Agent K | Log 001

[most_feared]

Who: Agent K | Misc
What: A Day in the Life (and the investigation)
When: Between now and a little prior to the next news post.
Where: Around
Notes & Warnings: Just Kay's mouth. Doing this in action style just because it's easier right now.

(This isn't a real cut, it's a fake cut. Look at comments for starters.)

Comments

[timesbureaucrat]

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.

[most_feared]

[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.

[timesbureaucrat]

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.]

[most_feared]

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.]

[timesbureaucrat]

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.

[most_feared]

[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.

[timesbureaucrat]

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.

[most_feared]

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?

[timesbureaucrat]

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.

[most_feared]

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?

[timesbureaucrat]

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.

[most_feared]

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.]

[timesbureaucrat]

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.]

[most_feared]

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.

[timesbureaucrat]

[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?

[most_feared]

Sometimes.

[That's the only answer he gives between bites as Narvin continued to try and tap blood from a tree.]

[timesbureaucrat]

[It's like scrabbling at a granite boulder hoping that if you pry at it long enough it will open up like a box and reveal a prize.]

How do you make yourself forget? I didn't think that Earth had any sort of mind wipe technology and certainly not in your century.

[most_feared]

My organization has the technology. Earth as a whole doesn't.

[He's already nearly half done with that pie. Narvin might think it's disgusting, but Kay's enjoying it.]

[timesbureaucrat]

What sort of technology is it? Does it work along psychic principles, or rewire brain structure...? There are many ways of manipulating memories, after all.

[most_feared]

I really don't have the permission to divulge that sort of information openly. I've been pushing my luck with talking about my regular occupation but I do so in the circumstance that this is a non-standard location as defined by the Boltian Access of Information title 12 act in that humans and aliens interact and are peaceably aware of each other's existence.

Technology that we as a people have been given access to can't be shared with races not yet approved of.

But tell me more about a mindwipe sometime and it'd probably be a fair trade.

[He can dredge up a rule from the anals of alien legalese in a heartbeat.]

[timesbureaucrat]

Section 26 paragraph 8 of the nonintervention policy forbids the sharing of Gallifreyan technology to offworlders, especially when such technology might impact their development.

But since you already have a similar technology, and it would be an equal exchange of information for the sake of comparison, I think I can sufficiently justify it.

[most_feared]

[He snorts as if that's a punchline to a joke.] Seems fair. [And he pushes his near demolished pie out of the way, hands off his credit card, and after punching in a tip he stands up.]

Maybe later, slick. Good luck in asking around, but try to remember you're not security. [He walks around him, putting on his sunglasses just because it's a little bright out.]

[timesbureaucrat]

[Slick? He brushes his hands down the front of his civilian tunic and over his hair, wondering if he has some machine oil on them. Nope. It must be another one of Kay's curious nicknames.]

Yes, sir, I'll try to keep that in mind, Agent.

[Narvin couldn't call it a wasted conversation. He'd enjoyed it well enough. But he couldn't help but notice that Kay got more information about him than vice versa.]

Perhaps we can talk again some time.