Most were humans of various departments, ages, sexes and genders, others were all number of alien creatures, and one was a vending machine. It, surprisingly, only used the word "meatbag" once when congratulating Nume.

One particular standout was a dark-skinned Sicilian man who looked to be somewhere near his early thirties, in a plush, comfortable-looking but formal suit, certainly not usual attire for a PPC agent at all, let alone one trying to relax. Basilico Andretti was grudgingly willing to admit that that might have been due to a lack of practise; if Nasira - and just where had she gone? - hadn't dragged him over here, the mass-email that came to his office's console might have gone read but ignored. It wouldn't have been out of dislike for anybody involved in this situation; it's hard to dislike people when you frankly have barely any idea who they are beyond what's in their files. No, it was more that few people really understood just how much paperwork went into keeping the DIA's Patrol Division running and effectively policing such a cheerfully anarchic community.

But here he was all the same, the weight of his gifts under one arm, his free hand covering one ear thanks to the sudden commotion from somebody's player piano. It sounded like it needed to be tuned up... with a sledgehammer. Eventually he made his way through the throng and to Nume's table, politely waiting until he wasn't engaged with anyone else before moving ahead.

"A decade's service is no small thing, Agent Supernumerary," he said, slowing down so the name wouldn't send his tongue tripping and rolling down a hill. "Please accept my congratulations, and these gifts."

After speaking, he gently placed his offerings on the table, a leather-bound hardcover book with no visible title atop a rosewood writing box with fluid brass inlay that ran over the wood in floral patterns. Gifts received, he gave Jenni and Ilraen a small nod as well.

"Nurse Robinson and Agent Ilraen-Aroline-Fothergill, I presume? I hope you're both well today."

Where there is Convenient Cake, there will also be Convenient Moochers. Agent Diocletian might have forcibly divorced herself from her Sue days--mainly by avoiding singing, shapewear, using the word 'pathetic' or allowing herself to be described as anything much beyond "oh, that one"--but she hadn't quite been able to conquer her need for sugar. The minute the cake appeared, she noticed it.

Then she noticed what was being celebrated, and it killed her mood somewhat. "Ai Elbereth," she muttered to Agent Suicide, who was sitting beside her eating a cheesy goat burrito. "Ten years. And he's from the Real World, too. I've never even seen the Real World."

"It's not all it's cracked up to be," Suicide said with his mouth full. "Colder and grayer. And there's no Universal Laws there, unless you count gravity."

"No wonder he's so twitchy, then." This from Diocletian, who looked like--"Hey! What did I say?"--nothing in particular, and certainly nothing beautiful or notable. Although there was a hint of chipmunk in her features. "Better. Anyway, he doesn't look too happy about it. That looks like good cake, but . . . maybe we should leave him alone."

"Nah. Got to give him his present, don't we?"

She shot a glance at Suicide. "You knew this was happening?"

"Jenni told me."

"Of course."

"And she sent a mass e-mail. What, you don't check your messages?"

"Not recently. Anyway, I thought you hated e-mail. How would you know about the message she sent?"

"I do hate e-mail, but I still check it. I kinda like watching Nigerian princes beg for my help." He finished his burrito and stood, pulling a little fabric-wrapped bundle out of his pocket. "C'mon, let's go say hi."

"Wait a second." Dio put a hand on his arm, less friendly and more restraining. "What did you get him?"

Suicide never blinked. "Ethnic spices."

"Ethnic spices."

"Yep."

"It's hemp, isn't it."

"May have a certain hemp-like quality, yeah."

With a sigh, she stood and followed Suicide over to where Nume was sitting. Scythians of his time had considered smoking hemp a religious duty--a way of communing with the dead, especially at royal funerals. She wasn't sure how Nume would react to that kind of present, though, considering that he a) wasn't Scythian, b) didn't like Suicide and c) seemed to be in some kind of personal hell. With cake.

"Happy anniversary," Su said cheerfully as he put down the packet on the table. "May your enemies fall before you, their fields be sown with salt and their women lament for your mercy."

"Okay, so, um... Cindy, can you tell us exactly what it is we're doing here?"

Cindy shot a glance at Anneli as the two of them walked in. "Well, since it's Supernumerary's tenth anniversary, I just thought... well, you know."

Anneli grunted again, and then wiped her forehead. "So that's why you had us shove a player piano all the way here from... from... that weirdo's house in Paris?"

"Hey, it was the most authentic thing I could think of for the occasion," said Cindy. "Ever since Xanthus told me about it, I figured it'd make a good gift somehow."

"I totally don't think this is gonna work, but whatever," she said. "Besides, I think we both know you just wanna see your boyfriend again."

Cindy blushed furiously as Anneli said this. "Ilraen is not my boyfriend!" she replied snappily.

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that," Anneli replied, clearly unconvinced. She then looked past the player piano, and suddenly composed herself. "Oh hey, I think it's him!"

Cindy immediately jumped up, glancing at where the andalite was in the room before bowing in front of Nume. "Um... hi," she said. "You probably don't know me, but I've met your partner Ilraen a couple of times. And... well, here I am, presenting you with a gift of a player piano."

Anneli sighed. "Like, we had to travel to early 20th Century France for this one," she said. She then glanced down at Cindy. "Don't ask her how she even heard of that Ballet Mécanique or whatever."

Cindy then nodded, starting the contraption on the player piano.

Three seconds later, complete chaos began to ring out from the strings of the player piano.

(( BTW, if you want a sense of Cindy's gift... well, just listen to the first minute of this video, and imagine it without any of the percussion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_4fqNL1aAM Yeah, George Antheil can be a bit crazy like that. ))

"Wow. Okay. So this can be a learning experience. 'Never send Doc to get any kind of present ever.' Lesson learned."

"I don't even know the man, Vania. You asked me to go get a present for some guy named 'Supernumerary'. I thought a high-end graphing calculator sounded like it would be appreciated."

Vania huffed and put her forehead into one hand. "Generic presents for people you don't know would generally be candy, Bleepstuff, maybe a card. Not a calculator."

Doc looked away. "Sorry I don't know your social people customs."

"Well, we're almost to Nume. And since you're the one who picked out the present, you can be the one to embarrass yourself." Vania shoved Doc forward towards Supernumerary.

Doc's eyes widened, and he clutched the present to his chest. "Um. Hi. Hi! Well, we . . . I . . . we got you a . . . something." He stiffly thrust the bow-bedecked calculator out to Nume.

A young Asian-looking woman with a pixie cut and lightning bolt tattoos on her midriff cut her way through the crowd on her way up to Nume. Somewhere between the door to the Cafeteria and the center table she'd acquired a rather festive party hat.

"Sup, old timer?" she said with a nod. "Name's Gremlin. We haven't met, but apparently you know my partner Xericka from somewhere. Or she knows you, anyway. She wanted me to give you this."

She handed over a rather sizable bottle of what appeared to be Bleeprum. There was a simple black ribbon tied in a bow around the bottle's neck.

"Happy anniversary, dude." Gremlin gave Jenni a nod. "Lookin' fine as always, Robinson. See you when you next swing by the Nursery." She then ducked back into the rambling masses with a final cry of "Somebody point me in the direction of something to drink!"

~~~~~

James Pittman gave a awed whistle as he took in the Cafeteria crowd from the relative safety of the door. "This Supernumerary fella must be something to get a reception like this," he said.

"Ten years of solid service," Laura Dukes replied. "I'd say that qualifies as being something."

"And how do you know him again?"

"Reputation only. What, you haven't heard anything about him?"

James gave his partner an appraising look. "I'm still new round here, darlin', in case you forgot," he said. "Haven't yet gotten to know enough folks well enough to start swappin' gossip."

"Well, here's your chance. Go! Mingle! I'm gonna go grab a slice of cake before they all vanish." Laura paused. "And if you see any aliens, don't stare. Or shoot them."

"I'm not that new, Lar. I know the general sort of weirdness that goes on 'round here."

"Just making sure," Laura said before pushing her way towards the cake.

((OOC: How does Xericka know Nume? Well, they technically did have very brief cameos in this story. Who's to say they didn't meet then? Either that, or at a bar somewhere. And Gremlin knows Jenni the same way Xericka did in the Halloween RP: they met at the Nursery.))

((No, they can’t. But if Androia and Hieronymus had been around, they would have noticed that Supernumerary was “starting at a fixed point in the middle distance”, and they could have tried to tell him that it might be more comfortable to be “staring” at this point.))

((Congratulations to Nume, and my apologies for being such a spoilsport.))

HG

Ilraen continues to be rather adorable. And Nume's lies about his job are making me think about Men In Black.

Plothole cake sounds awesome, but probably tastes a little stale.

Everyone will always make up the words to songs that they don't know. Including the people who claim to know said songs but can't remember what word goes where...

Arthur Briggs held the Cafeteria door open for his intern. It wasn't for reasons of good manners (though he tried to maintain them), it was because Lynn Gillies was carrying a much larger present than he was.

"Congratulations, Agent Supernumerary!" Briggs held out a carved wooden box. "Reaching ten years here is quite an accomplishment. I don't think you've met my current intern, Lynn Gillies. Gillies, this is Agent Supernumerary from DIC."

Gillies smiled, and placed a neatly-folded mass of fabric on the table. "It's good to meet you." She glanced down at the fabric. "I wasn't sure what the appropriate present for these events would be, I hope you like this. It's a tapestry I snagged out of a badfic, the designs are supposed to be Arabic."

OOC: If Nume opens the box, Briggs got him a phaser pistol.

...revealing a short Chinese woman sporting a black bob cut and an enormous grin. She worked her way towards the DIC Agent and placed a shoebox in front of him.

"Agent Supernumerary, is it? A pleasure to meet you!" she chirped. "I'm Penny Chang, from Intelligence. I just wanted to say that it's really fantastic that you've managed to tough out ten years here! Now, I think that you'll appreciate this gift, it's handmade..."

Penny flipped the top of the shoebox with a thumb. A painted balsa wood model of an Excelsior-class starship silently rose from the container and started to hover around the table slightly above head height.

"A few friends of mine came together to make this. We know you really like Star Trek, so we thought you'd get a kick out of a model ship. It can avoid obstacles and curious minis on its own, so no need to keep it tied up or anything. If ever the floaty charm starts to fade on this, you can just take it down to RC 845 and ask for the resident wizard. He'll gladly re-work his spell on it for you."

She took a single step back from the table. "Well, I'll be seeing you, then. Don't work yourself too hard, 'cause we Spies love reading your mission reports. If you go mad or missing or something, we won't be getting any new ones! Cheers!" she said with a smile.

The crowd shifted again and the woman vanished from sight.

February 2013. Along the timeline of things that occurred in HQ in 2013, this was indeed one of those calms before the storm.

"How lovely," Agent Christianne Shieh remarked as the console lit up with a message. "Agent Supernumerary's tenth anniversary of being in the PPC."

"A remarkable achievement," agreed Agent Eledhwen Elerossiel.

"Especially given the high turnover rate." Christianne turned from the console. "There's a celebration in the Cafeteria. Want to go?"

"Will there be chocolate?"

Christianne groaned.



The Disentangler and the Agent landed their TARDIS just inside the Cafeteria. Their TARDIS had taken on the look of a distasteful floral display.

"What a nice party. They have tea and everything," said the Agent cheerily as he looked around. The Disentangler rolled her eyes.

"Pretty high turnout. Surprising, given the venue," she said, grinning and waving at some of the other partygoers. "There's Jeeves and Rooney from DOI. What the hell are they carrying?"

"Looks like presents."

"Looks like a pile of socks to me."

"Why would Nume need more socks?"

The Disentangler rolled her eyes again. "I dunno, sock puppets?"

"Is he the sockpuppet sorta guy? Because he's a lot like... which one of me was it, again? No, wait, it was one of you. I swear, every other one of your regenerations is sarcastic."

The Disentangler rolled her eyes. "Hush," she said, waving at Nerys and Lisa who were standing by the food (which looked a bit meatloafy and way too glittery to be edible).



"Happy anniversary!" declared Rooney as he and Jeeves presented their present to Nume.

"It is, I believe, an achievement to have come this far," agreed Jeeves, even if the only times the two DOI agents had ever seen Nume were usually from afar and rarely on Cluedo nights in the Cafeteria.

Rooney nodded. "The socks are all patterned for different days of the week. And there are lots of bright green patterns. To go with your glasses."

"We're just going to go have some Convenient Cake," added Jeeves, tugging his friend by the arm towards the table of slightly more edible-looking refreshments.



"I put an experiment on hold for this," Scientist Lori Starrett groused as her husband Bill presented a set of ever-changing coloured pens to Nume.

"Yeah, well, try reaching your tenth anniversary in this madhouse. I think it's worth a stab at celebration," her husband muttered.

Lori rolled her eyes before smiling at Nume. "Happy anniversary," she said in a much nicer tone.



"Pretty good party, isn't it?" wondered Christianne as she and Eledhwen entered the Cafeteria. "Ooh, there's Lori. She looks well."

"Is she not supposed to be?" wondered Eledhwen.

"Pregnancy rumours," Christianne replied quickly before hefting s colourfully-wrapped bag of Bleep-candies (Gummyblees, Bleepolate, the works). Eledhwen has suggested a pocket watch, but Christianne had shot the idea down. After all, in some cultures (like hers), it was rude to send people clocks. It was a subtle way of telling them their time was running out.

Eledhwen frowned. "I was not aware there were rumours," she said as they stepped over to where Nume was, after Lori and Bill wandered off into the crowd.

"Yeah, well." Christianne shrugged. "You hear things at the pub during game nights. Moreso at the poker table, though.

"Speaking of which, you have yet to show me how to count --"

"Not mentioning that here," snapped Christianne before grinning over at Nume and tossing him the candies. "Happy anniversary!"

(Note: That turned out longer than expected.)

Wobbles joined proceedings the only way she knew how; bursting in at pace with a party hat perched atop her massive rainbow-striped wig. "Whooooooooooo's the birthday lifeform? Come on, don't be shy! You're in the Cafeteria, you can't be that shy of... a... wha?"

"Human," said the Notary with withering scorn as she trudged behind her partner, "it is a tenth anniversary party. It is commemorating the extremely long service of a respected agent, who is also a human. I was under the impression that all your people knew each other."

"Oh. Okay, so, we can still do the balloons, right? Hiya mister Nume! Congrats on ten years of doing the strangest job in the known multiverse! You get a llama!" With that, she wobbled over to Nume and tied a large, surprisingly detailed balloon llama to his right wrist. "YAY!"

"I'm sorry about her, agent Supernumerary. She's... excitable. Human, you're in breach of several health and safety regulations."

"Uh, meaning?"

"Meaning get off of that ridiculous unicycle."

"Grouch."

"Well spotted." The Notary walked over to Nume and fished around in her robe pockets, eventually pulling out a hardback tome that made War And Peace look like a Mr. Men book. "This is for you. It's a beginner's guide to easy requisition of necessary items. Nobody fills out the order forms correctly these days and it makes life hell." Her voice got louder. "If anyone else at this gathering desires one, they are for sale in RC 1875 at a reasonable and competitive price. Follow the sound of human circus marches. I do not accept favours, payments in kind, or painted rocks. Thank you for listening."

"D'you really think they were?"

"Yes, and I told you to dismount."

"I know," said Wobbles as she trundled off in search of some cake.