(no subject)

[most_feared]

Who: Agent K and Various
What: A trip to his univers and a discussion about going to Linda's
When: During the The Voyage Home plot.
Where: Security / MiB verse
Notes & Warnings: I'm aiming for humor with this one, so it shouldn't get over PG-13. Information on Kay's home here.

A Talk with Linda

[Kay is in his office, sorting out his affairs. Everyone else might be taking this as a fun chance to go home, or else they should in his opinion. Kay's intentions are practical, and he wants to follow through on a promise.]

[He's already planning on asking Una and Narvin to come along, despite the fact that he knows there's a bit of oil-and-water there, two differing perspectives might get him answers concerning Linda's dilemma than just his own. One with a miraculous gift to face situations of high pressure with cool and calm and ingenuity (something Kay holds in high regard), and another with a brilliant intellect rarely encountered. Too bad he has none of that latter calm and is prone to fits of destructive paranoia.]

[Still, with both of them helping him it will be a great advantage.]

[When he sees Linda go by, he calls out to her.] Esquivel. I want a talk with you before I go.

Una and Narvin's big Adventure

[It's a mercifully short line at the intake, and by mercifully short one also means that it's nearly a fifteen minute wait. Kay is staying with them because he has to clear the tech that he brought back. For once, he's not wearing his security uniform from Quadratus but rather his valued black suit, something he's been missing and something that's crucial to his identity.]

Are you both doin' alright? [He checks back with them, waiting for the big sluggy grub alien in line in front of him to squirm forward.]

Comments

[most_feared]

[The man at the desk looks questioningly at the needle gun, but Kay just nods for him to let it through.]

Maybe we should get him a handbook.

...Seriously, we actually have a handbook for settling into the environment. Not all of these people are tourists. Some are refugees, people seeking political asylum in neutral territory, and the occasional person seeking escape from legal consequences. Which, if they fuck up, they get booted right off the planet again.

[timesbureaucrat]

[Narvin crosses his arms.]

I've been undercover on Earth before, you know. It was in 1939, but I can't imagine that much has changed in less than a century. [He says the word "century" like other people might say "decade."] I'm sure my human studies for that assignment will all come back to me. "Sieg Heil" and all the rest.

[una_persson]

[Una rolls her eyes at 1939, but actively flinches at Sieg Heil.]

That is not going to go over well here at all.

[most_feared]

You gotta trust me, that was never in vogue here. Especially now. [He gestures for them to follow him off towards the display room, with the various array of gadgets out everywhere.]

Don't touch anything without asking first. [He says even before they get there, but that's more for Narvin than Una. He's 90% sure he'd pull a Jay, but Una tends to be sensible.]

[Maybe.]

[timesbureaucrat]

Ah yes, they must have lost that war by now. The Sieg never materialized. Mind you, it sometimes seem as if every amateur chrononaut with a primitive time drive attempts to change the outcome one way or another. If they're not trying to create an alternate reality where the Nazis conquer the globe, they're trying to assassinate Hitler before his rise to power. In the Agency, we call that era The Front Door, because everyone passes through it at some point in their early career.

[Narvin cranes his neck to look at the unknown devices just a little bit closer, curiosity bubbling up.]

What are those things? ...Is that a compressed-space mass to energy transfer anti-singularity? [He tilts his head in fascination. It's perhaps not as good as weapons tech, but he suspects that any of the really interesting weapons are probably kept locked away somewhere, in the MIB's equivalent of the Anomaly Vault.]

[most_feared]

People trying to change history is a big problem here, too. A lot of guys wanna kill me off. Also, you would actually be right. [He's actually impressed Narvin recognized one so quickly, chromy and bright as it is. But then he quickly says-]

Remember not to touch it.

[Yes they are locked away somewhere.]

[una_persson]

[Una keeps her hands to herself, because she can scarcely guess what half the items here are. She pauses in front of a thing that looks like a hand-held garden sprayer and gives Narvin a sardonic look.]

There's an "alternate reality" [you can hear the inverted commas] out there where Hitler's a police chief in Berlin. Which sounds to me like someone succeeded in changing matters in at least one parallel, for a certain definition of success.

[Baiting Narvin? Maybe just a bit?]

[timesbureaucrat]

Failed time lines. [Narvin sniffs.] Unimportant, I'm sure. I've travelled to a few of them myself.

[most_feared]

In her universe you can't deem it failed. Things might be working differently for her. Especially since contact with Quadratus's universe is creating stable timelines.

[He picks up a "snowglobe", but when he holds it out to them gingerly, it's obvious there are tiny people (of a sort) inside. A whole village of them.]

Don't worry. You can't break it and the people inside won't feel the movement.

[una_persson]

[She doesn't even try to hide her eyeroll at Narvin's comment. It's impressive how he manages to be ever more full of himself at nearly every turn.]

Depends on your definition of failure, I should say. To the people living there, I rather think it's doing quite well.

[Cautiously she takes the snowglobe from Kay, holding it gently in both hands. Her expression goes from wonder to a kind of shock and horror at the realization that the people within are actually alive.]

What happened to them?

[most_feared]

Someone decided to make a pet display of a "lesser" race. We confiscated it, but opening it would kill them in our atmosphere. And their world was completely decimated for the purposes of making these.

They basically live here now. Self-sustaining, but forever limited.

I brought you guys here because I need help fixing a problem like this on a much larger scale.

[timesbureaucrat]

[Narvin tilts his head, curious, peering at the snowglobe and the tiny people within. As Kay explains the situation that created it, he automatically glances up with nervousness on his face. If, in this universe, such a thing could happen to those people in there, there was logically no reason it couldn't happen (or have happened) out here, too. And although Narvin enjoys a nice safe dome, he'd rather it be one of his own choosing.]

Just how large a scale are you talking about?

[una_persson]

[Una says nothing, but hands the snowglobe back to Kay, shaking her head as she does so. There's a look in her eyes like grief.]

[most_feared]

On the scale of a human town. [He puts the little globe back down where it was.]

Linda's town was covered by a dome. She gave me what information she had before she left, which isn't too much, but it's enough to say that people of their technological capacity aren't gonna be able to get rid of it.

Also the government is firing a missile at it.

I'm actually guessing it won't break through but that still won't help the people inside much.

[timesbureaucrat]

It does mean that it would be trifle counterproductive if we were to time this poorly and take down the dome while the missile was in mid-flight.

What sort of dome is it that they can't break down? A physical structure, a temporal bubble, an energy field...? The average 21st century Earth society barely has the technological capacity for simple computing.

[most_feared]

You're right. They absolutely shouldn't.

[He gestures around him, at all the gadgets.] But obviously some other people do. Ahd I wanted to do some testing.

We're authorized to temporarily dome certain small sections of the New York countryside. The people inside won't remember, and will be compensated for it. But it's the best way to test ways to get out of different sort of dome barriers.

And I need you two to help come up with solutions. We got scientists here, but I don't really wanna call them in on what isn't official MiB business.

[una_persson]

[Una's eyes widen with surprise.]

She never told me that. About her town.

[She frowns.] All right. I'm not sure what I can do, exactly, but—I'll help as much as I can.

[timesbureaucrat]

Does Miss Esquivel know who erected the dome or why? Such information may help in determining the "how" and from there how to remove it.

Not to mention, if we don't know why it's there we ought to consider the possibly that whoever put that dome there had a good reason. Perhaps they were containing something dangerous, something that absolutely could not be allowed to get out, and the inhabitants of Miss Esquivel's town were unfortunate collateral damage.

[Narvin remembers the original Chancellor Narvin, his alternate self, and his single-minded drive to complete and open the Eye of Harmony, which had been left unfinished, sealed shut by that universe's Rassilon. And how the alternate Gallifrey was almost wiped out when his other self finally did manage to open the Eye and let loose the incorporeal monsters that Rassilon had trapped inside.]

[most_feared]

Nope. The only problems there exist because of the dome.

[He offers Narvin and Una his communicator from Blackstaff. While it doesn't work for messages, the unlocked app that's open has this information. But he holds it out between Narvin and Una, wanting to see who took it first. He did give Una a genuinely sympathetic look.]

She's scared. But she also didn't wanna worry anybody. I'm not too easily worried about things. I was probably her best chance to talk to.

[una_persson]

[Una takes the communicator and reads through the information quickly. Her frown deepens.]

Now I understand something she was asking me—about the timing of the transporters and whether she would be able to return at a different time to that when she left.

[timesbureaucrat]

[It's a fortunate thing that Una reads quickly, because Narvin reaches over to take the communicator from Una, without bothering to (or thinking of) asking first.]

Hmm. Some sort of energy field from the sounds of things. Something that allows the long wavelengths of low frequency radio through, also presumably infrared or else the place would quickly begin to freeze over until it looked like the surface of Pluto, and visible light. But it doesn't allow the high frequency radio waves of the hand held communicators through, which is very interesting. Perhaps the dome is operating near a similar frequency, cancelling it out.

[Narvin's expression remains merely curious. His voice mild. It's still just an intellectual exercise to him. Without seeing the suffering, it's like any report an operative might bring to his desk about alien wars or disasters.]

[most_feared]

[It was sort of expected, and part of why he invited them both. Una was compassionate and caring towards a woman in quiet distress, feeling obligation and with the urge to do the right thing. Narvin was a dispassionate problem solver that was, at least, intelligent and Una could use his resourcefulness.]

[If she didn't slap the shit out of him for being rude, first.]

That was one of the dome test types that we have but yeah, it works out too cold. We got a few others, too.

She also really wants to know if that missile will make it through. Though I'm also bettin' there's a way to stop that missile altogether, even if it might get fired all over again. [Which is a larger problem.]

[una_persson]

[Una just gives Narvin an exasperated I beg your pardon look as he swipes the communicator. She has to admit, though, his grasp on the technicalities exceeds hers. She'd like to drag him to the Time Centre to meet Alvarez, she thinks. And see which one would try to murder the other first.]

There's plenty of ways to stop a missile, and not all of them involve technology as the only solution.

[timesbureaucrat]

[Narvin arches an eyebrow at Una.]

No, it's simply the best way.

[Translation: It is the way that Narvin is most comfortable with. Ergo, "best."]

Feel free to free for all the order and stuff.

[most_feared]

They're both pretty useful ways. We got one already fired that we need to stop, or make sure that it won't go through the dome. [He fidgets with one of the items, pulling back a spring and letting it pop back into place over and over.]

We also gotta make sure they won't be fired in the future, and that tech won't be able to do.

[Too many people to neuralyze, and it really wouldn't do much good if he did. Sooner or later the subject of the dome would be brought up again, and even with hypnotic suggestion those against bombing would be overruled by others.]