It's Just Routine 

A TM/MiB crossover story by Bob Barnes 

Disclaimer: I didn't invent any of these characters. Other
people did. I don't claim any ownership or control over the
use of these characters or situations. Other people hold
those rights. Finally, I didn't get permission to write
this. I did it because I love the characters and my brain
keeps throwing up fun situations involving them. 

Note: This is more of a story fragment than a story. I'm
posting it to see what sort of response/reaction it gets,
and also because it's been a long time since I posted
_anything_ and I'm sort of stuck on Cut Wood Carry Water and
played hooky writing this, and a few other little things
that haven't seen the light of day, yet. Only one other
person has seen this in an earlier form. It feels a little
like skydiving without a parachute. No pre-readers, and only
one pass through the editing process. 

- = O = - - = O = - 

     The black 1985 Ford LTD rolled to a quiet stop outside
the gate. Two people got out of the car and stood silently
for a few moments as they took in the sight of the large
house beside the lake surrounded by forested hillsides. It
was very early in the morning and the scene before them was
a picture of serene stillness. Both of the watchers were
dressed in featureless black suits and were wearing black
sunglasses. The athletic looking black man turned to his
equally fit looking white, female companion and said, "This
is really nice, Elle. Do you think Zed was serious when he
said this would be a little vacation for us?" 

     "Come on, Jay, you know Zed's idea of a vacation is
something you can survive and not have to spend too much
time in the hospital after. Stay sharp, here. What do you
think about those gate posts?" 

     The man she had called 'Jay' looked closely at the two
thick, wooden cylinders at either side of the front gate.
Only now did he realize they weren't completely featureless.
They each had an unintelligible symbol painted(?) on them,
and they each sported what looked like a small, round, glass
lens(?) near their top ends. "I can't make out what those
symbols mean, Elle. That's odd. My head still hurts a little
from that instant Japanese course we got. Handy thing, that
universal translater, eh?" 

     "Hai! I mean, yeah, we should be able to read those
symbols, if they are Japanese. Let me get something before
we go in." She strode to the back of the car and opened the
trunk with a complicated looking key. Definately not stock
Ford equipment. She returned carrying something in a plain,
black sports bag slung over one shoulder. "Well, let's do
this, Jay." 

     "Right." 

     They strode toward the front gate. As they approached,
one of the thick gate posts turned slightly as if to face
them with its lens(?). In perfect, accentless Japanese it
said, "Please halt and identify yourselves." 

     Jay was startled but didn't show it. He calmly took out
his wallet and flashed it at the what ever it was. In
equally accentless Japanese he said,"I'm Mister White and
this is Miss Black. We are from the U.N. Special
Investigations Branch. Is this the residence of Mister
Noboyuki Masaki?" 

     "Is your business with Noboyuki Masaki?" 

     "No. We have been informed that his father-in-law, a
Katsuhito Masaki, lives here with him. Our business is with
Mister Masaki's father." 

     "I see. Mister Katsuhito Masaki does reside here. You
may enter and go to the house." The gate slid open. 

     Jay started to go through the gate when the other
cylinder suddenly spun toward him and said, "Stop. Why are
you two carrying concealed energy weapons?" A low, almost
subaudible hum began to emanate from both cylinders. 

     The woman put her hand on the man's elbow to stop him
and said, "Because we are on duty, of course. All U.N.
Special Investigators carry weapons while they are on duty."

     "Oh. I see." There was a pause as the cylinder thought
about it(?). "Very well, you may enter the property. Have a
nice day." Both cylinders spun in place to face outward,
again. The hum died away. They again appeared to be totally
inert, wooden cylinders. 

     Jay's face twisted into an ironic grin and he seemed
about to say something. 

     Elle shook her head and gestured toward the house while
looking significantly toward the cylinders. 

     Jay nodded and silently followed her through the gate
and up to the house. Once they were out of the immediate
vicinity of the gate he quietly said, "What the hell was
that, Elle?" 

     "I'm not sure, Jay, but I'll bet you five backrubs that
those things are a whole lot more than decoration." 

     Jay sighed wistfully, "No bet, Elle. You got it right,
I'm sure." 

     "You're no fun anymore, Jay," Elle said teasingly.
"That was a bet you couldn't lose." 

     "What is it with you, girl? Come on, this is work time.
Stay focused here, eh?" 

     Grumbling about all work and no play, Elle caught
herself looking for a doorbell. She remembered their
cultural briefing... these people sure had weird customs.
She reached out and opened the door. They both stepped into
the entranceway and called out, "Excuse the intrusion,
please!" and waited. 

     A cute young girl about twelve years old came from the
interior of the house and stood before them. She was flushed
and wearing an apron over an intricate kimono-like garment.
Oddly, her hair was gathered into two very long pony tails
that arched out to either side of her head and hung down to
nearly brush the floor. She bowed before them and said,
"Welcome to our home. How may I help you?" 

     Elle glanced at Jay with one eyebrow arched up
ironically. She turned to the girl and said, "I am Miss
Black and this is Mister White. We have business with Mister
Katsuhito Masaki. Is he at home?" 

     At this moment a very pretty young woman sporting
masses of curly blonde hair dashed into the hallway and
breathlessly cried, "You better hurry, Sasami-chan. I think
the eggs are..." Her eyes widened and she stumbled to a stop
as she noticed the two black clad visitors standing in the
entrance way. "Eeep! Sasami-chan, who are these people? What
do they want?" 

     "They are here to see Oji-san, Mihoshi." 

     "I see. That would mean..." Suddenly Mihoshi dashed
into the house. They could hear her shrill voice,
"Oji-saaaaan! Come quick! Some people are here to see you!" 

     Sasami shook her head and grinned at the two visitors.
"Please wait here for a moment, will you? I must go and see
to making breakfast. Will you be able to join us?" She
smiled brightly and blinked at them in a cute way. 

     "Ahh. Errmm. Perhaps we will. First we must speak to
Mister Masaki." The formality of the politness here was a
little hard for Jay to cope with. 

     "Okay! Please wait, and I'm sure Oji-san will be right
here." She turned and trotted back into the house. In a
moment they could hear pots and pans banging in the kitchen.

     They both lost interest in the noises from the kitchen,
however, when they realized a very odd looking animal was
watching them from down the hall. When it saw them notice,
it came down the hall to the entrance way. It moved with a
weird combination sort of hop and walk. It sat back and
looked them over, calmly. "Miya," it announced. 

     "What is that thing, Jay?" 

     "I don't know." He took out a small device from an
inner pocket of his suit and pointed it at the small animal.
It chirped and tweedled to itself for several moments while
a row of colored lights on its side flashed. All but the
green one, Jay was happy to see. Finally it emitted a
buzzing sound and all the lights went out. "Definately an
extraterrestrial lifeform, but I can't identify it. Cute,
isn't it." 

     "Yeah, right. As if that means anything." 

     "May I help you?" 

     Jay looked up as he discretely palmed his scanner and
slipped it back into his pocket. The speaker was a
distinguished looking, rather elderly man dressed in the
robes of a Shinto priest. 

     Elle stepped forward and said, "Are you Katsuhito
Masaki, sir?" 

     "Yes I am." 

     "I'll need to see your identification, sir." 

     The man reached into his robes and handed her a
Japanese Identification card. She looked it over and handed
it back to him. "Very nice, sir. Now I'll need to see your
_other_ identification card?" She waited expectantly as he
shrugged and got out another card and handed it to her. She
showed it to Jay. They nodded to each other and turned to
the elderly seeming man. 

     "Zed sends his regards, Yosho. He wishes you well, but
he's disappointed he hasn't heard from you. Why haven't you
contacted us?" 

     "Ahem! Well, you see there have been some complications
here. I wasn't sure if contacting Zed was the right thing to
do." 

     Jay rolled his eyes and sighed ironically. "Yosho,
Yosho... come on now. We are reasonable about things. You
know that. There are at least three violations of the Tycho
treaty here. Surely you must know that we are very
interested in that sort of situation. I feel certain you
wouldn't want us to think you are trying to hide things from
us, eh? Come, let's step outside and speak together like
reasonable beings. This doesn't have to be any more than a
minor inconvenience. I'm certain of that." He reached out,
took Yosho's arm and started to lead him out of the house.
Surprisingly, Yosho simply stepped into a pair of sandels in
the entranceway and went along. 

     The small animal had been watching this exchange
intently as it went on. It looked shocked when the elderly
man went along with the black clad foreigners meekly and
quietly. It turned and dashed into the house 'Miyaing' in
alarm. 

     * * * 

     The two MIB's and Yosho were standing on the deck
outside the house talking. Everyone seemed calm, though
Yosho was speaking earnestly. "So you see, Elle, as soon as
things started to calm down, something _else_ happened...
and then something else and so on. I never had a chance to
contact Zed with a complete report." 

     Elle snorted derisively. "Oh yeah. Things have been
happening, all right. Our limsats have detected _two_ near
Earth space combat episodes; a warship of some sort actually
fired on Japanese national territory; there have been
several sub-space aperature dialations that were way inside
treaty ranges; there was an unauthorized, high power, deep
space communications burst that blew out the sensors on
nearly a third of our outer system detector grid; and if all
that isn't enough, I'm pretty sure you've got some
unlicensed, galactic class combat technology here. Not to
mention at least two illegal aliens and some kind of E.T.
critter running around the place. To hell with a _complete_
report, Yosho. We should have heard from you months ago!
What were you thinking?" 

     While Elle berated Yosho, Jay was speaking into a tiny
cellular phone. "That's right Zed. There's lots going here
to keep us busy for a while. If nothing else, we've got
unauthorized aliens running around all over the place... No.
No, not yet. I think we can handle it. We don't need a
cleanup crew just yet, but have one standing by just in
case, okay?" He listened for a moment. "You bet. We'll get
this straightened out quick. I know the Argellian peace
talks are coming up. We should be done in plenty of time to
help out with that. Uh oh. Gotta go, Zed." He closed the
phone and slipped it back into his pocket. With his other
hand he tapped Elle on the shoulder and nodded toward the
house. 

     She turned her head and saw a small delegation of
beings, people and otherwise, marching toward them from the
house. The ones called Sasami and Mihoshi were there along
with that odd little animal who was riding on Sasami's head.
There were three others, one of whom she recognized from
Zed's description. That one was beautiful woman with a great
spikey mass of cyan hair and vaguely non-human features, but
there was something about her that made Elle think she would
be a lot more comfortable if she had a weapon in her hand.
Never one to hesitate, Elle quietly unzipped the sports bag
and slipped her hand inside. She didn't bring it out though.
Not yet. So this was Ryouko. 

     One of the other two was a young woman who resembled
Sasami a bit, possibly because her hair was also styled into
two very long pony tails and because she was wearing a
similar kimono-like garment. Finally there was a young
Japanese man who appeared to be in his late teens and seemed
to be completely human. His ordinary appearance made him
stand out in this crowd. Elle's professional paranoia was
kicking in. He was suspiciously ordinary. She vowed to
herself to keep a close eye on him. Not that that would be
an awful ordeal. He was certainly a handsome dickens. 

     The one Elle had tentitively identified as Ryouko spoke
first. "All right. What's going on here? Who are you people
and why are you bothering Masaki-san?" 

     The older girl with the long pony tails interrupted.
"Oh shut up, stupid monster woman. You there! Are you Yakuza
or something? Whoever you are, you don't have any business
here! Azaka! Kamidake! I need you! Come here!" 

     There was a dull, ringing thud of displaced air as the
two cylinders from the front gate suddenly appeared, hanging
in the air, on either side of the girl. "Yes Ma'am! We
come!" they said, together. 

     At this, Elle brought her hand out of the sports bag.
She was holding a stubby cylindrical object made of some
silvery metal. It was about twenty-two inches long and
flared out at one end into a vaguely cone shaped aperature
about two inches across. She held it next to her side and
pointed it in the general direction of the wooden cylinders.
She had seen them talk, fly, and teleport. She was betting
they could do other, extremely unpleasant, things. She was
seriously considering making sure they didn't do any of them
to herself or her partner. 

     Jay stepped closer to Elle and turned so he could watch
behind her. He also pushed his hand under his coat jacket,
but stopped there. 

     Yosho's eyes widened when he saw what Elle was holding.
Bravely, he stepped between the MIB's and the cylinders,
held up his empty hands and shouted, "Stop it right now!
There is no need for this! Everybody back off and calm
down." 

     A sweet, young voice called out from behind Elle,
"That's very good advice, Ayeka. Do it now!" 

     Elle twitched, but didn't turn. Of the group, only Jay
had seen yet another girl materialize behind Elle. Oddly,
she was floating over the water off the edge of the deck.
Her most obvious feature, aside from effortlessly floating
in the air of course, was a mass of bright red, spikey hair.
When she appeared he drew out his own weapon, but carefully
didn't point it at anyone. He simply held it ready. 

     The redhead continued, "If you look closely, Ayeka, you
will notice the woman is holding a Zweillian submolecular
depolarizer. If you want to keep both of your guardians
intact, you should have them back away from that woman, and
stop threatening her... Now!" 

     The redhead floated over to the deck and walked around
in front of Elle. She was careful not to get too close.
"Hello. My name is Washuu. You may call me Washuu-chan. You
know, human's aren't supposed to have that level of weapons
technology, young woman. Will you tell me where you got it?"

     "How do you do, Washuu-chan. My name is Elle. Pleased
to meet you. I got it from a Zweillian, of course. To be
precise, confiscated from a Zweillian smuggler illegally
operating on Earth." 

     "You... took it away... from a Zweillian? By yourself?"
Washuu was almost stuttering in surprise. 

     "Well, Jay here helped me. Regrettably, the Zweillian
did not survive the encounter." 

     "Somehow, that doesn't surprise me. So this is Jay? Zed
mentioned you, Jay." 

     Jay was startled. "When did you talk to Zed?" 

     Washuu walked over to Jay and stared at him
contemplaitively. "Oh, it was two days ago, when I called to
suggest that he send some people here. I thought the MIB's
needed to know what was going on here. It _is_ your
jurisdiction, after all." 

     "Zed didn't mention a call when he assigned us." 

     "Oh he's like that. You'll get used to it. He likes
agents to be able to show a lot of initiative." 

     Washuu turned her head toward Ayeka who seemed to be
thinking over the suggestion to back down. "Ayeka, this
might interest you. A while ago, this man fought a Bug with
his bare hands and survived. He didn't win, mind you. His
partner killed the bug, but he survived. My advice is to
cooperate peacefully with these people. You should start
now." 

     "How do you know about that... err Washuu-chan? That
information is classified." Jay was beginning to feel just a
little out of his depth. 

     Washuu turned back to Jay and looked him over,
thoroughly. "Well now, someone has to check the security
systems for MIBnet, you know. Since I am the number one
genius scientist in the Galaxy and since Simmulfrrrrrrxz and
Bob were busy, Zed asked me to do it on their
recommendation. There's some fascinating data on MIBnet.
Say... You know... You are very cute, Jay. Would you like to
help me with one of my experiments?" 

     Jay felt as if his collar had gotten smaller, suddenly.
"Aren't you a little young for that sort of thing?" 

     "Well, it's true that I'm only twenty thousand years
old, but I think I've held up pretty well. Don't you?" 

     "T-t-t-twenty Th-th-thousand...?!?" Jay's ability to
speak left him, temporarily. 

     Elle had had enough. "Jay, quit flirting with the
aliens. Yosho, tell these people who we are. The rest of
you, after Yosho explains, we will all go back to the house.
We've got a lot to do. I hope this is all of you. You don't
have any more unauthorized aliens stashed away do you,
Yosho?" 

     Yosho shook his head. 

     "Good. Let's get this intergalactic circus started,
shall we? Any objections? I didn't think so." 

* * * 

     After a quick conference by the black ford, Jay and
Elle divided the interviews between them. Elle had to grin
when Jay insisted, rather forcefully, that Elle interview
the one who wanted to be called Washu-chan. 

     "Now, don't be teasing me about this, Elle. I just
think you can handle her better than I can." 

     "Heh. Alright, Jay. I think I agree, anyway. Still, you
seem to be letting your brains overrule your ego in this.
What's the deal?" 

     Jay winced. "Let's just say that I've learned the hard
way that going the other way is a great way to get dead or
worse." 

     A puzzled frown creased Elle's face. "What could be
worse than dead, Jay?" 

     He looked at her significantly. "Failure, of course." 

     Comprehension dawned in Elle's expression. Yes. While
she was rather new at this, she understood quite well how
high the stakes could get in this game they played. A
failure by the MIB's could be much, much worse than simply
dying. Thinking on it, she was barely able to suppress a
shudder of dread. "You know, all things considered, maybe
this really _is_ a sort of vacation, like Zed said." 

     "Watch it, girl. Just about the time you decide
something is a minor matter with no danger, the world can
just about get blown up in your face. We need to go slow and
do it right the first time, here." 

     She smiled broadly at him, but pointedly _didn't_ say
he was being paranoid about a bunch of cute girls, an old
man, a boy and a cute animal. He certainly was, but for
MIB's paranoia wasn't just a point of view, it was a life
style. What she _did_ say was: "Right. Let's get going. You
start with the blonde, and I'll start with the log girl."
While she had been talking she unlocked the trunk, again,
Removed two more of the plain, black sports bags and
relocked the trunk lid. Passing one of the bags to Jay, she
nodded toward the house and led him back through the gate. 

* * * 

     "Ah... Sir... Ummm... Mister Jay, am I in trouble?"
Mihoshi gazed at him with earnest innocence. 

     "Well, I don't know, yet, Miss... Mihoshi is it?" 

     "Yes. Yes, that's right. Galaxy Police Detective First
Class Mihoshi, sir." 

     Jay was startled at this revelation, but didn't show
it. He sat down at the table and pulled what looked like a
plain black lap top computer out of his sport bag and set it
on his side of the table. It had the initials "M.I.B" on the
lid. "May I see your credentials and identification,
Detective Mihoshi?" 

     "Yes, Sir. Just a minute, please." Quietly, as if
talking to herself, she said, "Now, where did I put that?"
Mihoshi reached into her cleavage and removed what looked
like a large cotton ball. She rolled it between her hands
and it transformed into a solid cube. She stared
thoughtfully at the cube for a moment and twisted one of its
faces. An almost weightless pair of very brief and wispy
panties popped into existance in the air and settled
silently onto the table. Mihoshi "eeeped" and snatched the
panties up and hid them in her lap, while blushing
furiously. 

     Jay sat back in his chair, and pointedly raised one
eyebrow while saying nothing. 

     Mihoshi was still blushing when she tried twisting
another face of the cube. This time two objects popped into
existance and dropped to the table with a thump. 

     Jay noted that one was a standard issue Galaxy Police
side arm, while the other was a carbine sized, multiphasic
blaster rifle, also GP issue. 

     "Oh! So _that's_ where my gun went." She smiled and
began to reach for the pistol while looking toward Jay. His
other eyebrow was slowly crawling up to join the first. A
large sweatdrop appeared on Mihoshi's head and she stopped
reaching, laughed weakly and used just the edge of her hand
to sweep the weapons out of the way toward the end of the
table without touching either of them with her fingers. 

     Jay smiled at her and nodded as if to invite her to
continue with what she was doing. 

     Mihoshi tried not to be too concerned that his right
hand was out of sight below the edge of the table. She
settled down and concentrated as she tried yet another face
of the cube. This time what appeared to be a featureless one
inch cube of grey ceramic dropped to the table. Mihoshi
dropped the larger cube, clapped her hands in glee and
picked up the smaller cube and held it out toward Jay so he
could see the small hologram of her in her Galaxy Police,
dress uniform that appeared when she touched it. 

     Jay leaned forward and looked the hologram over
carefully then took the cube from Mihoshi and dropped it
into a slot on the top of the laptop computer. In a couple
of seconds, a rotating three-dimensional view of Mihoshi
appeared on the left side of the screen while scrolling text
appeared on the right. Jay discreetly tapped the key that
would up-link this data to the MIBnet host in New York. He
read the scrolling text for a few moments, sighed and leaned
back in his chair, again. The text continued to scroll on
his screen. "Well, Detective Mihoshi, it seems you are what
you say you are. That leads us to the next question: what
are you doing so far out of your jurisdiction?" 

     Mihoshi began to tell her story. It was a lengthly
process because she had the habit of telling _everything_.
She couldn't see that the lips of the three-dimensional view
of her on the lap top's screen were moving in synch with
her's while text appeared, word by word, in the Japanese she
was speaking. 

     She also had no way of knowing that a group of analysts
at MIB headquarters in New York were working over the data
coming from the Masaki household in realtime and routing
some of the choicer tidbits of information about the
relationships among the beings in the household to Elle and
Jay's laptops. As the interviews progressed the analysts
were able to begin synthesizing a model of the household and
the events of the past few months. They began passing
suggested questions to both Jay and Elle. 

     Jay smiled to himself as he thought, 'Yeah... the very
best way to run a field interview is to know most of the
answers before you ask the questions.' 


- = O = - - = O = - 

Note: Well, there you have it.  That's all there is. The
title isn't great and I don't really have a clear idea of
where this is going. Any interest in the other interviews?
I'm thinking the interviews between Jay and Ryouko and the
one between Elle and Tenchi might be the most fun to write.
At least it was fun to write.  I hope someone enjoys reading
it.

Best,

Bob Barnes 
rbarnes@moscow.com 
Moscow, Idaho 

When opportunity comes, the trick is to CATCH the red hat.