gone_byebye | A trail of aching derrières- next time they'll be more thoughtful

The door opens onto an expanse of asphalt, steel, and glass. Nearby a sign reads:

WELCOME TO WHITE FLINT MALL
BEST PRICES IN THE DC AREA

4708 BETHESDA AVENUE
CHEVY CHASE, MD

It's a big parking lot, with the mall itself only visible off in the distance. Ray gives it the squint-eye before turning to the others. "Okay, people," he says. "This is it. Johnny says it's underground. Egon's best estimates indicate three miles down. Are we good?"

Current Music: Kick In The Ass, Moxy Fruvous

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

k_in_black

K gestures for Dave to stop talking, and in a hushed voice says, "Multi-band, RF-compatible, 10G camcorders."

K leans forward, lowering his voice to a whisper. "Brand-new prototypes. Could be the next big thing. But you never saw them, follow me? You wouldn't believe how hard Matilda and I had to argue with the R&D execs just to let you see them."

K straightens up again and claps Dave on the shoulder. "But when they realized we were talking about you, we got the green light right away. I'm telling you, Dave, you've got big changes coming."

Real, real soon.

"Now, I think you were going to explain biometric scanners to Matilda here...?"

From:

precocioustilda.livejournal.com

Matilda perks up. "Yes. You were. And a demonstration of what happens on unauthorized file access, too." She may be small, but she has a good phrase memory.

A thought crosses her mind, and she glances at the top sheet of paper on one of the neat piles adorning Dave's workspace. It flutters. With a triumphant smirk, she returns her attention to the task at hand.

From:

gone_byebye

O'Connell smiles. "Seriously? I thought for sure after I had to hand off the Stantz investigation they'd kick my can to the curb. Used to have an office, before this... Anyway. It kicks me out with the wrong password, but if I type in the right one immediately, we're good. I can't show you three fakes in a row, because three fakes in a row and my account gets locked- division policy. If you could pass me that little white box over there, the one with the grey panel in it? That's a thumbprint scanner."

From:

precocioustilda.livejournal.com

She almost summons the white box with her eye-power - an astute observer might notice it tipping up a bit - but decides that would be imprudent and leans over to pick it up instead.

"Here you are," she says cheerfully, handing the box to Dave with an adorable smile.

From:

k_in_black

As Dave turns back to the screen, K points behind his back at the sheet of paper Matilda TK'd, then gives her a smile and a thumbs up.

Dave is never going to forget this day. Well, not until he forgets everything, anyway.

"So, Dave," K continues, "We've gone over some of the system safe-guards. How about when everything goes right?" K punches a couple more buttons on his scanner, "We'll just move on to the next section here.... Now, let's say you needed access to those critical files you were talking about?"

From:

gone_byebye

"Well, I have access to most of the sector investigation files anyway," O'Connell says modestly. "So we'll just pull up- hmm- let's see. How about some of the stuff we've been digging up out West? The Bishop case?"

He presses his thumb against the scanner as he clicks on one of the icons.

From:

precocioustilda.livejournal.com

Behind Dave's back, Tilda returns a questioning raise of the eyebrows above sunglass level combined with the same triumphant smirk she exhibited previously. If she were able to communicate clearly in words using facial expressions alone, this one might say "Yes, I can move things through these glasses, which is definitely good to know. What does that have to do with the immediate situation?" However, since she is not telepathic, it remains merely a facial expression, and open to interpretation by the viewer.

Then she centres her attention on the computer screen once more.

From:

k_in_black

One super-anal-retentive cubicle worker with stacks of papers lying around just begging to be turned into a little blizzard of disorder. But they can come to that when the time is right. Which shouldn't be long now.

Dave was on the Stanz case. No petty cruelty is too low.

K has the neuralyzer in his right hand, hanging by his side as he adjusts the settings by memory. There are many possible scenarios here. K just needs to decide which one Dave deserves most.

And then wait for Dave to finish giving access for his entire network to a Man in Black and the formidable Ms. Wormwood.

From:

gone_byebye

"-and here, see, these files represent our tracking of the NSA trackers on the communications satellites involved in running down the tip-off call. Professor Janek's chip isn't going to be on the loose much longer." O'Connell smiles. "Honestly, if it weren't for territorial squabbles we'd have stopped him a long time ago, but the NSA plays dirty pool. And then here, there's the mystery tech movements in the northeast sector- that's you, young lady, we've been keeping tabs on the unidentified movement of technology to your sector for a long time now. Mr. Jannot told you that already, though, I bet. Am I right?"

From:

precocioustilda.livejournal.com

Matilda is at first unsure of how to handle such a question, and darts a quick "I have a sector now?!" glance at K before replying.

"Naturally," she says in a tone that could not be more clear in indicating that Dave is right now the most interesting person in the world and that furthermore Matilda could easily listen to him talk about his tracking mechanisms from now until the Apocalypse. Sometimes being small, cute, and able to interest oneself in anything is all the advantage one needs.

From:

k_in_black

Wow. Look what Dave just did.

He just gave Assault Team K-Tilda complete access to the Foliage Census network.

Oopsie.

"Mr. O'Connell, I have to say you sell your talents short. Why, Matilda and I could not possibly have found a man better skilled to demonstrate the power of your network."

K waits for the light of smug satisfaction to gleam in Dave's eyes.

"And on behalf of Ray Stanz, Peter Venkman, and Egon Spengler, we'd like to thank you for giving us complete access to it."

The gleam is just starting to turn into stark terror, when K jerks Dave's chair backward, hauling him well out of reach of the keyboard.

A moment later, K's scanner is next to Dave's tower, and with the push of a button, the Ethernet card begins its last two minutes of existence as a solid object. But, not to worry, it's going to end its life performing well beyond factory specs.

Making sure Matilda has her shades firmly on, K turns back to Dave, who seems to be having a meltdown of his own.

"I know you have questions, Dave. I do. And you can find all the answers you need if you look. just. right. here."

From:

precocioustilda.livejournal.com

Matilda grins happily. Now that the pretending-to-be-employees bit is over with, she can have fun.

She has a pretty good idea that K is about to wipe Dave's memories or knock him unconscious or something equally interesting, and she makes sure that just before that happens, Dave is greeted with the sight of his nice neat stacks of paper jumping off his desk, crumpling themselves into little balls, and forming up on the floor into the shape of a winking smiley face.

She is a six-year-old, after all.

From:

gone_byebye

See Dave's face? Not so much of the terror. More of the anguish.

Absolute, utter, total, heartbroken anguish.

"Make her stop!" he wails, turning reflexively to look in K's direct.... oooh, shiny.

From:

k_in_black

Oh, look, the settings on the neuralyzer aren't quite right after all. Hmmm. *Click, click.* *Click.* *Click, click.*

Meanwhile: *Crumple, crumple.* *Crumple, crumple, crumple..."

Because K wants to be sure those little balls of paper are the very last memory Dave has before...

"Uh, Dave? Back here, Slick."

"Tha-at's it."

*FOOOSH*

From:

precocioustilda.livejournal.com

Matilda is flicking her head back and forth between floor and no-longer-neat stacks of paper, assembling her little smiley face as fast as she can, so it takes her a moment to notice that K seems to have done whatever he's done.

"...What is that, anyways?" she asks him curiously, ceasing work on her lovely little floor mosaic. It has a large circular ridge of crumpled-up balls of paper as an outline, two small mountains for eyes, and a wide sweeping smile that bears hints of sticking its tongue out at the observer.

From:

k_in_black

K takes a step back to get a good look at the floor.

"That's a fine piece of work, Matilda. I'll bet it did our friend here some good to see the error of his ways."

"Now this," K holds up the silvery thing, "is a neuralyzer. We use it to make people forget things they shouldn't have seen in the first place. Like, for instance, anything Dave remembers from working on Ray's case."

"Now all we have to do is tell him what to remember instead. Usually, I'd just tell him he was working on something else. Or that he was fired months ago and hasn't worked here at all."

K smirks. "But I get the feeling our friend Dave hasn't been a very nice man at all. So maybe we should be a little more creative this time. What do you think?"

Hmmm. Things aren't looking too good for Dave just now...

From:

precocioustilda.livejournal.com

She grins. "Oh, that's easy. Tell him he made the smiley face in a fit of insanity. You don't need to come up with something he's been doing over the past few months after that. He won't care in the slightest."

For once, her adorable grin has gone beyond a hint of mischief to a suggestion of malice. This Dave person was mean to Ray Stantz, after all. Such an offence rates somewhere between kicking puppies and setting fire to helpless eggplants.

From:

k_in_black

K gives her another thumbs up.

Then turns and says in a hushed but commanding voice: "I'm telling you Dave, you're lucky to be alive trying something like this. The Boss gave you strict orders to wait for our instructions and here you are wandering around on your own making smiley faces. Could you please get a grip?"

K looks at Matilda and shakes his head in faux-disgust about Dave. Then he holds out a hand to her.

"Agent Matilda, if I could have one of those special 'sensors', please?"

Bombs. Sensors. It's such a fine line. Especially when Dave won't know the difference.

From:

precocioustilda.livejournal.com

It takes her a moment to parse that request, but she's only carrying one kind of object that K knows about. A brown paper package is passed over to K, along with a raised eyebrow meant to inquire as to whether or not that was the sort of 'sensor' he meant.

From:

k_in_black

Oh, that will do just fine. He turns and, still glaring, hands it over to Dave.

"Now take this and march straight to the central mainframe room. Do not open the bag. This is a highly sensitive instrument, Mr. O'Connell, and you do not want to have to pay for a replacement."

"Once you're there, you'll need to activate it by--uh, Agent Matilda, what was that procedure again?"

From:

precocioustilda.livejournal.com

There may be a smirk on Matilda's face as she delivers the explanation. "It's simple, really. I had to build it that way to ensure ease of emergency activation. Just pull the thin red cord attached to the corner of the packaging there and it should be up and running within a few seconds. I'd suggest standing back; mild incidental energy discharge has been known to occur with this model."

Ah, the glory of snarky techtalk from six-year-olds. The world will never tire of it.

From:

gone_byebye

O'COnnell blinks a little, glancing back and forth between the two. Then he nods. "Okay," he says. "That's- that's a relief, actually. I can do that. Thank you."

He accepts the package with a sheepish little smile. "I'll go do that now. You guys take care, okay?"

And off he goes.

From:

k_in_black

K watches Dave walk off, and then turns to Matilda with a satisfied smile.

Meanwhile, Dave's tower is starting to smoke after completing the most screamingly fast mass-download of data in the about-to-be-cut-short history of Foliage Census. K picks up his scanner--still nice and cool to the touch--and slips it back into his suit.

"Special Agent Matilda, you've been very patient during the first part of this mission."

He draws the Series 4 Deatomizer, and flicks a switch. With a low whine, it begins powering up.

"How about we get started on the fun part?"

From:

precocioustilda.livejournal.com

She grins. It contains an equal mix of cuteness, malice, and sheer destructive delight.

"D'you mean I get to blow stuff up now?" she asks eagerly, bouncing up and down on her toes and patting the bag of explosives hanging from her shoulder.

After all, it would be impolite of her to get started on the destruction without him.

From:

k_in_black

K's smile couldn't be more proud.

"Matilda, if you can see it, then blast it straight to hell."

Then in a booming shout: "Ladies and gentlemen! This office is officially closed for business by order of Assault Force K-Tilda! I suggest you make your way to the nearest exit. Or to put it another way: Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for you to RUN LIKE HELL!!"

K noticed the network node a few cubicles away when Dave first brought them to his cube. And that's the first thing that gets blasted into tiny shards of spinning plastic and metal by the shrieking impact of his Deatomizer.