New blood (and other parts)

[bring_a_sponge]

 
Most Men in Black keep their letter names for their whole career, but ever so often an agent earns an exceptional promotion, and after years of brilliant innovation in the tech labs, Agent B is now one of them, sub-director of a new post over all of MiB’s R&D. Which means the bureau needed a new Agent B to head the top laboratory, and now they have one. In fact, he’s just completed his first week on the job.

So he’s the one Agent Zed bellows at when he comes striding into the Main Lab, deep inside MiB Headquarters, while holding up the patched-together remains of a certain infamous iPhone, "B! I need this thing operational."

To which the newly appointed Agent B replies, "What, are you nuts? I’m not helping you rebuild that damn thing, you idiot, you’ll blow up New York."

"So rebuild it so it won’t blow up New York. You’re supposed to be this big fucking brain. Prove it."

"I am a big fucking brain. Which is why I wouldn’t have built this thing in the first place."

"Well, if you can’t do it--."

"I got more important things to do, dammit! Still trying to get that—," B utters not so much a curse as a strangled noise, "—bio-glop chain gun finished for Maxwell’s mech, not to mention that combat-ready MiB skirt Goldilo-, bwrrrr, Agent β keeps bugging me about. And don’t even get me started about that Ebola Surprise module you want so damn much for the Rollerball arena. Screw it, I’ll give it to the new guy."

"You’re the new guy."

"I mean the other new guy."

"I don’t like the new guy."

"What's wrong with the new guy?"

"He creeps me out."

"What d’ya mean he ‘creeps you out’? What the fuck does that mean?"

"It means he creeps me out!" Zed growls. "All that shit he goes on about rehabilitating Agents. ‘Rehabilitating,’ ‘resuscitating,’ ‘regurgitating,’ what the hell’s that word he’s always using--?"

"Do you know how many Agents we lose around here?"

"Yes, you asshole, I do know how many Agents we lose. I'm the one who assigns them, aren't I?"

"Well?"

"And when an MiB goes down, he stays down. I might not like it, but I sure as hell don’t need a goddamned MiB Zombie Division shambling around here trying to chow down on my skull for lunch."

B throws up his arms. "I can’t believe you’re this closed-minded."

Zed rolls his eyes. "What the fuck is it about this lab that makes people go batshit insane? If it’ll keep Agent H from pumping more of that weird, green, glowing shit into everything he sees then, yeah, get him working on this damn phone. Tell ‘em I’ll let him try rejuvenating the next Bug we get in here. Serve him right if he ends up something’s lunch himself."

Zed turns on his heel and heads out the door, bellowing, "Now, get busy, before I start thinking about demoting the old B's ass back in here."

"Asshole," B grumbles, failing to hear an evil Zed!chuckle from down the hall a few seconds later.