black]

"I keep telling Zed we need to redesign a neuralyzer to generate an artificial-sunlight burst."

"Anyway, last time I was in St. Augustine I nearly got assimilated by an Octopoid gonzo journalist on assignment from Oceanus III. Not been in much of a hurry to go back."

"They pick up anything new about that business in New England?"

[gone_byebye]

Ray grimaces. "The state of Massachusetts is lighting up on the survey like Mitchell Hundred's main tracking screen on September eleventh," he says. "They haven't gone offshore yet, though, so nobody's made it out to Devil's Reef."

[k_in_black]

"They're going to have one hell of a night when they do."

"Begs the question what else they might be finding, out in the Pacific, say."

"Those guys could go and stir themselves up a world and a half of pain, Ray. For themselves and for you."

[gone_byebye]

"No kidding," says Ray wearily. "I'm gonna be calling North Coast Community College and asking to speak to the swim team if they get any closer."

[k_in_black]

"They'll love that. Nothing like having to deal with a family squabble when you've got multiple Navies closing on your position."

Sometimes K is really glad about MiB's 'leave it all behind' hiring policy.

[gone_byebye]

"I'm just letting my two buddies know, that's all," says Ray. "They can handle the internal politics themselves. I've got to get New York's act together, and that's plenty enough for me right now, thank you."

[k_in_black]

"I imagine. Need any extra-dimensional help?"

"I could use the distraction. The reconstruction's almost done back home, and if I don't come up with something, Zed's sure to have me tear-assing back to Yekub IX to respond to whatever the glow worms do next."

Which, of course, is what K should be ready for and knows it. But it never hurts to ask.

[gone_byebye]

"I'll let you know as soon as I have a little more to go on," Ray says. "Right now we've had a wave of perfectly normal paranormal activity that briefly kicked up a boatload of animal ghosts of all kinds. It's sort of settled down to Manhattan-wide localized plagues of demon roaches. Tell you what- I'll call the swim team and see if I can't get a couple of their relatives to come to New York City, and once I get an approximate arrival time I'll let you know. You have way more experience with this kind of thing than I do." He shakes his head. "Man. Why couldn't it have been machines? I can deal with machines. Machine intelligences are easy."

[k_in_black]

Ugh. Demon roaches. Almost as bad as alien, eight-foot-tall glow worms.

But 'almost' still means better.

"Just say the word, Chief. I'll come running."