"Dang it 4! If you don't hurry up we're going to be late!" 2 said in an annoyed tone. He wanted to work with 3 on this mission. 3 wore the white suit like a pro. It hugged her body in all the right places...

"I'm here!" 4 said as he scrambled toward the car. He dropped his suitcase and it popped open allowing three jars of a thick purple jelly to roll out.

"You did not just drop three jars of neurogel!" 2 yelled, his frown lines growing and deepening as he watched the other man fumble. 

"It's fine! None of them broke!" 4 said excitedly as he packed the jars back into his bag and scuffled to the car. 

2 straightened the rear view mirror as 4 got into the car. A loud crash sounded off in the distance and the two men looked back to see what seemed to be a flying saucer shooting lasers at buildings downtown.

"We should probably get going." 4 said as if he wasn't the one holding them up in the first place.

"This is going to be a long day." 2 said as he heaved out an aggravated sigh. 

As they pulled up to and parked in front of the incredibly large, white building, 2 read the freshly shined plaque by the front doors.

This building was built in loving memory of  Laurel Weaver, a good friend and a great medical examiner.

2 took a deep breath and pushed through the double doors. Word got out quickly. The line in front of the checkin desk wrapped around the room twice. 2 wondered what kind of advertising had been done to get all of these people here for the opening day of the clinic. 4 was too busy trying not to drop his bag again to notice.

They had been briefed about this mission just the day before. It was all very vague. There would be medical care involved, of course. That's what the Men in White were for. Other than that, all they had was a meeting place and time. The third floor of this newly built building was where they were told to meet. 

2 and 4 put on their stark white coats in shockingly smooth unison as they walked up the stairs to the third floor.

0 stood in the center of an empty room. Her white coat was so long that it rested on the floor even tough she was wearing high heels. One of those heels, the right one, was tapping impatiently on the linoleum floor.

"Boys," She said as she saw 2 and 4 approaching her, "you're late." Her foot stopped tapping and she stared at them intensely.

"Apologies 0, we encountered some difficulties." 2 stated.

"No time for excuses! Walk with me." 0 said as she took off walking toward the door. 2 and 4 quickly followed her.

"I assume you boys saw the laser beams blazing through the sky this morning." 0 said as she took a sharp right turn. 4 almost tripped trying to follow her. 

"Yes we saw it. Was it an attack from the Genva Tre aliens?" 2 asked. The humans had been in a tense stand off with the Genva Tre for the past year. It wouldn't be surprising if the day's earlier shenanigans were a consequence of those tensions. 

"Oh how I wish it had been the Genva Tre. Then this could be solved with blowing up that stupid ship and calling it a day. Sadly, it's not the Genva Tre. It's the Crashyani." 0 replied as a window shattered behind them. 4 looked back to see multiple green beams of light shining through the broken window. They burned the adjacent walls as they did so. 0 and 2 continued walking as if nothing happened. 

"The Crashyani are our allies. Why would they attack us?" 2 asked in an upset tone. 

"This isn't an attack. It's a game of interplanetary laser golf." 0 answered with a sigh. 4 rushed to an unbroken window to check out the scene. In the street below he could see one of the beams carrying a large ball of cars, street signs, and mailboxes stuck together. In tractor beam fashion, the ball was carried until release was desired. The beam swung back for momentum and released the metal ball forward at an astonishing speed. It was so fast that 4 could no longer see the ball. When he turned to report this to 0 and 2, they were already long gone. He ran to catch up with them.

"They can't be playing laser golf! It's outlawed on this side of the galaxy according to the Trinbok  Accords!" 2 said.

"I know that! You don't see me starting a game of laser golf do you? The Crashyanis know it as well, but the one flying that ship doesn't care." 0 replied as she pushed open a heavy door and walked through it.

"So we shoot down the ship and arrest the pilot for breaking the Trinbok accord. Isn't that protocol?" 2 asked eagerly. 0 stopped abruptly and whipped around to face him. 

"I don't know why I'm explaining this to you. Obviously, control of this situation falls under the jurisdiction of the MIB, not us. But, you seem so eager to know about it so I will give you a quick overview. The pilot of that saucer is no regular Crashyani. He's the son of the Crashyani emperor.   If we take down that ship, the consequence will be intergalactic war and the loss of our greatest space allies." 0 said with aggravation in her voice.

"What do we do?" 2 asked eagerly. 

"We'll do what we were created to do, heal the patients. Leave the violence to the black suits." 0 said as she flipped a switch and one row of lights after another flip pen on ahead of them.

"It's a clinic." 2 said in a lackluster tone. As he was speaking, a flustered 4 rushed through the doors and crashed into 2's back. Both of them tumbled forward until the bumped into a bed.

"Whoa is this all one clinic?" 4 said in awe.

"It's not just any clinic. This is the newly designated clinic that will specialize in post neuralization syndrome." 0 said with a flourish.

"Does PNS require an entire clinic dedicated to it?" 2 asked, a little upset that his vast medical expertise would be wasted on this one condition.

"Do you remember anything about your life?" 0 asked as she walked up to 2 in a menacing manner. He was still on the ground which made her approach more scary.

"No." 2 answered, slightly ashamed.

"Then it's necessary. As many as 10% of the people who are neuralized by the MIB lose more memories than they are supposed to. Not all are as extreme as those of us who join the MIW, forgetting everything about our past, but any amount of memory loss it too much wouldn't you say?" 0 asked, taking a few calming steps back. 2 nodded in agreement. He remembered the nothingness. Before the MIW, when he had encountered the MIB after witnessing something he shouldn't have, he was neuralized. 

He didn't remember what lie they had told him to replace the erased memory. He didn't remember anything. That's how every new recruit to the MIW was. When neuralization didn't work or worked too well, there was nowhere else to go. Everything was gone from your mind except maybe some common sense and book knowledge. They were people created by messes made by the MIB and they were inducted into the agency meant to clean up the messes made by the MIB. It was a vicious cycle. 

2 wasn't sure if the MIW was a saving grace or a curse. They paid for him to go to medical school and they kept him steadily employed, but that's all there was. He knew nothing of his past. He had no friends or family, only medicine.

"Get to work. The clinic opens in 5 minutes." 0 said in an excited voice. She walked off through a door to 2's left. Once she was gone 2 pushed 4 off of him and stood up.

2 walked through the clinic, checking on the facilities. He looked at bed after bed, each one separated by a curtain for privacy. You could tell this was a PNS specialty clinic. There weren't any real medical supplies in the clinic. After all, the only things needed for PNS diagnosis and treatment was a well trained physician and some neurogel. Neurogel wasn't something that was stocked in the clinics. Each MIW agent was allowed three jars of neurogel a month. They had to use it wisely.

"Hey!" 4 yelled as he poke this head out of one of the privacy curtains, scaring 2 to death.

"What!?" 2 said, aggravated.

"Did you hear about 0? I heard she's the reason they founded MIW. I heard that she was a MIB agent before but she couldn't cut it. She asked them to neuralize her so she could go bask to her normal life. They did it, but something went wrong. She couldn't remember anything, not even her cat's name. She was the first documented case of PNS!" 4 said excitedly.

"Duh." 2 replied.

"You knew?" Asked 4 with a shocked expression. 

"Of course. Everyone knows that. That's why she's called 0. She is literally ground zero for the MIW." 2 answered with an all knowing smirk. 

"Oh." 4 said, seemingly disappointed. Sometimes 2 wondered how 4 graduated medical school.

No sooner than 4 had sulked back behind his curtain, a nurse brought a patient to 2 and handed him a file.

"Hello Doctor. We have a 45 year old male with no past medical history. He was found wandering the streets with no idea where he was going. He currently complains of a throbbing headache and blurry vision." The nurse said as she handed the file to 2 and walked off to get the next patient.

2 ushered the man into one of the curtained off areas and had him sit on the bed.

"Are you a doctor?" The man asked. He was looking in 2's direction but he didn't seem to be looking at 2 or focusing on him.

"Yes." 2 replied.

"Doctors fix sick people." The man said with a kind smile in 2's direction. 2 nodded.

"What's your name?" 2 asked.

"Name. Name is a word that people call you." The man replied.

"And what do people call you?" 2 asked. He began to sway gently side to side to see if the man would follow him with his eyes.  He did. It was a positive sign.

"Jeff." The man replied. This was good. He remembered something about himself which meant he wasn't so far gone as to need to become part of the Men in White. 

"Ok Jeff, what is your last name?" 

"W-wil-Wilton" Jeff said. A few veins popped up in his head as he tried hard to remember. 

"What were you doing this morning, Jeff?"

"Eating..... sitting...... it will be ok. I had coffee. Smiled at a pretty lady. Nothing flying." This man exhibited textbook signs of PNS. He had altered mental status with intermittent headaches and blurred vision. Then there was the taletell sign, confabulation. When parts of the memory were taken and replaced with a story that didn't stick, the brain often tried to fill  the gaps with random nonsense. 

2 reached into his white coat pocket and pulled out a jar of neurogel.  A small dab of the gel onto the forehead of the afflicted would do the trick. 2 took a finger tip size portion of the gel and massaged it gently into the man's forehead. 2 could see the light and recognition turning on in his eyes. As 2 removed his hand from Jeff's forehead, the man grabbed his arm tightly. 

"Laurel Weaver must be destroyed."  The man said as if he was possessed. His eyes suddenly dilated and then returned back to normal. Finally, the man's grip loosened and his face relaxed.

"Excuse me?" 2 asked with a shocked expression. 

"Hmmmm? Where am I? Can I go home?" Jeff asked. This was the reaction 2 expected. When people recovered from PNS with the help of neurogel, they always wanted  to go home right after.  The earlier declaration was strange but 2 shook it off as an anomaly.

Five patients later, 2 was on a roll. The patients with PNS got a treatment of neurogel and the ones that couldn't be cured were recommended for induction into the MIW. 

"2! 2! 2!" 4 yelled from the other side of the clinic. When 2 stuck his head out of the curtain, he saw 4 frantically waving for him to come over. 2 sighed loudly as he walked toward where 4 was standing. 

"What is it?" 2 asked in a hushed yet harsh tone. 

"Something weird is going on with my patient." 4 said. He threw open the curtain to reveal his patient.

"Kill Laurel Weaver." The woman in the bed said. 2 ran up to the side of her bed and examined her. Her eyes were dilated and every muscle in her body seemed tense. It was eerily similar to the patient 2 had seen earlier with the strange exclamations. 

"Why is this happening?" 4 asked with a fearful expression."

"I don't know I've never seen this before." 2 said. He grabbed the woman 's hand to see if she would grip him back. She did, but much too tight. She then opened her mouth and let out a low growl. 2 tried to release himself from her grasp but she held on tightly. Then the same growling noise came from other places in the clinic. The ground under their feet began to shake and 2 started to panic. 

"Help me!" 2 exclaimed as he frantically pulled against the woman's unrelenting grip. 4 ran over and tried to forcefully open the woman's hand. When that didn't work, 4 ran out of the room. 2 continued to struggle against the woman, fearing that 4 had left him for dead. 

Just when 2 had given up hope on the moron, 4 returned with a bed pan in his hands. He reared back and slammed the bed pan into the woman's head. She lost consciousness and therefore released her grip on 2.

As soon as 2 got his wrist back, he rubbed the sore spots. The ground continued to shake and thin cracks appeared. The cracks slowly enlarged and a slimy yellow hand reached out. 

"Bring me Laurel Weaver!" A booming voice said from inside of one of the crevices. At the sound of this voice, the female patient sat up in bed and stared at 2 and 4 with glowing eyes. 

"We need to go." 2 said. He looked toward where 4 was standing and saw that the man was already frantically running away.

2 chased after 4. More cracks formed under their feet as they ran. Each patient they passed had a newly formed pair of yellow eyes. They were slack jawed and kept repeating the same name over and over again, Laurel Weaver. 

4 ran with no real destination in mind. He jus wanted to get away from yellow eyes and hands. 

"This way!" 2 yelled as he took a sharp left turn. 

"Where are we going?" 4 asked with sharp, jagged breaths.

"To find Laurel Weaver!" 2 said. He pushed the words out of his mouth even though they burned as they left. A tall man with yellow eyes popped up in their path. 2 slid between the man's legs to avoid his grasp. 4 also went to slide, but he extended his fist in order to nail the guy square in the crotch. The man's knees buckled and he crumpled to the ground after 4 slid past him.

"Laurel Weaver is dead. I saw the plaque on the outside of the building!" 4 said, his harsh breaths were getting harsher. 

"So aliens come bursting up through the ground and possess people so that they can call for the destruction of an already dead woman?" 2 asked in an angry tone. 

"But the plaque..." 4 tried to say as he tripped on a newly formed crevice. A yellow hand reached out and grabbed his ankle. 2 skidded to a stop and ran back to help 4. After a few swift kicks from 2's boot, the hand receded back into the crack.

"We know plenty of people who are dead but also aren't. They're out in the world wearing the last suits they will ever wear." 2 said with a small smile.

"The Men in Black!? You think Laurel Weaver is a MIB agent?" 4 asked in shock.

"There are no MIB agents assigned here. We need someone who used to be an MIB agent." 2 said confidently. They had finally reached a part of the clinic where the ground was still solid. The basement was right ahead of them. If there were a place for an ex MIB agent to instinctively run to, this was it. 2 reached out and grabbed the doorknob, hoping that agent 0 would be the only one on the other side.