the_last_resort | Agent K

Oh that establishment. [He says it like, by serving up picked and hunted food they might as well be bringing out plates with live cockroaches on them.]

No, I cannot eat there. I wouldn't mind asking you a few more questions, however, so I may join you for the company rather than the food.

[Kay, for the most part, seems completely unapologetic for his taste in food. Though he's polite enough to warn Narvin that is what he intends to eat.] Questions about what?

[He quirks one of his thick brows at Narvin. He already mentioned he couldn't say more about the case, and Kay doesn't think he's all that interesting.]

Oh, I was curious about your work. You seem to have dealt with this sort of thing before, I was wondering if you've had to investigate terrorists attacks in your line of work before.

[Maybe if they talk about terrorist attacks in general, Kay might let slip something about this particular case. Maybe. And in any case, he is curious about Kay's background as well.]

Oh. Yeah. Well. It's not a big deal. It happens a lot. People of any species can be idiots. [He'll stick to that story, though he quietly can admit humans were as bad for it as any other violent race, and there were many species that weren't susceptible to terror tactics.]

You're real interested in terrorism, aren't you?

Well...

[He thinks fast.]

There was a rash of attacks leading up to the civil war. I was in close proximity when they occurred. It left a lasting impression, as I'm sure the terrorist intended them to.

[It's not a lie, just not the whole truth.]

How long have you been in the business of stopping alien ne'er do wells?

Helpin' out a lot of good aliens, too. Sorta works both ways. Most of the people I have to protect are guests, when I'm not watchin' the whole of the planet.

[He checks his odd watch as they get near the diner, nothing like Miss Persson's but it has plenty of dials on it. He's got about a half hour. He can finish pie and coffee in that time.]

What did they do about the terrorists after the war was over?

[Narvin leeeeans slowly over Kay's arm to get a closer peek at his watch. He wishes he were taller; it's hard to look over someone's shoulder when said shoulder is roughly forehead height.]

That's a complicated question. My understanding is that an exiled former Chancellor dealt with the terrorist organization, probably using underhanded means. He's always been a schemer. I don't know how he did it, and we have only his word that he did it at all, but this is one thing that I don't think he'd lie about.

As for the specific terrorist who bombed the Academy and the Scaphe Port, he was killed by the President's bodyguard.

So, these alien guests you protect back on your Earth, are they important? Are you Terran Secret Service or the like, protecting foreign dignitaries?

Not all of them. Some of them just families trying to get away from bad worlds, and needed a place to stay.

Said chancellor taking advantage of invalidated political affiliation to act independently?

[He asks that question, moving on quickly from the ones about his job. He's happy to talk about it somewhat freely, but he begins to worry that he'll betray someone's confidence accidentally if he doesn't moderate himself as he should.]

Refugees from failed planets. [Odd to think that he's technically a refugee from his world himself. It makes him wonder if something similar to the Dogma Virus ever ravaged other worlds in the multiverse.]

The ex-chancellor had a habit of acting a little too independently even before he was exiled.

Bad habit or did it work out in the end most of the time? [Kay himself has problems with authority when authority doesn't go his way, but he's not so much one to manipulate it as Braxiatel does. He mostly ignores it.]

[He enters the diner, nods to the old mixed couple at their booth as they share their polite conversation, and heads for the bar.]

You know, I'm really not sure. [Where Brax was concerned, he wasn't sure of anything any more. Especially not when there was a chance that even if it didn't work out in the end initially, Brax might have changed the time lines to make sure it did.]

Thoroughly illegal, though, I can say that.

[As per ritual he picks up the menu and stares at it. It would be strange if he didn't think really hard about what he was going to get, even if he got the same thing he always did.]

Not always a bad thing. Sometimes it's better lettin' someone else take the heat for something that's outside of your boundaries to change.

[He order his coffee, though. He knows how he'll want that.] I figure they know the consequences of gettin' caught when they do it.

Perhaps. [Narvin isn't wholly against a little bit of rule breaking. But only when breaking the rules is permitted within the rules. The CIA can legally break the law, but he gets huffy when anyone else does it.]

There's something to be said for plausible deniability when something needs to be done and the people in official authority can't be seen to do it. But there's a difference between that and vigilantism. And I'm not entirely sure where Cardinal Braxiatel fell on that divide. Or whether his agenda was really to benefit Gallifrey or his own ambition. He was a difficult man to understand.

[Narvin would have had harsher words for Brax in the past, but now? Now he thinks that Brax is dead, fallen into the void between universes. It has taken all the joy out of the rivalry.]

What did he do to piss you off specifically?

[Narvin seems like the type that would also accept any mount of subterfuge so long as it did save his planet. But he also seems to want all the information and he's guessing in this case he didn't have all the information.]

[He takes a sip of his coffee.]

Oh, where to begin?

[No one has ever actually encouraged him to complain before. And he has a lot of grievances about Brax built up.]

He did his very best to turn the High Council against a project I was working on as a young technician, was trying to destroy everything I was trying to achieve. He violated the laws of time repeated and with impunity and for something as frivolous as an art collection. He was smug, overly self-satisfied, and acted as if blood wouldn't stain his shirt if he knifed someone in the hearts. He embarrassed me at every turn. Mindwiped me and didn't have the decency to wipe away the worst of the experience while he was at it. And worst of all, he appointed Matthias as his Presidential successor and in so doing betrayed President...former President Romana.

[He doesn't say anything as he drinks his coffee. He just listens to a torrent of bitterness and venom coming out of Narvin, and doesn't do anything to stop it. It seems like he's been needing to let it out.]

I take it a mindwipe doesn't feel too good.

It does not. I'd offer a comparison, but there really isn't one. I can only say that an embarrassing amount of screaming was involved.

And then, after he did all this, Romana forgave him, misses him even. And I don't know, perhaps I forgive him too. It's galling.

Never been lucky enough to miss someone that I hated. [He thinks briefly back to Alpha, to what he did. He forces himself not to miss the man he thought he was because in retrospect he can see through the disguise and it makes him feel stupid.]

Why did he mindwipe you?

Our hatred is complicated. He died saving us. [He explains, because he never thought he would miss Brax. He didn't miss him when he got him exiled. But watching him plummet to certain death was different.]

He mindwiped me to make sure that a certain unpleasant something couldn't reestablish a foothold in my brain. I doubt she would have tried a second time anyway, and if she did I'm not entirely sure a mindwipe would have prevented it. It was never my memories she was accessing, but my brainwaves. But he claimed it was precautionary. To this day I wonder if he also scrubbed away bits of knowledge that I had that he determined was inconvenient for him while he was at it. I'll never know.

You got into some strange shit in your career.

[He doesn't think that he's a technician for an instant, and he smiles kindly to the woman behind the counter briefly, nods, as she gives him his plate.]

What was it that was trying to get into your head?

Well... [He clears his throat.] ...it was an interesting time on Gallifrey.

[He looks at Kay's plate, curious and also slightly horrified at the alien food. The filling reminds him a bit of exploded Keem.]

It was a personality remnant left in the Matrix, a data ghost of a long dead tyrant. She needed a mind that was...[quick, intelligent, and devious, Braxiatel had said]...highly intelligent to serve as a carrier for her.

Why didn't she pick him if he was so smart? [He asks as he starts to tear into the pie, disregarding how Narvin's currently looking at it.]

I'm not entirely sure why she targeted me. Or why mine was the only mind Braxiatel was concerned about wiping. I am highly intelligent, earned one of the rare triple first at the Academy. [And modest, so modest...] But I'm not the only highly intelligent Time Lord on the planet. Or even in the Capitol.

[Narvin frowns, feeling like he's missing something.]

Perhaps Braxiatel was mistaken. Or there was something else, something that he never told me. [Knowing Brax as he did, he judges the latter option as most likely. Brax did like to keep his secrets.]

Maybe the thing you needed to forget? [He pats Narvin's shoulder.] Well, I've learned at my job if I need to forget something I probably shouldn't have it. And if I should? Leave myself reminders of important stuff for emergencies.

[He starts slightly at the pat, not expecting to be touched.]

If I had chosen to forget for myself I might agree. But I didn't have an opportunity to judge whether there was a chance I might need these memories some day. Braxiatel saw to that.

[He maybe almost misses Braxiatel, but he will still clutch every grievance against him until the end of his days.]

How often have you needed to forget things for your job?

Agent K | Log 001

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