There was a new speed record set in Middleton that day; if it weren’t for a license plate that could alter its numbers and a diffusion layer of liquid crystal over the paint job, Shego would never have eluded the half dozen police cars that tried to pull her over. The tinted windows would keep her description out of the all-points bulletins and the car had long since been deliberately modified to make the outline too vague to match any specific make or model of two door sedan.
She reached the end of an isolated road at the distant outskirts of town and let the vehicle spin in the loose dirt track. A quick reverse and she was well hidden to allow the most persistent officer to race right by her hiding place; from the road it was impossible to discern that the entire area had been landscaped to conceal the hidden access.
Shego waited several minutes, not even daring to make use the of the cars excellent sound system. Waiting with both hands locked around the wheel, she watched from her vantage point as the police car eventually returned, this time at a much slower rate, and passed her a second time on its disappointed journey back towards town. Only when several more minutes had elapsed did she move.
Continuing to drive the car in reverse gear, Shego continued down what had just been a convenient hiding place moments ago. The end of the hidden lane terminated more than a mile away, the narrow track stopping at the collapsed wall of an abandoned sand pit. She left the car without even bothering to shut the door and approached a large projection of rock in the sandy hillside.
The rock lifted to give her admittance to the void beyond.
This lair hadn’t been used in a long time; structurally intact, the main power source had been damaged when Kim Possible had found her way in and foiled Drakken’s plan to create the ultimate heat shielding using hominy grits. After coating the underside with grits, the madman had actually thought that his low orbit attack craft could move through the Earth’s atmosphere at greater speeds than any space shuttle, and without fear of damage from heat caused by friction; and all because his breakfast kept getting cold too fast because NOTHING loses heat faster than grits.
Shego had been here a few times over the years. Drakken hadn’t used it since that failed plan but he had left a few goodies behind that occasionally came in handy. The tall warrior smiled at how her little Kimmie had fought that day; she’d been a whirlwind of energy, a real spitfire. They battled for an hour before Ron had accidentally tripped over the power flow regulator and caused the generator to catch fire.
The image of Kim in her mind was bright for a few seconds, but she pushed it aside when it became too painful. Pulling an auxiliary Kimmunicator battery from her ankle pouch, Shego managed to activate the backup computer with little trouble. The system was damaged but would reboot sufficiently in a short time.
As she waited, Shego looked around her at the shadowed ruins and felt a pang of guilt. She smirked to the empty room as she admitted that maybe her Princess wasn’t such a ‘bad influence’ on her after all. Kimmie didn’t know about this place and Shego hadn’t ever planned on telling her about it; not for lack of trust in Kim, but rather a long-felt distrust in the legal system always kept Shego ready to vanish in a moments notice. If she needed a hiding place, this would be it until she could make contact with Kim.
And then what, relocate to this damp and ruined hole? Would Kim enjoy cooking breakfast in a powerless kitchen nook using a fire that she would have to make by herself in the sink? Would the two women ‘home school’ their girls in this gloomy place?
In truth, this abandoned lair served as a home for Shego’s insecurities.
When a few lights began to flicker on the shattered consoles, the pale warrior activated the data banks and began to run several inquiries of known medical technology routinely employed by Global Justice. She also ran an alternate search for anything Drakken had ever recorded of containment and research devices, also pinpointing those utilized by ‘GJ’.
While the machines labored over their tasks, Shego retired to a corner where she had stored a few nonperishable foodstuffs. Drinking some bottled water, she hunkered down and did her best to stop listening to the echoes of her last battle with Kimmie in this place. She was eventually drawn from her meditations by a faint signal from the console and the screens greeted her with several replies that amounted to one thing.
Drakken’s records had nothing that would provide the basic schematics of the medical containment hut that her Princess was being housed in, and nothing about the energy field she could feel running through the glass-like shielding.
Wade paced the floor of his room, the several altars to his gods of technology silent for once. The young boy was in a severe quandary and none of his computerized devices were helping to make any further sense of it. He was in such a dire state that he had walked downstairs and looked out of his own back door, a hair’s breadth from actually walking outside to sit on his old swing set, yearning for the innocence of his once favorite childhood pastime and wanting to purge his mind of what he had learned.
Ever since Shego had contacted him, he had been attempting to determine exactly what could be wrong with his best friend. Kim never acted funny or got into serious trouble or anything; and now ‘GJ’ had scoured the planet looking for her and was telling friends and family that she was ill. Whatever was wrong with his favorite redhead was not being recorded electronically because Wade could find no documents in the ‘GJ’ archives or visual images of Kim anywhere in the entire facility after her initial arrival.
He did find several veiled references to ‘the patient’ and he could watch the comings and goings of med-techs in the halls outside of her ward, but nothing inside the ward itself; Kim Possible was totally cut off from the outside world. Hours of searching and hacking had proven fruitless, and he suspected that this unusual security measure was being taken specifically to keep him in the dark; they had to know that he’d hacked their systems long ago.
But then he found something.
The record appeared during a random rifling of one of the various email servers within ‘GJ’, and then the document was expunged before he could save a copy on his own machines. He suspected that the message had been relayed via email in error, and that the breach in security would be dealt with harshly, but he had seen it and read it and it was burned into his young mind. The message itself had been very short.
‘Termination approved should patient seek to escape.’
It could only have one meaning, but that was the one meaning that it could not possibly have! This was Global Justice, the world savers that Kim had worked alongside of for years! Wade had never known these people to kill or assassinate anyone outright, and he would certainly know if they had. He had to tell someone, to inform them that all was not well, and that his best friend could be in serious danger.
Kim’s parents wouldn’t believe him, neither would Ron; they would rationalize it and tell him that he had misinterpreted a message that meant something else entirely. At the very least it would delay any action until ‘GJ’ knew that Wade had intercepted the message and it was too late. Kim had plenty of friends and acquaintances, but none of them had the power to step in and take control of the situation, and they’d probably not believe him either.
He needed someone paranoid and distrustful of the forces of good.
But how was he to get in touch with her?
He could think of only one way; using his formidable skills and the plethora of available materials in his room, he assembled a few items and walked downstairs to find his mother.
Shego arrived back at the Possible residence to find a strange car parked in front of the house; there was nothing unusual about the vehicle other than she knew that it didn’t belong to the family. She walked inside and saw that the Drs. P were entertaining a guest that Shego had never met before; a middle aged black woman was chatting with Anne while John sat nearby. They looked up as the green and black clad warrior entered the room.
“Shego, this is Mrs. Load.” Anne remained seated and gestured to the woman with her hand. Shego moved closer, unsure if she should shake hands or anything, when the name finally got her attention.
“Wade’s mom?”
“Yes, that’s right.” Her voice was soft and pleasant; she didn’t even look angry.
“Look, it was a goof and I only did it that one time. It was a mistake and I swear that I’ll never do it again, I promise!”
John rolled his eyes and quickly stood to usher the pale woman out of the living room.
“Was that Kim’s friend?”
“Yes, that was she.”
“Very pretty, but a little excitable, isn’t she?”
John stifled a grin when he turned Shego around to face him; the situation was funny even if the times were serious.
“Wade is upstairs in Kimmie-cub’s room with Bonnie and the girls. His mother brought him here, and you know that he never leaves his house.” John looked over his shoulder at the stairs to the loft. “He apparently wants to talk to you.”
“Me? Why?”
“I don’t know, but go easy on him. Maybe he can help.”
Shego nodded, not too comfortable that this boy, mostly a stranger to her for all of his interactions with Kim, was with her daughters. But, Dr. Mr. P was right; any help from Wade would likely be powerful.
She climbed the stairs up to the back loft bedroom, the sound of laughter and shrieks of joy was silk across the frayed ends of her nerves, and the late morning sun warmed the floor as three of the occupants crawled and rolled together and had a raucous time; a fourth occupant, a stranger to this house, calmly sat on the bed and observed. Bonnie lay back on the thick carpeting, her hair a mess and her face red, lifting a squealing Sheki over her chest while the infant’s green-black hair brushed across the giggling brunette’s smiling face. Kasy sat beside Bonnie’s head, also squealing and her hair unkempt, because she had gotten the same treatment only a few moments ago.
The trio played, apparently oblivious to the observer, but he had his reasons for staying aloof. As Shego’s presence was noticed, the players directed their attention to her, the infants thrusting out plump arms and grasping at her with soft hands, not a callous to be found. Bonnie lowered the one girl and grinned as both tiny forms crawled towards the towering figure, the brunette not feeling the least bit slighted for their change in attention.
Shego decided to let her visitor play his game to its conclusion; she bent down to scoop up her dear ones. They tugged at her hair and slapped at her face and she could not think of anything better than this. Except for her Kimmie…
“Bonnie, thank you for watching the girls as much as you have. I suppose that you know that I’ll need all the help I can get for a few days. Are you game?”
“Sure, anytime. And thank you.” She grinned, life glittering across her tanned skin.
“Could you let me have the room for a few minutes? I’ll join you downstairs when we’re finished up here.”
No reply, just a nod and a glance at the boy seated on the bed. She left with her charges tucked under each arm and Shego decided to play a little game of her own. Just how much of a rabbit was this little man? Why was he here, instead of peering up from a tiny Kimmunicator screen? She walked to the bed, tall and proud, her eyes flashing and hands perched on hips; she struck the picture of a gloating villain.
“Well?”
Wade had been looking at the playing children, and then at the wall across the room; only now did he raise his eyes to look upon the face he had always feared to see in person, exposed and out of his shell.
Oh, crap, I’m going to be sick.
The terror of being out of his room and in a strange house collapsed upon him, and the embarrassment of being a young man but acting like a frightened baby weighed heavily on his chubby frame. The tears started and he couldn’t stop them.
Damn it, no! I have to tell her, there’s too much at stake for me to lose it now!
The boy did his best to fold into himself, covering his face with his arms and laying down on the bed on his side. The world slowly went away, but then the strong and gentle arms of his mother touched his shoulders and he heard the sound of her voice, probably telling him to be strong, that everything was all right. It was a few moments before he calmed down enough to realize that it was not his mother speaking to him, holding him.
“It’s Ok, Wade, please… it’s Ok.”
Oh, crap, it’s her. Ok, got to keep breathing, oxygen is our friend.
“G…”
“Take your time.”
“Guess… you see why I never… faced you in combat, huh?”
Shego had her arms around the boy’s prone form, frightened at his reaction and ashamed that she had pushed him with her veiled threat. Wade sniffled and his arms relaxed and fell away from his face.
“Sorry.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about that I can see.” Good Lord, this wasn’t some form of lazy couch potato, this kid had a real problem.
“Just… just don’t tell my mom, Ok?” He still hadn’t looked at her. “I’m really working hard at getting out.”
“Deal.”
“It helped, you know.”
“Huh? What helped? Helped what?”
“Seeing them with you; the girls. It’s one of the reasons I asked my mom to bring me over.” The boy seemed to be as relaxed as he could get in so short a time and after so strong a reaction. “I know that Kim trusts you, but you and I… we haven’t really hit it off so well yet.”
Shego slid away and sat on the edge of her Kimmie’s old bed.
“Take it from me kid, you and I are doing pretty well compared to the people that I really don’t like!” She did her best to make it a joke. He nodded, and pushed himself upright on the pink and white comforter.
“You going to be Ok?”
“Could… could you move away a little?”
Not offended and wanting to hurry along his recovery, Shego took to a rocking chair and waited. In only a few more moments, Wade was breathing easier and slowly forcing himself to make and retain eye contact.
“I came here for two reasons. The first I already told you; those girls love you and you obviously love hem. I can’t think of a better way to prove to me that you seriously care for them and for their mother.”
Shego had to remind herself that this boy lived his live vicariously and had not seen enough of their family together to form an opinion yet; she conceded that he had a good point.
“Also, there’s something seriously wrong at ‘GJ’. Now…” he seemed to be marshalling his strength. “I need you to NOT react when I tell you this.”
“Look, Wade, whatever it is, if it involved Kimmie, I want to know.”
“And I’m here because I’m going to tell you. But you have to promise that you won’t run off half cocked.”
She sighed; apparently this child had developed delusions of grandeur after being the brains behind ‘Team Possible’ all this time. Did he actually think that he could anticipate her actions?
“I promise. Now what’s the sitch?”
Kimmie…
He seemed angry to hear those words coming from her lips, but he nodded and slowly withdrew a folded note. It was a hand written copy of the message he’d spied all too briefly that morning. He let the tall woman read that single sentence, and then she read it a few more times.
“It can’t be talking about Kim.”
“It’s hard to believe, but I think that they must be talking about her.”
“No way, she’d worked with them for years! They’d never do this to her!” Shego shock her head, hair billowing about her shoulders. “No, this is wrong.”
“That’s what I thought at first, but you need to hear the rest!” Wade explained his surveillance of the ‘GJ’ internal network and security archives; how all evidence of Kim’s incarceration and quarantine were being expunged and kept secret.
“But what about curing her? I suppose that you already hacked the briefing, right?”
“Huh?” She had caught him off guard. “What briefing?”
“At Global Justice, just yesterday. You mean that you didn’t see it from your home?”
“No I didn’t, but there are some rooms without security monitoring cameras.” Wade turned around and looked her full in the face. “Was the presentation low-tech?”
“Well, yeah. They used slides and a projector with overlays.”
“Bingo, they definitely know that I’m deep inside. Have to fix that… later.”
Shego gave the boy a quick review of what she and the Possibles had witnessed that day, from the horrible symptoms of Kim’s malady to an overview of her quarantine cell to the mysterious history of ‘Havok’.
“Wow, ‘Havok’… they definitely know more about it than I do.”
“You mean that you’ve heard about this stuff?”
“Yes, but mostly as rumor, you know? I never thought that there would be any evidence found of its actual existence.”
“I guess it’s like all of the rumors of aliens landing in the desert and their bodies being stored and examined at some army base, right?”
“Um… yeah, just rumor. Right.” Wade rubbed the back of his neck and nervously hoped that Shego wouldn’t ask him if he knew more about that particular subject.
Desperate to maintain what little control he could salvage, Wade quickly walked around Shego, giving her a wide berth, and sat in front of Kim’s computer. In a few quick keystrokes, he was almost back to his normal self. Without a backward glance he opened an Internet browser and gained remote access with his own formidable network.
“Tell me more about her cell.”
She did, and also about the apparent energy field running through the glass. This gave him pause and he turned away to focus on access his database at home. Sensing her move up behind him, Wade leaned back to let Shego have a better look at the screen
“This machine is so slow. After… after she’s all better, I’ll upgrade her computer for the two of you.”
“Thanks, Wade.” Neither of them noticed that her hand was resting on his shoulder.
“Here it is; I thought that what you were describing sounded familiar to me. You’re not going to like this.”
“I don’t like any of this, so tell me.”
“This technology was developed to contain you, negating your plasma and keeping you under lock and key indefinitely.” Nimble fingers conjured a set of blueprints and schematics of the exact same room within a room that Shego had visited the other day.
“The low wall here contains the power source and flow regulators, I’ll explain what the regulators do in a minute. The glass isn’t really glass at all; it’s a granular composite that is actually quite soft and fragile… until an energy field locks it into a stabilizing matrix, making it both harder to penetrate but also less brittle to prevent cracking under impact.”
Shego listened to this with a numb feeling in her chest.
“And ‘GJ’ was going to use this to imprison me? When?”
“I don’t know, but I’d say that if Kim had ever beaten you long enough to land in custody one more time, they would have thrown away the key.”
“Would this really work against my powers?”
“Well, I knew that ‘GJ’ had never been able to find anything that could fully resist your plasma, but they did find a way to replicate the plasma’s effect in limited strengths. If the energy field used to reinforce the ‘glass’ were of that same particular energy signature, then the walls would be immune to your plasma and also resistant against force attacks because the ‘glass’ wouldn’t break. That’s what the regulators are for; to ensure that the flow of the energy field is neither negated nor compromised.”
“How about the door? There was a different material around that to create an airlock.”
Wade returned to the schematics, reading.
“That was were they’d mounted gas discharge vents; at the first sign of resistance, they would be able to knock you out using gas. I suspect that you would have been bound and restrained in other ways, also. With guards posted around the cell, you’d have no time to do anything before they neutralized you.” The young man looked uncomfortable and a little embarrassed.
“Sorry.”
“Hey, it’s not like you helped build it… did you?”
“NO!”
God, Lord, this kid’s going to die before he’s twenty if he doesn’t chill out.
“But it’s been built and if it’s strong enough to hold you, what hope does Kim have? And if the situation is as bad as it sounds, there’s already a plan in effect to end her life if necessary.”
Shego’s thoughts returned to her precious Kimmie, her angel, sitting all alone in this prison of tile and glass, alone because you cannot include your captors as company. A sick little girl, cut away from her family, friends and children, sick and possibly dying if a cure wasn’t found. A selfless life lived to protect others and for what, to rot in a cell for years uncounted?
No matter what happens, Kimmie should be at home with loved ones around her.
Fire burned in her brain as well as her heart. Shego was on her feet and moving quickly to the bedroom door when a small but heavy body tackled her from behind. To be precise, it was not a real tackle; Wade had simply thrown himself at her legs, barely making her have to pivot for balance. The action alone caused her to look down at him, stopping her motion and holding the fire at bay for a second.
“No! Don’t go! You’ll ruin our chances of doing anything if you go in alone!”
Wade rolled over on his back, not even able to grab her as he jumped because his arms were wrapped around himself in abject terror of her power. He looked like the frightened rabbit that she had expected, but the voice was strong and commanding.
“I know what you want to do. You want to see her, talk to her. You want to get her out of there!” He choked once but found his breath. “You’ll need me to get her out!”
Shego didn’t hesitate when she bend down and lifted the boy up onto his feet; she wouldn’t coddle him because for all she knew it had been the cause of his problem. But if she was going to keep her head, she needed a plan to fill it, and this young man seemed to have one. Shocked by the contact, Wade was too startled to react or lose his composure. He let Shego help him up and then she moved away to pace back and forth across the floor, at a comfortable distance away, before she dared to speak.
“If you’ve got a plan, spill it, otherwise it’s ‘guns blazing’ time because I will NOT let my Princess waste away in that cell!” With a thought and a reflex action, green death ignited from her clenched fists.
I swear that if I pee my pants, I’ll just ask her to kill me right here and now, yep.
“First, I want you to have this.” He removed a small object from his pocket and held it out to her; the device was about the size of a pack of cigarettes and conformed nicely within the human hand; it was dark green and black and looked much like a Kimmunicator.
“I made it for you and I call it the ‘Shegophone’… it’s really a Kimmunicator but it’s for you and it has something special added. I’ll explain what it is later. Now, this is just a rough draft, but here’s an idea that I had…”
Within minutes, Shego agreed that they had a plan to free her precious Kimmie.
To blazes with the globe and to blazes with justice; sometimes Dr. Betty Director hated the cause she had chosen in life. She could handle events as grand as an attempt to take over the planet and as mediocre as the disabled elevator down the hall from where she was standing, but cloistered in the shadows to watch a dying child was not within her range of experience.
Thud… thud…
Having completed a round of the ubiquitous paperwork, Dr. Director had returned to the observation room containing Kim Possible and her quarantine hut.
Thud…
Blast, it’s a prison cell; why I cannot make myself call it that escapes me.
The uniformed woman stood in the shadows and watched as a slender redheaded girl slowly and methodically beat her forehead against the glass of the cell, apparently oblivious of either the damage she was causing to herself or the blood running down across her face.
Thud…thud…
Blood and pitch; good Heavens, but this affliction is a waking nightmare.
Feeling sorrow and shame that would never find its way to her face, Betty kept her thoughts bottled inside as Kim kept hurting herself. Dr. Director assumed that the actual pain had been erased a long time ago, but surely the girl felt something.
At first Kim had been sedate and amicable as always, at least when she was at her most lucid. Then she had begun to fixate on the image of her daughters in the picture taped to the other side of the glass, ignoring all of the friendly and concerned med-techs working around her, walking up to the image and kissing the glass in a gesture that was both cute and heart wrenching.
As if despondent, Kim had placed her forehead against the glass and seemed to be weeping silently, still unaware of those around her that were desperate to cure and care for her; even the med-techs didn’t know what Dr. Drakken had been telling their own executive officer, that ‘Havok’ could not be cured.
Then Kim would raise her head and lower it again, raise and lower against the cool glass; it’s energy field only evident to special equipment or those special people with the natural abilities to sense such forces. The contact started out as a gentle tattoo but slowly progressed into an impact like that of a bass drum.
Thud… thud… thud…
Dr. Director would have removed the picture if it would mean that the girl would stop damaging herself, but the messy wounds she was inflicting upon her forehead were healing almost as quickly as she caused them, and with the assurance that Kimberly was doomed anyway, Betty was starting to feel more than a little despondent herself. Besides, the image of her children made the young hero happy. If her time remaining on this mortal coil was to be counted in days, why should Kim not be happy?
A muted signal at her lapel lifted her from her funk and brought Betty back into the world of Global Justice.
‘Director here.”
“Ma’am, the patient has a visitor and it’s Shego. Do we admit her?”
Dr. Director lifted a hand to rub at her sole eye, careful not to disturb the medical patch and the tender flesh beneath. She left the containment ward and walked out into the hallway.
“Yes, but ensure that every security protocol is followed; nothing is to be brought into the ward.”
Anticipating trouble but not feeling up to a potential hassle with the barely reformed villain, Dr. Director moved to a side door and entered the primary monitoring kiosk of the medical containment ward; from here she could watch and listen to everything that happened within that room and be ready with the monitoring team to intervene should things get out of hand. She grunted under her breath; ‘out of hand’ seemed to describe this situation perfectly.
‘Doctor? Care for a seat?”
The kiosk was small, barely larger than a closet, but it was the central observation point for the ward. Not connected to the rest of the ‘GJ’ monitoring systems, its relative isolation would keep any external prying eyes at bay.
I’ll have to offer that young man a job one day, she ruminated over the young Wade Load.
“No, thank you, Hedges. Just ignore me for a minute.”
Agent Hedges nodded to her and resumed running his security checks, partnered as usual with his cohort Agent Benson. The two men had been close to the young adventurer and had asked to be kept on the special team assigned to her treatment for as long as the situation existed. The three found themselves watching the same display screen as an elevator door opened at the end of the hallway just outside of their door and a green and black woman stepped out; her voice was tinny as it came through the speakers.
Shego exited the elevator and walked to the final security checkpoint before she could gain admittance to the medical ward. She looked at the attending agent in disgust and motioned over her shoulder with a slight turn of her head.
“Hey, what’s with that other elevator? Broken?”
“Out of order, the techs are working on it now.”
“Great; what other junk do you have that’s falling to pieces from neglect around this dump?” Shego rolled her eyes in disgust. “Did you know that I had to park my hover sled on top of the roof? The last thing that I want is for a cable to break while I’m taking the elevator back up!”
“It’s nothing with the machinery and the cables are strong, it’s just the computer programming that keeps the doors closed when the machine is moving.” Irked by her reference to Global Justice as a ‘dump’, the agent felt it his duty to set this woman straight.
“It’s been taken off line for repair and with your safety in mind.”
“I feel safer already.” Shego approached the agent and submitted to a search; he already had his metal detector out and waved it across her stoic form. The most obvious items of note were a stuffed animal she was carrying under her arm, which did not cause the device to register any metal, and a small green and black device that had been secreted inside of her shin pouch.
“Sorry, miss, but this will have to stay with me.” The agent placed her Shegophone on his desk. The pale woman shrugged nonchalantly, still holding the plush toy.
“I can’t let you take that in either.”
This bothered the woman, but she seemed to anticipate the agent’s demand.
“Look, it’s just a toy; it’s been Kim’s since she was a kid. They tell me that she’s not sleeping, well maybe this will help her sleep, right?”
The agent looked at the stuffed toy, apparently one of those Cuddle Buddies ™ that were so popular a few years ago; this one was black and white and looked like a cross between a panda and a kangaroo and it certainly did look care worn.
“I’m sorry, really, but nothing else can be taken into the ward with you.”
The tall woman looked like she was ready to argue the point for a moment, but made no other reaction except a deep scowl. As she made to walk past the guard, he caught sight of something tucked under her belt, something that didn’t seem to be a part of her green and black uniform.
“Wait a second, let me see that.”
Shego spun on her heel and faced the man, already pulling out a photograph from where it had been folded.
“Now you just BACK OFF, asshole! This is a picture of her DAUGHTERS and there is already ONE picture in that room already. There is NO WAY that you are NOT going to let me take this in to her!” Shego held the printed image up for him to inspect, but she would not hand it to him.
The agent could sense when certain lines were being skirted and he felt that this was going to be a problem. Not taking his eyes off Shego, he moved to the desk and accessed Dr. Director’s personal communications frequency. Down the hall and sequestered in the observation kiosk, Betty had been watching the interaction and was considering themselves fortunate that Shego hadn’t been making more of an issue about the other two items. She thumbed her lapel microphone to reply to the agent.
“Dr. Director, we have a…”
“Yes, I can see that. I approve the photograph, but nothing else.” If this was the worst that she would have to tolerate from Shego today, Betty considered herself lucky.
Through the speakers in the kiosk, the agent’s voice and Shego’s sarcastic reply could be clearly heard. Before she walked away from the security checkpoint, the pale woman looked down at the two personal items that she was forced to leave behind.
“I want you to keep these right here until I get back.” She laid her hand across the fuzzy coat of the Panda-Roo and gave the toy a firm squeeze, but she merely pointed to her Shegophone. With that, Shego disregarded the agent and walked to the doors of the medical ward.
The interior of the vast chamber was exactly like it had been the other day, except that she seemed to be alone; no other med-techs were present at the moment, which she considered ideal for her purposes. She had almost reached the clear walls of the cell when her Princess looked away from the earlier photograph and noticed her wife’s arrival.
“Sheegie Weegie! You came back!”
Kim’s eyes were shadowed and encircled with dark rings but from her apparent inability to sleep, and not due to that horrible pitch. The girl looked haggard but whole, except for red and black stains at the center of her forehead. A similar pattern was evident on the glass before her, marring her view of that other picture. It was all that Shego could do to keep the tears and bile at bay. From her vantage point in the observation kiosk, Dr. Director was relieved to see that all was well and that there was no drama.
“I told you I was coming back, Pumpkin. Didn’t you believe me?”
“Sure! Are we going to have that picnic now?” Kim brought her hands together in a feeble clap. It was good to see Kim lucid, even if she was a little confused.
“Well, maybe later, but first I have a surprise for you.” Shego brought out the 3” by 5” picture of their children and held it up for Kim to see; the redhead giggled and smiled her death’s head smile.
“Oh, my babies! They’re so beautiful… Please put it on the wall!”
“Your wish is my command.”
Shego turned to the nearest cart in the medical ward and found what she was looking for with little trouble; she tore off a few strips of medical tape and used them to secure the new picture on the glass barrier just as she had done before.
“Kimmie, sweetheart, we’re going to play a game.”
“We are? Spank’n!”
“Yep, we’re going to play hide and seek. I’ll close my eyes and you hide, Ok?”
Kim grinned and nodded, then hurriedly ran around to the opposite side of her bed, still plainly visible to Shego who hadn’t yet closed her eyes. The tall woman sighed, desperate to find any humor in that but failing; she shut her eyes and covered then with her hand.
“Ok, Kimmie, you can hide now.”
Kim simply dropped down behind the bed.
“No cheating!”
“I promise, Pumpkin, no cheating.” Shego opened her eyes and waited patiently.
Back at the security station, the Shegophone winked to life and performed the single most important function in its brief existence, causing the hallway lights to go out and several localized systems to crash simultaneously. Dr. Director pushed herself away from the wall she had been leaning against, her entire body on alert. Eyes were blinded momentarily, first from the complete absence of light and then from the flashing of the display screens reactivating at once.
“Report!”
Hedges scrambled to interpret the incomplete data filling his screens.
“Compton electrons in a one microsecond burst, very local!”
The room was dark, but the emergency lights began to activate and their meager illumination began to gain in strength.
“Ma’am, that was a minor electromagnetic pulse!”
Not a believer in coincidences, Betty knew in her heart what was happening.
“What is the condition of the containment cell?”
Benson was on the floor, attempting to expedite the reboot of his monitoring systems by bypassing certain nonessential elements.
“Holding… that system’s too small to suffer much from an EMP, and everything else here is too well shielded to be affected for more than a few seconds.”
He pulled himself up and examined the fruits of his labors.
“There was a slight ‘heave’ signal, but that doesn’t seem to have caused any damage…” His next words were little more than an afterthought.
“There’s still some oscillation in the field regulators, but nothing we can’t fix.”
“Get those bloody regulators back in synch NOW! And do NOT take your eyes off the patient!” Betty Director was well aware of the importance the regulators played in maintaining shield integrity, and now she was absolutely certain what had happened.
Only a few dozen yards away, Shego had been waiting for a sign that stage two of the plan had begun. The energy field would still negate the effect of her plasma but with the EMP having created a temporary disruption within the regulators, the field would be unable to properly reinforce the strength of the glass. All it would take now would be some other effect to weaken the field, some additional disruption, even a miniscule one, to make the glass susceptible to blunt impact.
Even one as small as a 3” by 5” snapshot printed on a fibrous sheet impregnated with Type-1 superconductor wire, stock of which could be located in meager quantities in a certain abandoned lair outside of town. While requiring the coldest of temperatures to become diamagnetic, and therefore able to completely repel an energy field, even materials falling within the ‘softer’ Type-1 category show some limited conducting capabilities at room temperature. It was now Shego’s hope that it would be enough to block the plasma frequency in just that small area.
Beyond this ‘deus ex machina’ pipe dream, Shego chose to take Alexander’s approach to the Gordian knot. She grabbed the first object that she could and ran at the cell.
“Director, She’s got a chair!”
“A chair… Oh, bloody Hell…”
Shego ran at the clear wall and threw the simple folding chair right at the printed image of her beautiful daughters, glad that they could claim some involvement in their Mommy’s escape. Kim watched from the other side of her bed while the chair made its solo flight in her direction and struck the picture. The crystalline wall fractured into a thousand spider-web fragments upon impact; with the energy field neutralized, the transparent shielding became as fragile as true glass, even more so.
Designed to negate the effects of Shego’s plasma emissions and to stabilize the crystal matrix of the transparent shield, the constant support of the energy field was integral to the purpose of the containment cell. That, and with no potential battering rams to be found within the cell, should have been enough to incarcerate anyone as powerful as the mighty Shego forever. But no one had ever made a contingency plan against breaking into the cell from the outside and who would have ever expected anyone to attempt to break Shego out?
From the observation kiosk, Benson and Hedges both charged into the hallway with their sidearm drawn, ready to dart Shego as she ran through the medical ward doors. Dr. Director was immediately behind them, cursing the fact that their isolation from the rest of the facility prevented her from notifying anyone else about the cause of their system disruption.
The three members of Global Justice had just enough time to wonder what that terrible stench was before they lost consciousness and slipped to the floor.
Kim raised her head from behind her hiding place and ran to the gapping wound in the shielding. She stared at the damage in awe before holding out her arms to her wife, who promptly lifted Kim up and through the shattered wall. Light as a feather in Shego’s grip, the slender redhead smiled like a hundred sunrises.
“Are you here to save me?”
“Princess, I’d pull an angel down from Heaven to save you.”
To touch her, to hold her again, Shego would have made good on her promise, and have been willing to pay the ultimate price for her actions.
“Kimmie, time to go!” Shego heaved the girl over her shoulder and ran to the doors of the medical ward, stopping just short of opening them.
“Ghaa! Let me walk!”
“Nothing doing, you’re too weak and we’ve still got to get up to ground level.” The tall warrior looked back towards Kim’s haggard face. “Princess, can you hold your breath?”
The only answer was that Kim nodded her head vigorously, her cheeks bulging outward.
“Good, hold it ‘til I say otherwise!”
Shego ran at the doors and through them, not daring to breath although her eyes were stinging from the remnants of the vapors permeating the hallway. She leapt over the prone forms of Betty Director and her two agents and passed the agent at the security checkpoint, all of them out cold, grabbing her Shegophone as she ran by but leaving the Panda-Roo where it lay.
Shego hoped that some day Wade’s father would see a specialist about his feet; that smell had to be a sign of something seriously wrong. She just prayed that they could someday wash the smell out of Kim’s stuffed toy after they got it back.
If any of this would matter.
Together they reached the defunct elevator and Shego pressed the button to take them all the up to the roof level of the hardware store façade; the doors slid silently closed, working perfectly. As their car climbed through the building, she reviewed the ‘rough’ draft of the plan that Wade had presented to her a few hours ago. Stage one was to secure one elevator; not too difficult and not so elaborate as seizing an entire network or unlocking every single door, just keep one off line while its doors stayed locked open. Wade had achieved this first objective while they were still in Kim’s room at the Possible home.
Stage two was to disrupt the containment cell and that had been the most critical part of the escape plan. Breaking in and breaking out could have been successfully achieved with raw power and violence, but not being able to get Kimmie out of her cell would have made the whole point moot. Stage three had to been to immobilize the guards, which had been performed easily enough by rupturing the bladder of Wade’s special formula of ‘stink bomb’ fluid in its most concentrated form. Shego was desperate to get her Princess out of this place, but Kimmie would never have wanted Shego to hurt, let alone kill, anyone to accomplish that. Also, the pale warrior found that she didn’t want to hurt these people either.
Damn, Kimmie, you really are a bad influence on me. Meanwhile, a single elevator traveled to the roof while the rest of ‘GJ’ scrambled to discover when had just affected their systems and why Dr. Director could not be reached.
The hover sled took to the sky and flew over the town, Shego having first lifted the vehicle straight upwards so as to reach an altitude suitable for evading curious onlookers. Crossing the town in this fashion proved to be convenient but frustrating; Kim was either leaning over the edge to look down or running from side to side for the same reason, or just grabbing Shego and holding her tight.
Kim didn’t look any better in the bright light of day.
Already lithe and slender at a toned 110 lbs., Kim had lost weight from not drinking the dietary supplements that the Drs. H had been giving her. While reasonably clean, she’d had little actual grooming and her hair was wild and frayed, her clothes creased and rumpled. In addition to this she moved with a frenetic energy that made her wide eyes appear maddened and her grin seem feral, all of which made Shego uneasy.
And then there was the smell; dank and sharp like something under a loose board in a fruit cellar. Kim was clean, Shego knew this; there was the scent of soap in her hair and deodorant sprays on her skin, but there was also something wrong that bit at Shego’s nostrils and would not let her forget it’s subtle presence.
“Free! Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you…!” Kim scampered within the narrow confines of the hover sled’s passenger deck.
“Kimmie, please, I’m trying to fly here.”
“Where are we going? Home?”
“Baby, I’m not sure if that’s the best thing right now, I…”
“Home, home, home, home, home!”
Kim pleaded, arms around Shego’s knees, wailing pitifully.
“Kim…! Ok, ok… we’ll go home! But just to your parents house and only long enough for us to grab a few clothes for you.”
Feeling motion beside her, Shego turned to see Kimmie lounging back across the seat cushions, looking back up at the pale woman through half closed eyes.
“I could put on something sexy, just for you.”
In Kim’s current physical state, doing her best to be alluring, Shego had the faintest glimmering that she had made a mistake.
Shego checked the timepiece set into the dashboard of the hover sled and knew that they had scant minutes before all Hell broke loose and one of the four agents from the medical ward revived and told someone else what had transpired. Then ‘GJ’ would check everywhere that Kim and Shego could possibly go for aid.
And no one else in the Possible family knew about what she was planning to do, what in fact she had already done. Shego had just walked right out of the house and driven away without explaining her actions to anyone, leaving a very confused Mr. and Mrs. Dr. P to look after the children with the help of Bonnie. Even Wade’s mother might never learn of the reason her son had forced himself out of his little electronic world that day.
“And something to eat!”
“Well…”
“Food!”
“Sure, baby, we’ll get you something to eat and then we’ll have to make tracks.”
“Rabbit tracks?”
The tone was different, and it sounded right this time.
Shego looked again and there was her angel, her Princess. Kimmie was nestled deeply in the vinyl seats and she looked almost like her normal self, albeit tired and maybe more than a little afraid. Shego gave the usual reply in the game they often played when watching cartoons with their daughters.
“Moose tracks.”
“Train tracks. Shego, what’s going to happen to me now?”
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m not sure.” Shego’s voice threatened to crack but she needed to hold it together for her Princess. “We’ll let your friends back at ‘GJ’ keep working on it, Ok?”
“Why are we up here?” Kim looked out over the town where she had been born, where she would always ‘come home’ to, regardless of how far around the world she ever traveled.
“Kimmie, I’m sorry if this has been too much for you but I just had to get you out of there. I’ve been running from the law all of my adult life and the last thing that I’d ever want is for you to… spend the rest of your life in a cell, no matter how much it looked like a hospital.”
She had almost said ‘die’.
“Thank you.”
“For what, baby?”
“Everything; my life, my freedom, my babies.” Shego kept her eyes on their flight path but she clearly heard the prodigious yawn behind her.
“Pumpkin, why don’t you try to rest a little?”
“Ok…” Kim blinked a few times but did not sleep, just leaned against the side of the hover sled and gazed out over the community beneath them.
They touched down in a small clearing only a hundred feet below the Possible home, right along the edge of the trees bordering their yard. The walk to the rear door of the house was easily accessible and Shego had no trouble carrying the exhausted Kim across the distance. Laying the girl tenderly on a padded seat on the back deck, the retired thief gained entry and quickly inspected the ground floor for any residents.
There was no one downstairs; of this she was certain. It was unlikely that the older Possibles would have left for their respective jobs because each of them had made plans to be available for their daughter at any time, day or night. It was more likely that they had left for the ‘GJ’ facility, in which case Shego had even less time than she thought. Right now she would stick to the immediate goal of getting Kim dressed and maybe fed, but then they had to leave, maybe go to Drakken’s ruined lair outside of town.
They would have to make tracks… train tracks.
Oh, Kimmie…
“Hey, back so soon? We all thought that you’d be there the whole day.”
So deeply had Shego been lost in her thoughts that he didn’t hear Bonnie’s soft tread on the stairs. Half turning, almost afraid that her crime, her ultimate theft to date, would be emblazoned across her face, she addressed the brunette.
“Where is everyone?”
“Oh, well, I think that the Tweebs are in the garage and I just left the girls upstairs; the Drs. P just left for ‘GJ’ a few minutes ago.” Bonnie casually moved through the kitchen, cleaning up what appeared to be the leavings of a small snack for the children.
“You just missed them.”
“Yeah, guess so.”
What to do? Should I stall or confide in her or just try to get her out of the house? As guilty as Shego felt, and as desperate not to cause trouble, she was very close to confiding in Bonnie but she didn’t want the young woman to become a part of this little plan. She liked this girl and was starting to trust her even though their new friendship had hit a harsh snag just days ago at Club Rina.
“Um, Bonnie, listen… I want you to know that you’ve been a real friend to Kimmie and I these past few days. I know that she’s not been at her best…” Shego mentally kicked herself for how lame that sounded. “But I know that she enjoyed getting to know you again. So have I, getting to know you as a friend for the first time, that is.”
Bonnie was gratified to hear this, the remnants of last weeks pain fading away completely.
“Your time with the girls has been wonderful, and they love to be around you.”
“Thanks. I mean that.” Hearing this, Shego made a decision.
“We could really use your help again, but this is a little more serious.”
Bonnie set down the items she’d been cleaning and putting away, her full attention on the tall woman in the green and black uniform.
“What can I do?”
Shego motioned her closer as she thought of the best way to explain the last two hours.
The sun was warm and bright and was glaring right down onto the eyes of a very tired and sick Kim Possible. Try as she might she could just not relax to the point where she could drop off to sleep. If it wasn’t the doctors poking and prodding her it was the lights and noises and smells of that stark white medical ward.
As if all of that hadn’t been distracting enough, there were the bad thoughts.
With no more than a moderate smattering of pride, Kim had always thought of herself as being a good girl, someone who listened to her parents and other authority figures and respected the feelings and freedoms of those around her. She knew that she wasn’t perfect; she had never claimed to be perfect but she did feel that she had the potential to be a good and kind person. It was this attitude that made these new thoughts so ‘bad’.
Lately she had had experienced feelings and emotions that cracked those internal boundaries and made her afraid to be in the company of others. When the Drs. H had been near her she had wondered what sound their flesh would make if it were cut. Would the smell of blood distract her from being able to handle more than ten fully armed and trained agents in battle? Would Shego submit to being ravaged in the bedroom or in a muddy ditch somewhere or must she be bound or even a limb broken to keep her subdued?
Kim Possible was dying, and something else was being born into a life destined to be as brutal as it would be short.
Right now the sun was in her eyes and she wanted to be inside where it was cool and dark. Hauling her body up from the padded bench and onto her feet, Kim staggered to the back patio door; the sound of voices from inside the house stopped her while still quite a distance away.
Shego talking to Bonnie, voices raised; Kim was sure that if she could smell them that their skins would be rife with fear and anger. Smiling at the thought of the three of them together, Kim had no desire to interrupt their argument, at least not if their scents would reinforce her own lust at some later moment. She padded around to the side of the house and stood beneath her own bedroom window.
Looking up to the sill on the second story, Kim reminded herself that it wasn’t her room anymore, regardless of what her ‘rents kept telling her. She had outgrown her old life, was no longer the student, the cheerleader, the little girl that lived on naiveté and excitement as if it were bread and cheese. When had it occurred, this second birth, being thrust from the womb of hearth and home into the cold world?
Quite harsh, when she thought of it that way, very cruel indeed to throw her out, cut her off from her childhood and let her drop, wailing, into the ready arms of Shego, warm and caring though she might have been. Kim had a flash of her parents, her father tall and supportive and her mother loving and wanting so much for her baby girl.
Damn them.
Havok flowed through her veins and ate at her tissues, devouring her very being, with her synapses being rebuilt and memories altered to fit her current emotional state. The girl who could do anything was rewriting her past at the expense of the present.
Damn them to Hell.
The warm and bright day had led to the upstairs bedroom window being left open by just a few inches, plenty of room for an infant’s gentle burble to escape and reach the ears of the young woman standing below, haggard and unsteady as a scarecrow in her robe and slippers. Kim looked back up and wished that she could climb the trellis as if she were still strong and agile, not broken and weary as she was now. She reached out and gripped the wooden construct, layered with the vines of ivy and the flowers of a bountiful season.
Her grip was strong and her body felt light; was it possible that she could actually climb up to her window? Maybe her body was fit and it was only her mind that was weak. Forcing a few deep breaths down into her lungs, Kim took a firm hold on the trellis and slowly pulled herself up, the wood holding her meager weight as if it were naught.
My babies won’t have to live through the Hell that I did.
Kept dormant by means of enforced inactivity, her contaminated organs and systems were able to function without awakening the forces of her Havok-ravaged body. Her brain shrouded in a foggy haze of confusion and her muscular coordination like that of a ninety year old woman, Kim’s life may have been extended by weeks, maybe enough time to find the elusive cure that her friends were desperate to create.
There was very little of Kim left in the being that climbed hand over hand up the side of the house. The window opened smoothly and silently and not a sound was made that might frighten her two sleeping miracles. Kim watched them from just inside the window and moved to the closet for a change of clothing, her medical gown and booties shredded from her stiff and thorny climb.
Under the ripped smock, a dozen little cuts knitted themselves closed with the barest hint of black before only pink skin shown beneath the fabric.
Gratified that she kept some older outfits here, she looked over the clothing of her younger self and wondered what she should wear; was this a white shirt with pink heart and pink jeans day or green tank top with baggy blue denim shorts day? Ruminating as if she were preparing for a day of high school classes, Kim eventually found something that seemed to be the perfect choice; she quickly donned the lose fitting cargo pants and the tight black crop-top and the best pair of sneakers that she could locate.
Turning to inspect herself in her old full-length mirror, she only saw Kim Possible, teen hero. Anyone else would have noticed the eyes that were too bright and the death’s head grin and the hair that spread around her face like a tangled greasy halo. She ran her hands up and down the length of her body, stopping to rest on her sunken abdomen, which immediately reminded her of her daughters on the bed behind her.
Kim was on them in a heartbeat, kissing and licking and smelling their hair and mouths and tasting the innocence that they embodied. They were her issue, HERS, and no one would keep them from her ever again. She smelled the cleansers and powders and even the faint stench of effluent that was unavoidable at their stage of life, she smelled and tasted the sour-sweet milk used to feed them, not her own of course as they had been weaned a long time ago. Kim touched herself briefly at the fond memories of having each baby give suck once upon a time.
She paused; other scents, other people. When and why? Inspecting them again, her children also carried the smell of Bonnie, strong and pure. Bonnie and Shego being together was one thing but Bonnie and her daughters, unacceptable; she was not their mother!
Thoughts faster, heart beating stronger, the blackness at the edge of her vision formed a definite frame for her perspective.
Another scent; how many people wanted to keep her children from her? The stink started at the bed, the fear rank in her nostrils, covering it but not the children. Kim looked to the chair in front of the computer, knowing even at this distance that the scent was concentrated there as well. It was new and had no place in her tattered memories as ever having been detected before.
Kim had been in the physical presence of Wade Load before, albeit rarely, but only with the normal senses of a human and not as she was now, therefore she had nothing to compare his body odor to. Taking the little girls in her arms and letting them snuggle against her in their slumbers, Kim walked to the stairs.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Shego’s day was not getting any better.
“You did WHAT?”
“Rockwaller, just listen to me, will you?”
“She’s sick! How could you take her out of there?”
“It was easy, really… but that’s not the point. Look, they were just warehousing her, not treating her!”
“Well they sure as shit can’t treat her NOW because you broke her out! Good Lord, did you kill anyone?”
“Damn it, will you keep your voice down? I don’t want to wake the babies or bring the Tweebs in here!” Shego attempted to calm herself, to use reason instead of being argumentative.
“And, for your information, I’ve never killed anyone! Damn it, you’re her friend! I wanted… I needed to confide in someone because this is going to be very hard on everyone, no matter what happens to her!”
“Happens? She’s going to die now because of you!”
Bonnie looked as if she’d found Shego standing over Kim’s own prostrate body, the blade still in the tall woman’s hand. Shego was getting angry, and not just from the exited Bonnie. Shego’s fears that she had made a terrible mistake were getting more and more powerful and the pale warrior was never at her best when her actions were ruled by her emotions. Part of the problem was that her brain just would not function when all that she could think of was Kimmie.
“You didn’t see the briefing that ‘GJ’ and Drakken gave us, but I did. They barely know what it is that’s making her sick let alone how to cure her! Kim wasn’t there to get better; it was more like hospice!”
Shego bent her head low, rubbing at her face and hoping to avoid the onset of a stress headache. She waited for the next round of rebukes from her new friend, but it didn’t come.
Glancing up, Shego saw that the tanned brunette was staring at something behind her, back to the stairway up to the loft bedroom. Having left her Princess out in the sunny warmth of the rear deck, she had time to wonder what could hold the girls attention so firmly before the voice made Shego spin around.
“Hey, Bon-Bon… Shego… am I interrupting something?”
“Kimmie?”
“Possible, how…?”
“Are you finished molesting my babies, Bon-Bon?”
It was her Princess, or a haggard and feverish imitation, standing there and holding their twin daughters and dressed as if she were about to leave for a mission. Shego briefly wondered how Kim had gotten upstairs from outside, but had no other time for such thoughts; the look in Kimmie’s green eyes was frightening and gave her a sick feeling in her guts.
“Kimmie, Bonnie’s here to care for them. I asked her to help us… you know this.”
Bonnie moved away from Shego, but only so that she could be within reach of the children if Kim needed assistance.
“Kim, please be careful; you’re not well and they must be heavy, holding them both like that. Let me take them for you.”
She barely leaned forward, hardly a shifting of the brunette’s weight.
Still holding the children in her arms, Kim hopped up and spun, the toes of her right foot stretched out and catching the brunette just across the chin. The blow was grazing, the contact brief and with little true impact, but it was enough to topple the other girl and drop her to the floor in a heap.
“Kimmie, NO!”
Kim’s face was hard set in a scowl that Shego hadn’t seen in years, not since that stupid night at the base of a certain antenna when it was raining so hard that the combatants could hardly hear each other’s taunts over the storm.
“Princess, stop! She’s here to help us, to help you and I! She’s our friend!”
Bonnie moaned and slowly brought her hands to her face and wiped at the blood from her mouth, Shego dropping to kneel at her side, making certain that Bonnie wasn’t seriously injured. Kim set the sleeping babies down on the kitchen table, their tiny bodies warm and clean and just starting to awaken from the activity and noise around them.
It was now clear to her now that Bonnie had plans to usurp Kim’s place in their little family, taking Shego and the girls for herself. Shego’s obvious concern for the tanned whore grated against Kim’s nerves.
“Shego, I think that your desire to get into Bon-Bon’s pants is making you lose perspective.”
Shego looked up at her wife as the slender girl stood there, her stance askew and slumped, as if parts of her were relaxed and the rest was on alert, her body not operating at entirely the same speed all over.
‘Pumpkin, you know that isn’t true! It never was!”
Bonnie was stunned more than injured, the pain at her jaw not the worst experience in her young life, but the words in her ears stung like blades and the accusation that hung in the air.
“Kim… please, I… I just wanted to help. I would never…”
“SHUT UP, WHORE!”
The same body, the same face, but screwed up and deformed in a screaming mask of invective that Kimberly Ann Possible had never worn before in her life. The gloved hands were clenched as fists and the back bent and shoulders hunched as if to strike.
Shego held herself across Bonnie to protect the fallen girl, but for one of the few times in her own life she wanted protection for herself. This was not her angel, not her Princess; this was something overlaying the body and spirit of her lover and spouse. The evil and hate radiated from it like a wave of heat.
“Kim…” The brunette fought against the sob that was forcing its way up her throat. She remained sprawled on the floor beneath Shego, praying that this thing in the shape of her friend would leave her alone.
“You came to me in friendship, made me feel sorry for you. We took you in.”
Kim’s voice caught, sounding fluid and muddy.
Drip.
“We made you welcome, like a member of the family!”
A gloved raised itself and wiped at burning eyes, smearing muck wherever the hand moved.
Drip… drip…
“Oh, my God… Kimmie, your face…”
“It’s bad enough that you want my WOMAN, but you want my GIRLS, too?”
Screaming now, Kim felt a burning at the back of her throat and in her nostrils; she turned and blew threads of black tar from her mouth and nose so that she could breath easier.
Drip… drip… drip…
“Get away from her, Shego.” The voice was clearer now, but dead and flat.
“Pumpkin, don’t…”
Shego’s vision clouded with despair; this was a horror that she had created, that was happening here and now because of her actions. The pitch that had abated for several hours was flowing freely from every orifice of Kim Possible, every single one, and the stench of its foulness permeated the air. Bonnie shifted and looked up in one more attempt to reach her old cheerleading squad captain.
“Kim, please, I…”
Kim’s teeth and the inside of her mouth shone black when she next spoke.
“Wasn’t one child’s death enough for you?”
With those words, Shego felt Bonnie wither beneath her; the girl just pulled herself into a ball and didn’t move. The pale warrior watched as Kim backed away, her face wearing a look of vile glee at Bonnie’s reaction. There was apparently no need to torment her old rival now that her spirit was broken, and the redhead turned to look towards her children.
Shego knew that she must now think faster than she ever had in her life.
“Um, thanks, Kimmie.”
“Hm? What?” Kim watched her daughters move and squirm on the hard table.
“You were right, we did so much for her and she betrayed you. Thanks for setting me straight.”
Shego stood and moved close to Kim, towering over her but not taking her eyes away from her for a second. Kim responded by smiling, the dark stains across her face keeping the look from being anything else but a travesty of love.
“Baby, I just want the four of us to be happy! I thought that we could each love her, but now I know better!” Kim reached out to embrace her wife and Shego could feel the slender girl’s clothes shift atop the slick layer of pitch that was smeared across her skin under her garments. The feeling and the smell were the stuff of nightmares.
“Kim! You’re home!”
No, oh no.
Jim and Tim Possible had been in the garage working on a project when they had heard the commotion and yelling from he kitchen. In an effort to distract themselves and not to worry too much about their sister’s condition, they had hoped to invent something that might actually help Global Justice in treating her; so far the plan hadn’t borne fruit, but they did have a few ideas.
They entered the room and froze at the tableau before them, but they hadn’t stopped fast enough and had gotten too close before they did.
“Boys, keep back…!”
The strike was too fast for Shego to follow; Kim shoved her aside and was on the boys in a flash, kicking Tim’s legs out from under him and placing her foot on his neck. She lifted Jim up by a handful of his shirt clutched in her fist and held him against the closest wall, his face red from not being able to breathe.
“Kim, they’re your brothers! Don’t hurt them!”
“They have always hated me and leached from my parents the love that was rightfully MINE!” Tim groaned on the floor and Kim pressed down, making him cry out. Looking down at him and then at Jim, she smiled sweetly.
“You know, there are times when even I can’t tell you two apart. Let’s change that…”
Kim lifted her foot from her one brother and used it to kick him away from her, his body rolling across the linoleum floor. She lifted the second boy and hurled him away from her with both hands, his form falling lengthwise across the counter top on the other side of the kitchen. There was an audible snap that Shego heard quite clearly.
“Now Jim will be known as ‘the gimpy one’.”
Kim brushed a few specks of lint from Jim’s shirt off her gloves and glanced around the room with satisfaction. It was time they were going; she strode to the table and examined her daughters for any sign of distress and found them to be fussy but otherwise in great shape.
“Baby, are you coming?”
Shego had kept still while Kim had attacked her brothers, cursing herself for not being able to do anything. Her weakness and cumulative failures this day were galling her, and she knew that she would break from the strain if she didn’t start taking control of this horrible situation, and soon.
“Right… right behind you, Kimmie. You take the girls to the hover sled and I’ll get a blanket for them.”
“Spank’n! You always think of the practical things!”
Kim grinned her tarry grin and leaned to one side so that she didn’t foul her children as she delicately vomited a stomach full of pitch onto the floor. With an armload of squirming twins, Kim walked to the patio door and promptly kicked one of the glass panes out of it’s track, the glass cracking when the metal frame struck the surface of the outside deck but not shattering.
Shego took a quick look at Bonnie, who was unharmed but insensate, and then ran to inspect Jim, who was unconscious; the boy’s leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, as good of an indicator as any that it was indeed broken. She could do nothing for either of them now so she made one final stop at Tim, whom she shook as roughly as she dared to rouse him.
The boy had been crying and looked up at her with pain and questions etched across his face. He reminded her of her own younger brothers from one of the last times they had fought together as a family, before she had said goodbye to that life forever.
“Shego…?” He could barely push the word out through his agony.
“Listen, you get on the phone to ‘GJ’ as quick as you can. You tell when what happened here and that I’m with Kim, Ok?” She spoke urgently and he could only nod back in acknowledgment.
“Tell them… tell ‘GJ’ and your folks that I’m sorry and that this was my fault but that I’m going to watch over Kim and the girls until I can get them away from her.” She prayed that she could find some way to do this. “Tell them that I’ll need backup to stop her, but to wait until I can get the girls to safety… do you understand me?”
The boy sobbed and looked over at his brother and at Bonnie; he grunted and nodded again.
“Come, Shego!” Insistent, Kim’s voice called to her and the green and black clad woman left the house to join her bride and children.
Dr. Director wiped at her face again with a washcloth in another failed attempt to get her eye to stop stinging.
Hell had already broken loose and the entire facility was in an uproar outside of her quarters, while here in her private bathroom she could pretend that she had more than simply a few seconds of peace.
“Ma’am?”
“Coming, Agent Du.”
Betty Director refastened her tunic and left the small room, crossing her Spartan quarters and greeting the Special Agent at the door. As often as he had seen her in her quarters, she found it odd that this time he appeared to be even more uncomfortable than usual. It almost irritated her, except that she had so much else to deal with right now.
“Ma’am…”
“Yes, Du, I’m ready.”
“That’s not, um, what I mean is…” He squeezed past her and entered her room, taking something from the dressing table and handing it out to her.
“Did you want this, Ma’am?”
My eye patch… bloody Hell. He’d been looking right at my ruined face and hadn’t spoken until I’d been about to walk out into the corridor. I don’t believe that I’ve ever done that before in my life.
Dr. Director accepted the patch silently and fitted it around her head, the soft material quickly finding the familiar creases over her face. Special Agent Du was respectfully quiet and he followed her out of the executive habitation wing and down to the medical conference room where Dr. Mrs. Anne Possible wept openly in the arms of her stoic husband, the tall and normally calm Dr. Mr. John Possible. The man looked stricken and desperate to give his wife the strength that he couldn’t seem to find for himself.
The Possibles had been like that ever since they had arrived to find their daughter kidnapped and the facility in a state of humbling confusion. Betty Director watched them through the windows of the conference room doors and dreaded the looks she would get as they blamed her for this catastrophic failure to care for their oldest child; and they would be right to do so.
“I suspected that this would happen.”
Lipsky’s voice was calm and even sympathetic as he was escorted towards the same doors. He was as clean and healthy as before, with his expressionless features and manacled jumpsuit of bright fabric.
“Why don’t you just shut the Hell up?”
“Agent Benson that will be enough.”
“Yes, Ma’am. Sorry, Ma’am.” While the apology was sincere, Betty had no doubts that her agent would not hesitate to ram Drew Lipsky’s face into a nearby wall if the situation presented itself.
“I’ll take the prisoner from here; you are to return to the medical ward and assist Agent Hedges with recalibrating the monitoring systems.” The agent left her alone with her nemesis.
“What are you going to tell them?”
“Dr. Lipsky, why don’t you just shut the bloody Hell up?”
“Fine.” The hint of smugness flitted across his face briefly, and faded just as quickly. “And after all of that work I just did for you.”
Seeing that the man was not inclined to be quiet, Betty could at least control the topic of the conversation.
“This team of yours, do you really feel that it is the best suited for what we need now?”
“Well, given the challenge at hand, yes I believe that it is.” He leaned back against the wall, looking as nonchalant as possible in his day glow jumpsuit and metal restraints. “Leave it to Shego to find a way to defeat her own prison by breaking in instead of out.”
“The design should have worked…”
“Oh, I commend the design, it’s just the resourcefulness of the woman that never ceases to amaze me.” He cleared his throat. “This plan that I’ve outlined for you will make us twice as resourceful in recapturing young Kimberly and containing her for as long as needed.”
“The devices that you’ve described to our engineers are workable, even practical, but she must be located and detained before she hurts anyone, especially herself.” Dr. Director removed a slip of notepaper from her trouser pocket and glanced down at the names transcribed there.
“This one person…” She indicated the name for his benefit. “Why are you including her for your team?”
“Because, my good woman, I believe that she might actually present the possibility of a cure.”
The single eye peered at him from under a furrowed brow.
“Do not toy with me. You made it blatantly clear that there was no cure; ‘no hope’ you were all too adamant to assure me!”
The blue skinned man was nonplussed at her ire.
“Let us first give our assurances to the good John and Anne before you and I hash out the particulars of ‘Team Lipsky’, shall we?”
Taking a firm hold of his arm and keeping him close as she walked into the conference room, Dr. Director felt that she finally appreciated what the phrase ‘deal with the devil’ truly meant.
To Be Continued…
Author’s Notes: The spelling of ‘havoc’ in the title of this chapter is the correct one, and the title itself is a quote from the play ‘Julius Caesar’ by William Shakespeare (who obviously gave no other contributions to the quality of this story). What little research I did to assist in the jailbreak was done with the help of ‘superconductors dot org’ and ‘fas dot org slash nuke’ (slash, get it?). Sorry for the delay, but this chapter was difficult to write because it’s not one of the strongest parts of my story, meaning that it was essential but not as well thought-out as some others; I’m only making up about 70% of this stuff as I go along!