Agent Johnson looked at his partner, agent Johnson (no relation) scornfully, “I told you this was a false lead.” He snorted. “I can’t believe you’ve never seen that movie! John Belushi, Dan Akroyd, John Candy, Carrie Fisher, I mean… come on!” Laughing a bit, he shook his head again. “Ten-sixty West Addison… It’s a fucking classic!” They got in the car and left the parking lot of Wiggly Field. Agent Johnson didn’t think it was funny.
When the agents from the NSA asked the Possibles and Ron to leave the conference room, there was some discussion. After all, it concerned their daughter and his best friend and they all thought that gave them the right of attending the questioning or ‘interview’ as the NSA men called it. But their entreaties fell on deaf ears and they were ushered unceremoniously into the hallway.
Ron followed Kim’s parents down the hall to look in on her; she was sedated but not restful. An orderly came up to Mrs. Dr. Possible and whispered something to her; she nodded and turned to Ron. “The administrator wants to talk to me about moving Kimmie,” she said tight lipped, “her presence is interfering with the operation of the hospital.” Ron could see the tension behind her eyes and it occurred to him that as difficult as this was for him, he wasn’t making it any easier on her.
He put his hand on her arm and said earnestly, “I’ll watch over her Mrs. P. and I promise I won’t threaten anyone while you’re gone.” She seemed to take a slight amount of relief from that and he tried to think of other things he could do to help her out. He racked his brain as they walked away and the only idea he could come up with was to call Rabbi Katz. The teacher was not in so Ron left a message and as he was hanging up Wade interrupted him.
“Hey, Ron.”
“She’s still sedated, Wade”
“I’m negotiating with the leprechauns, and they have a pot of gold but they don’t know where Dorothy is.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I ordered the pizza but they no longer guarantee delivery, so if it’s late I can’t get my money back.”
That proved it, Wade had lost his mind. “Ooooh… Kaaaay… Look buddy, I’ll… call you back later,” He said soothingly, “when I know more about Kim’s condition.” He was confused by Wade’s nonsensical babble, if the unflappable genius was losing it, what chance did the rest of them have? Of course, Wade might be trying to tell him something… He liked that idea a lot more than thinking that the kid had gone off his rocker.
OK, Ron thought, assume Wade is not nutty as a fruitcake… negotiating with leprechauns, pots of gold, Dorothy, pizza delivery and no money back… He couldn’t see the connections. Rufus would probably be able to figure it out in a snap but hospital regulations about animals had meant that he couldn’t bring his friend. He didn’t want to leave Kim’s corridor but if he needed to figure out Wade’s code to help Kim, then he needed to find someone who could help. Bonnie had gone home already, but Monique might still be around. He glanced at the NSA and GJ agents outside the conference room and reluctantly went in search of Monique.
“It’s perfectly simple, Ron.” She looked ready to smack him in the head. “Wade’s talking to Shego. Shego has important information. Kim is in danger, and Shego is on her way here but Shego doesn’t know what room Kim is in and isn’t sure she can get to her in time. This is all or nothing time. Honestly, Ron,” the exasperated dark skinned woman said, “I don’t know how you tie your shoes in the morning!”
“Slip-ons…”
“TTTH!” she spat out, holding up a hand, palm facing Ron, but he wasn’t there. He was running as fast as he could back to Kim. “Wade!” She said into the Kimmunicator, “Room five-eleven.”
When Ron came around the corner, he immediately knew something was wrong; there was only one agent in front of the conference room. He ran to the doorway and looked inside. Three NSA agents lay dead on the floor; each had a bullet hole in his skull. The agent in the corridor was propped against the wall and just starting to teeter. Ron tried to back away but slipped in the growing pool of blood on the floor. As he went down, his stomach betrayed him and he threw up. There was a distant crash and the lights went out.
Trapped in the small hosptital room, Shego tucked Kim into her body and rolled the two of them across the bed to put it between them and their attackers. Once on the other side, she raised the bed’s safety rail with her right foot while setting the girl into a visitor’s chair as gently as she could. She twisted back from the chair, driving her elbow into the agent directly behind her putting her entire body’s weight into it. The sound of cracking ribs gave her hope that he would be at less than optimum. Another agent was on the bed, clambering over the safety rail, she braced herself against the wall and kicked the bed as hard as she could. It was very heavy but she managed to move it several feet trapping one of the agents against the far wall. The guy on the bed lost his balance when it moved and fell onto the floor face first, with his left leg caught in the safety rail. She threw her legs into the air and spun around, creating momentum to bring her body up from the floor. She followed the spin through connecting both feet in quick succession with the fourth agent’s jaw.
The pale thief came down from her kick knees first onto the back of the agent who had fallen off the bed and then rolled back to her feet facing the room with Kim at her back. A quick glance around gave her hope; of the four agents, three looked to be out of commission already, cracked-ribs-guy was bleeding from his mouth, tripped-guy wasn’t moving at all and kick-to-the-head-guy’s jaw was hanging at an odd angle, he looked like he was going to pass out any second. She was ready for a direct assault on the one eyed woman when she saw the gun.
“I don’t mind if you stand in front of her, this is a Smith and Wesson X-Frame 500.” Dr. Director said calmly. “It produces 2600 ft-lbs of pressure at the muzzle and it’s loaded with armor piercing rounds.” She pulled the hammer. “They’ll go right through both of you.”
Shego concentrated on the woman’s trigger finger. If she timed a full energy burst at the right instant, she might be able to incinerate the bullet before it reached them. Of course, releasing that much heat energy in a room this small meant they would still be just as dead, but she could take the bitch with them and she would die knowing that at least Dr. Director hadn’t killed them.
“Federal agents searching every car that pulls up to the front door, turning away sick people, scaring the patients that are already here! This is an outrage!” The hospital administrator was outraged. “How can we treat the patients we have if they won’t let my staff into the damn building?”
“Dr. Peterson, I know this is difficult for the hospital…”
“Difficult?” He shouted. “Dealing with irate family members, that’s difficult. Telling someone their loved one died on the operating table, that’s difficult. This is… Impossible!”
“Look Joel,” James interjected, “We don’t have any control over the federal agents that are running around here. We don’t even know why…”
“Your daughter is the reason!” The administrator sputtered, “You let her run all over the place pretending to save the damn world and when she gets in trouble you turn my hospital into a fucking zoo.”
James recognized the look on his wife’s face and stood quickly to place himself between her and the administrator. Before he could say anything to calm her down there was a muffled ‘bang’ and the lights went out. In the darkness there was a sound of flesh on flesh and when the lights came back on, Joel Peterson was sprawled in his chair holding his nose and James was jumping around shaking his hand.
“OW!” He yelped. “Darn it! That hurt!” When Anne looked at him questioningly, he said, “I couldn’t let you hit him honey, you work here.”
“naugh phore rahn!”
“I don’t have time for this.” Anne snapped, “We’ll pick this up when my daughter is set right. In the meantime, if you don’t want all these federals around, complain to the president!” She took James’ hand carefully, “Let’s go check on Kimmie.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Possible!” a man in an FBI jacket called to them as they exited the administrator’s office. They stopped and turned to him. “We need to get you both to a place of safety.” He continued, nearly out of breath.
“What are you talking about young man?” James asked.
“The hospital is under attack, sir. You and Mrs. Possible are to be taken to a safe place.”
“Our daughter is upstairs, we’re not going anywhere without her!”
“I know, sir, there is a retrieval team going after your daughter right now! You two are to come…” he was interrupted by the sound of automatic gunfire. “Please! Sir, Ma’am, Please come with me.”
“Mom?” Kim mumbled, “s’cold.”
“Stay still, Kitten.” Shego said sternly.
“Sh’go?”
“I’m here hon, we’re having a bit of an issue though, so stay still.”
“Why don’t you tell her the truth?” Dr. Director asked. “Why don’t you tell her you’re going to die in a few seconds and she’s going to die with you?”
“Chief?” Kim asked fearfully. “You’re dead! I saw you die!” a hysterical note crept into her voice. Shego could sense frantic movement behind her, like Kim was climbing up the chair or maybe burrowing into it, the pale woman kept her eyes steadily focused on the finger stroking the trigger of the gun.
“You tried to kill me, Kimmie,” she spat the name out, “but I survived and I’m terribly sorry, but I’m not giving you that chance.”
“I saw you die!” the panic-stricken red head continued, “The man kept hitting you with a stick… over and over… He killed you with a stick…”
“What man?”
“The man at the school… He killed you with a stick… you’re dead… I saw it. You’re dead.”
“YOU LIE!” The brown haired woman yelled and her finger relaxed from the trigger for a split second but that was all the time Shego needed. A concentrated blast of hot plasma engulfed the Director’s gun and hands; her yell turned into a scream of pain. The pale thief closed the distance in an instant and chopped down on the older woman’s arm, knocking the gun to the floor. The Director recovered quickly and attacked the pale woman. Shego recognized the looping gymnastic style that her kitten used but it was more refined and definitely more deadly. Fortunately, the burnt hands and close confines of the hospital room hampered her brown haired assailant.
Shego saw in Dr. Director the potential that Kim could achieve and realized she would have to end the fight soon or be overwhelmed. The same improvisational skills that the little red head employed were used to full advantage by the maniacal killer Shego found herself squared off against. So far, her superior strength was saving her but she had expended a lot of energy getting into this room and was starting to feel the effects of that.
“you’re dead… I saw you die… you’re dead…” Kim continued to mumble.
“HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!” The uninjured agent had picked up the gun and was pointing it at Kim. Shego’s stomach fell and a pain having nothing to do with combat shot through her chest. She couldn’t breathe, after all this, some asshole punk of a government stooge agent was going to kill her kitten! She leapt.
He pulled the trigger.
“We’ve got an address!”
The tactical commander walked up behind the console operator. “Another ghost?”
“I don’t think so, sir. This looks legit.” He read through a pop up on his screen, “Records department confirms, sir… print-out coming through now… Private residence… Lowerton address… Waiting for visual confirmation… It’s legitimate, sir. They’ve got visual on the boy.”
“GO! All Agents! Confirm new coordinates and respond. Subject is in sight! GO! GO! GO!”
Ron lay in a pool of blood and vomit. Kim needed him and he was lying on the floor. He scrambled up, willing his shoes to find purchase in the slippery mess as he began running toward her recovery room. Somewhere up ahead of him a door slammed, fear threatened to take over his senses but he brutally forced it down as he pushed his body toward the danger he knew Kim was facing. There was chaos around him, hospital staff frantically scrambling around, colliding with objects in the hall and each other as they sought someplace away from the danger and destruction.
Ron tripped as he tried to round the corner and sprawled face first onto the floor. His feet couldn’t find traction enough to get him up right so he continued scrambling toward Kim’s room on all fours. He could see a GJ agent yelling from in the doorway holding the biggest gun he had ever seen. Ron forced his body to lunge through the air at the agent by sheer will power. He had always dismissed tales of time dilation under stress but he suddenly found that every detail of his surroundings was crystal clear.
He sailed through the air legs flailing, arms stretching for the gun. He could see Kim through the observer’s window frantically trying to burrow into a chair. The agent’s finger was squeezing the trigger. Dr. Director was lunging for Kim. Shego’s face was contorted in rage and pain as she tried to put herself between Kim and both of her widely separated assailants. The agent was smiling. Ron didn’t make it in time.
The gun went off.
Next Time:
Chapter 15- The End of the Matter
Charys and Willie, you guys rock!