milliways_bar | (no subject)

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The Door opens and through it a sharp-eyed patron of Milliways can see the Main Hall of MiB Headquarters. In fact, there's a Man in Black standing in the doorway right now, his back to the bar as he calls out:

"Chief! Zed!" He's yelling.

And somewhere in the distance, Agent J: "Hey, OLD GUY, you can't use the laser platform! It's tech--!"

And now there's a tremendous ROAR of rage, followed by a worlds-shattering CRASH.

Yup, looks like Zed is still having that little problem with technology. K quietly shuts the Door behind him and goes for a drink at the bar. He'll leave J to cover that one.

Learning experience, after all.

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He takes a long moment before responding.

"I got picked up by you guys a few months ago," he explains slowly.

K raises his head appraisingly. "How'd it happen?"

"Different worlds, different rules. But that sort of thing doesn't happen at our bureau much."

Teller realises his slip.

"No, nothing like that. Well..."

There's probably a reason he's not in the habit of talking to people. It takes him a while to figure out how to phrase the situation.

"There were these... well, aliens, I suppose you'd call them. They didn't give us a whole lot of information. We were only told that we were using up valuable resources and were redundant. The suits wanted us to prove that humans are unique."

Apparently it worked, or else Teller probably wouldn't be sitting here right now.

"Technically, I think everything I've just said is classified."

K waves that off, "Kind of things I deal with, Terran languages don't even have words for the security level they're at."

"The Suits--the MiBs--they were the aliens? Or the Suits were human-looking and brokering between you and the aliens?"

"The second one," Teller says.

He's bad at details, isn't he? This conversation might be going better if they were having it in Latin.

"I didn't actually see the aliens. There were in a refrigerator. Or something."

He shrugs, as though he still doesn't understand the whole thing.

"Huh," K says disapprovingly.

"Even before I arrived here in Milliways, my MiB had conducted joint operations with other MiBs and similar bureaus in other dimensions," He glances at Teller. "Sometimes a threat just won't stay put in one universe."

"So we have a pretty good handle on what the 'standard' bureau is like. And I can tell you, no MiB worthy of the name should be in the business of making humans justify themselves to aliens. Hell, that's our job."

"The human population shouldn't even know aliens are around. People have better things to worry about then interstellar tourists."

"Not to mention, letting things get to that state of affairs suggests a colossal mis-management just for a start."

Teller shrugs.

"Apparently they ran out of ideas and thought that the aliens wanted to hear some Latin poetry?"

What they weren't counting on was Teller's partner to insist on tagging along, apparently.

"OK. That does sound like the way this stuff usually goes."

"You're here, so I'm guessing that went over pretty well?"

"Penn yelled and screamed for a while, and then we performed a two-dollar magic trick."

He's still not entirely sure how that managed to work.

"Huh," K says again, this time intrigued, which doesn't happen very often.

"And that made your case?"

"I guess."

He cracks an odd little smile.

"Apparently no one else in the universe would lie about something like invisible thread."

K actually chuckles.

"That's good. That's damn good."

Teller shrugs modestly. He'd hardly even expected the gamble to work to begin with.

"We were the last to go in," he said. "There must have been about five hundred people before us."

"Five hundred?" K repeats.

His voice hardly changes. But anyone knowing him well would hear the outrage in it.

"Damn well better hope I never catch up with them."

Another shrug. Those that know him well have had entire conversations with him this way.

"Happened right there in New York, just a few months ago," Teller says. "Well..."

"New York, huh?"

"Right state, wrong universe. Guess it'd have to be New York, though. It's always New York."

Isn't it, though? There's got to be a reason for that.

"This happens a lot, then?"

"Not like that it doesn't," K shakes his head.

"The MiB's first priority is the protection of Earth and its people. Second priority is peaceful relations throughout the galaxy."

"No matter how many people we have to shoot to get 'em."

Edited 2010-08-21 02:28 (UTC)

That seems a bit contradictory, Teller notices.

Hence the look he's giving K right now.

K eyes him back.

"We're complex."

"Big galaxy out there. Man's got to be ready to improvise. Man in Black? Even more."

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