Work Text:
April had just taken a bite of her Danish when she heard a weary voice say, “One of your breakfast specials, please Fred.” Looking over her shoulder, she saw Dr. Anna Pasternak and waved an invitation. A couple minutes later, Anna came over and slumped into the seat across from her, mumbling an greeting.
“No offense, but you look exhausted, darling. Things not going well in Medical?” April was concerned for her friend.
“THEY are back.”
“But that’s great! THEY have been quiet for so long, I thought THEY might have forgotten us and gone to write stories for the Star Trek people. We need some excitement here.”
“Well, THEY better stop injuring agents or create some more staff for me. We’ve been having to work double and triple shifts to catch up.”
“There is that. Are THEY still picking on Illya so much?”
“Two bullet wounds, a nasty THRUSH drug, a vicious flogging, and buried under rubble from an explosion. Illya is furious about the explosion. He says it was a stupid mistake and THEY should know he doesn’t make stupid mistakes.”
“Yes, the poor darling does hate it when THEY write him as incompetent in any way.”
“In addition to beating up Illya,” Anna continued her rant, “THEY made Napoleon nearly bleed to death in an alley, had Angelique poison him with curare, ruined six expensive suits, and threw him off a boat in the middle of a storm at sea. Napoleon got hypothermia and an almost-lethal jellyfish sting from that, not to mention nightmares for weeks. How he got stung by a jellyfish in the Baltic Sea, I don’t know. Sometimes THEY don’t do enough research.”
“Or too much research. The last affair THEY wrote for me, you remember, the one where I had to infiltrate a nursing home because Thrush was using it to test a manufactured disease? There were five boring paragraphs of facts about nursing homes, staffing, costs. I lost a lot of readers at that point. Accuracy is one thing, but people want to read about us.”
“That was also the affair where you caught an ugly virus based on that pandemic in THEIR world, wasn’t it?”
“You found the cure in a few days, darling, and we distributed it globally by spraying it from airplanes.”
“Well, I can cure anything with some hand-waving and the right technobabble. In THEIR world, scientists can be blocked by politicians who deny reality for political advantage.”
“From what I hear, THEY have some politicians who make Thrush look benevolent. No wonder THEY like to spend so much time here. But I must go, darling; Mark and I are meeting with Mr. Waverly. I hope THEY are writing us an interesting affair.”
“Bonne chance!”