Wade and Dr Drakken exchanged a worried glance, Kim and Shego exchanged a resigned glance, Will and Bonnie exchanged a quizzical glance and Monique exchanged a few of her smaller denomination chips for several of Will’s larger ones.
Ron stood up and shouted. “Will everyone stop looking at each other and tell the rest of us what’s going on?”
The older, more bizarrely dressed version of Wade exchanged a concerned glance with his younger self.
“Enough of that!” Shego snapped, “Tell us what the hell is going on or, so help me, clone or not, you’re getting a plasma enema!” She turned to a smirking Dr Drakken and pointed a glowing finger at him, “You’re next, Dr D.”
“Tell us!” The blue skinned man practically shouted.
“The twins got a hold of the ‘Egg Timer.’” Older Wade said ominously.
Young Wade and Dr Drakken started to exchange a surprised glance but a small plasma burst focused their attention squarely on Shego. “Kim, go check on the girls.” She said unnecessarily to the red head’s retreating back. “And, you!” she glared intently at the older version of Wade, “What’s an ‘Egg Timer?’ and how did my babies get a hold of it?” she snarled.
Wade shrugged, “It’s a prototype self contained personal portable temporal displacement device.”
“An SCPPTDD” Monique looked at the stunned faces turned toward her and awkwardly held up her hands. “Sorry, couldn’t resist.”
“So, it’s a time machine?”
“It’s actually a temporal vortex inducer, modeled after the Pan Dimensional Vortex Inducer. I theorized that a tachyon field generated by a hyper…” Dr Drakken’s voice trailed off as he noticed the hard looks of the people around the table. “It… uh… transports you back in time.” He finished awkwardly.
Kim turned to Shego; “I thought I told you to check his pockets when he came in tonight.” She whispered accusingly.
“He didn’t give it to them, they picked his pocket!” Shego whispered back.
“And this is supposed to make me feel better, how?” Kim turned to Wade, “How far back can this time egg take them?”
“Egg Timer” Young Wade absentmindedly corrected her, “I’d say no more than an hour or two.”
“Just an hour or two?”
“Okay, three…” He looked over at Drakken who was making motions indicating how small the girls were. “Maybe four…” He glared at Drakken’s shaking head and continued, “Eight tops.” He said firmly.
“Dr D?”
“Well, it was a small prototype. It should only be able to manage twenty-four hours at the maximum.”
“What if you kept pressing it? Could you keep going back a day, and another day, and another day?”
“Er, well, maybe.”
“Great, so Kasy could actually be my grandmother?”
“There’s a lot more space in the living room.” Ron grumbled. “Don’t know why you have to set this contraption up in the kitchen.”
Drakken and both Wades were running wires from various appliances to a microwave-sized box on the food prep island in the middle of the kitchen. The box had been hastily retrieved from the hovercraft as soon as Kim had returned from the girls’ bedroom, confirming that the twins were missing. “I told you three times already; the kitchen is the center of the house.” Drakken said testily. “The tachyon inverter field generated by this device will nullify the effects of the Egg Timer and return little Kasy and Sheki to their own time, completely unharmed.”
Older Wade was paying particularly close attention to the proceedings. When Dr. Drakken asked him about it, he would only mutter darkly about “getting it right this time around.”
“What happened last time?” Wade asked his older self.
“I don’t remember.” The doppelganger muttered darkly, “But he’s been giving me flak about it for fifteen years, and that ends tonight.”
“Or it could react to the field generated by the SCPPTDD by opening a portal between all of the possible universes and rip the house apart in an uncontrolled time storm.” Young Wade said excitedly. When he saw Shego’s hands clench into fists, he hastily added “But that’s really unlikely… Right Dr. D?”
“Err, yeah. Whatever… One more connection… like so…” Drakken stood up and pointed to young Wade, “OK, turn on the cook-top.”
Before anyone could stop him, he complied. There was a small flash and a large bang. Wade flew across the room and all the lights in the house went out. Shego thought she saw something glowing float by the open door but she couldn’t be sure if she had imagined it.
“Was that supposed to happen?”
“Er…”
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’”
The box on the table began glowing whitish-blue, and the glow spread to all the various wires and through them to the appliances. Once it hit the walls it gained intensity and spread quickly through the entire house, everyone closed their eyes against the brilliance and just as suddenly it was gone. The kitchen was lit by the eerie green glow of Shego’s plasma and she snarled, “What the hell just happened? Doc, if you’ve screwed up our wiring I’m going to-”
She was interrupted by childish laughter from the living room. She locked eyes with Kim. “The girls!” they said together, and headed for the other room, Shego in the lead. She stopped short in the doorway and Kim ran into her back.
“What?” she asked angrily. “Get out of the way, Shego. I want…” Her voice trailed off as she caught sight of the living room.
“Hi, Mommy!” a chorus of voices greeted her. The lights came back on and she looked over a sea of Kasys and Shekis. “Watch this!” they cried and there was another bluish-white flash and twice as many little girls were in the room as before.
“DRAKKEN!”
At their parent’s blood curdling yell, all the little sets of twins exchanged frightened glances and ran pell-mell from the room, scattering through the house.
Kim loomed over the butcher-block island in the kitchen where they had set up a temporary headquarters. Everyone looked a little bit on edge. Wade was comatose and they had spent the last thirty minutes trying to catch Kasy and Sheki, a task made more difficult by the fact that Sheki kept pressing the button on the Egg Timer and every time she did, duplicates of the girls appeared. “Status report.” She barked.
“All exterior doors are sealed by some kind of energy, nothing is getting in or out until we figure out how to turn off whatever the mad scientists club did to the house.” Will’s gibe garnered a glare from Dr. Drakken and a look of surprise from Shego.
“As near as I can tell, there are at least ten pairs of Kasy and Sheki.” Monique gasped out-of-breath. “I’ve recovered three SCPPTDDs and put the girls who had them in the nursery.”
“How come they’re duplicating themselves?”
“The only thing we can figure, is that the tachyon inverter field is preventing them from traveling in time, but the energy has to go somewhere so they’re duplicating themselves.” Seeing the blank expressions around him, he continued, “Picture a pole with a string wrapped around it. The pole is time and the string is Kasy and Sheki, just like it's the same string in different places on the stick, each set of the twins is actually the same set at different places in time.” Older Wade did some quick calculations, “The duplicates should disappear an hour or so after they are generated.”
“Options?”
“If you can get the real Egg Timer away from real Sheki everything should settle itself out in a few hours. Then we pull the plug on the inverter and everything goes back to normal.”
“Sounds like a plan. Which one is the real Sheki?”
“Uh, they all are.”
“At least they can’t get out of the house…”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that, KP.” Ron’s voice held a trace of terror, which Kim knew meant that he was millimeters away from complete mental breakdown. They all turned to look at him. He was standing by the refrigerator with the door open, but instead of a well lit sterile environment filled with cold-cuts, dairy products and tasty leftovers, they found themselves looking at a glowing, mist-covered staircase climbing from a stone landing to a carved throne flanked by gargoyles. A sonorous voice boomed, “Zuul!”
“Close the door!”
The next three hours were pure pandemonium. No one could get in to or out of the house in the conventional manner, but any interior door could and often did open up into the most bizarre and unexpected places. The really confusing part was when the locations changed or disappeared.
Exploration began in earnest in the second floor hallway.
“Everyone pick a door and open it on the count of three. Ready?”
“READY!”
“ONE! TWO! THREE! GO! Shego?”
“All normal here.”
“What about you, Monique?”
“Normal.”
“Bonnie…?”
“Normal.”
“Ron…?”
“It looks like a bar, Kim.”
Everyone turned to look when a shout of “NORM!” floated through the open closet door.
“Any sign of Kasy or Sheki?”
“No, but it looks like a really friendly place.” He smiled and waved at the patrons he could see from the doorway and was rewarded with another shout,
“RON!”
“OK, that’s just creepy.” He said fearfully and closed the door.
“What was creepy about that?” asked Bonnie.
“Everyone knew my name!” Ron wailed.
A trip to the third floor produced limited success in the discovery of one set of the twins.
Kim took the struggling form of Kasy from Shego, allowing the pale woman to concentrate her energies on keeping Sheki from escaping. “And just what the hell is that?” She asked accusingly.
Shego looked at the five-foot long weapon in her other hand as though it had just appeared there and she had failed to notice it before now. “A sword…?” she said carefully.
“And why do you have a sword?”
“It’s magic…?”
Kim raised one eyebrow skeptically. “Magic?”
“Yeah, watch this!” and Shego held the sword above her head and said: “By the power of Grey Femur…”
Before she could finish, the bathroom door opened and a large saber-toothed tiger padded through followed by an impressively built blonde man with a hairstyle that was a cross between a Prince Valiant and a mullet. “I believe that sword belongs to me.” He said darkly.
As she reluctantly returned the sword to its proper owner, three Shekis and four Kasys ran through. Shego turned to Kim, “Now I know how my mom must have felt when the Wegos got their power.”
“Less talking, more retrieving.” Kim said fetchingly. They dropped off the twins in the nursery with Monique and returned to the entryway, which had taken on the role of Chaos Central for the duration. Ron was arguing with Bonnie about food.
“I’m not making sandwiches for seventy people!” Ron said in frustration. “I don’t care if sixty of them are Kasy and Sheki!”
“Subway?” the Kim asked.
“Subway.” Shego confirmed, reaching for the phone book.
“Are you kidding?” Ron shrieked. “OK, let me see what I can do.”
As they made their way into the kitchen a knock came from the pantry door.
“You open it,” Drakken suggested to older Wade.
“I'm not going to open it.”
“Oh, for crying… I'll open it,” said Will.
“Here are your pizzas,” the man standing in the pantry told him.
“I don't think we ordered any pizza.”
He consulted his order book. “This was the address. One large pepperoni, a large carnivore special, large mushroom, medium veggie with soy cheese, and a small anchovy and artichoke hearts.”
“Yeah, that's us,” Will admitted and started to close the door.
“Not so fast buddy,” the deliveryman said, sticking his foot in the door. “You’re going to have to pay for the pizzas.”
“Right. Does anyone have cash to cover the pizzas?” Everyone in the room avoided Will’s sweeping glance.
“Does anyone have a credit card?” Ron asked.
“Where’s yours?”
“In my other pants…”
“So…?”
“In Camelot…!”
“Oh.”
Drakken stepped over the prone form of young Wade, scooped up the money from the poker kitty and handed it the man, “Keep the change,” he said as he moved to shut the door.
“That's a lousy buck tip. You--” the man swore as the door closed.
“Well,” Drakken pointed out, “this might explain the delivery that didn't arrive three weeks ago. But the pizza place swore we got it.”
“Yeah, and it also explains why they were so rude to us when we called in the next week with our order.”
Shego met Ron at the nursery door where they were both remanding a girl into Monique’s custody. “While I have you both here,” she drawled, running an appraising eye over them, “Can someone tell me who thought it would be a good idea to call in the National Guard?”
“I thought it was a better idea than calling Dog the Bounty Hunter.” Monique said with a dark look at Ron.
Ron sidled for the door, “I think something’s burning…” he said sheepishly.
“Something is going to be burning!” Shego said menacingly, and dove into the bathroom after him. About fifteen minutes later She burst back through the door, dragging Ron and Kasy with her; he had Sheki clutched close to his chest. They tripped over each other and ended up sprawled on the ground, but she managed to slam the door behind them. She dismissed the faint chittering of what sounded like giant spiders as part of her imagination, but there was no way she was going to open that door again anytime soon. She found herself looking at Kim's work boots. She lifted her gaze up and noticed that Kim was in full mission gear.
“Why are you wearing that?” the former thief asked.
“This is getting out of hand,” Kim said determinedly, “I'm treating it as a mission now.” She studied Shego for a moment and waved vaguely toward Ron. “Who is that?”
Shego looked over at the bewildered red head and back to Kim. “I couldn't find your Ron, so I grabbed the nearest one and headed for home.”
“You tol' me, if I ‘elped you get these nippers through th’ door, you’d show me where 'arry was.” Ron said accusingly.
Shego looked endearing, “He's got a nice accent, let's keep this one.” She said persuasively.
Two Shekis and a Kasy ran by.
“’ow many of them little ones ‘ave you got?” He asked in wide-eyed wonder.
“It is a nice accent,” Kim admitted. “Find out if he can cook.” She ran off after the girls.
Back in the kitchen, some of the troops were showing signs of battle fatigue. “Perhaps we can be of some assistance.” Kim and Shego looked up to see several copies of Will Du, each holding an Egg timer. Seeing their shocked expressions, Will continued, “I counted nine separate sets of twins. Logically, if we have eighteen parents we should be able to contain the children.” He held out an Egg Timer to them. In their desperation, they both thought it was a pretty neat idea. Fortunately, older Wade eventually figured out a solution to that solution and a diminished number of mothers continued the search for their sometimes-expanding number of daughters. No one mentioned Shego’s black eye or Kim’s split lip, and everyone agreed to a pact that would keep either of them from encountering duplicates of themselves ever again.
During a lull in the action, Kim called to Shego, “Come to the sun room, you won't believe what I can see from the window.”
When Shego reached the library she noticed a figure with long red hair bending over a neatly tied pair of Kasy and Sheki, “Kim, you won’t believe what I found in the basement. You know how I said I wanted a pool table down there…? Kim…?”
As soon as the slim woman turned Shego realized her error, but she was startled when the woman responded, “Eemah?”
“Kasy…?” Shego suggested as she cautiously edged towards the door to the sunroom.
The red head laughed, “No.”
Not waiting for any further explanation, Shego dove into the sunroom and slammed the door. She spun around and sank to the floor with her back against the door, wishing she could lock it.
“What was out there?” Kim asked.
Shego couldn't answer. She didn't know if it was fear or hope.
A knock came on the other side of the door, “Eemah? Are you okay?”
Kim opened her mouth to speak, but Shego clamped a hand over her mouth and shook her head, wide eyed.
Kim shrugged off Shego’s hand and called out “Who’s there?”
“Mom…? Is that you?”
Shego couldn't stop Kim from opening the door, but stood beside her partner, ready to slam the door if the unfamiliar red head proved to be hostile.
The two redheads stared at each other for a moment. “Kasy…?” Kim asked.
“I don't know how you and Eemah could both ask that. Honestly, we don't look a thing alike.” She glanced back and forth between the two shocked women huddling in the doorway. “Shaz! You two used to be cute. When am I?”
Shaz? Wondered Kim. When am I?
Used to be cute? Thought Shego, fighting an urge to put the girl across her knee and spank her.
“Where should I put Kasy and Sheki?” the other red head asked, beckoning the two out into the library.
“Let's put them in the nursery with the others,” Kim suggested.
“Fine. Uh, which room used to be the nursery?”
“What do you mean, 'used' to be the nursery?” Kim demanded as they carried the trussed up twins upstairs to the nursery. Monique was inside, making sure none of the other Kasys and Shekis escaped.
“Untie yourselves,” Shego suggested to the daughters who weren't tied up before she closed and locked the door to the nursery again.
“Who…? How…? What's your story?” Shego was finally able to ask as the three stood in the hallway.
“Well, we were all sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner when a little Kasy and Sheki came running out of the library. Kasy grabbed Sheki and Sheki grabbed Kasy, and they let me tie them up. Shaz! I've been wanting to do that my whole life. And Francis found this on Sheki,” the redhead slowed down just enough to hand an egg timer to Shego, “and then Wade--”
“Slow down, stop a second.” Shego interjected. “Who’s Francis?”
“He’s my-”
“Francis?” Kim interrupted her, astounded. “The girl’s obviously lying and you’re worried about the details of her story?”
“How do you know she’s lying?”
“She showed up after they threw the switch on that thing in the kitchen. Wade said it would keep the twins from traveling in time.”
Shego lit her hands and loomed over the frightened girl. “You better have a good explanation-”
“You never believe me!” the girl cried out, “Every time I try to tell you something, you never listen!” She stared back at Shego defiantly. “What’re you going to do? Blast your own-”
“Be careful what you say!” the older version of Wade interrupted from the top of the stairs. They all turned to look at him.
“Shaz! Wade, you scared me…” the red head turned to him. “I was just telling them…” Her voice trailed off as he held up a hand.
“You don’t even know when you are.” He said. “Don’t say anything or do anything that could jeopardize your past.” He turned to Shego, “And you just calm down and don’t do anything to jeopardize your future.” He smiled at the young red head and gave her an appreciative glance, “Definitely not Plain Jane anymore. Fleam! You're going to fill out nicely.”
The young woman giggled, “Nobody says 'fleam' any more.”
“Hey, when we're standing I don't think anyone has said “fleam” yet. How about me?” He continued playfully. “How am I going to look?”
She looked him over carefully. “I like you better now, without the goatee, and your outfit is ewed.”
Shego grabbed for Kim’s hand nervously and interrupted, “Mutual admiration society can wait. Who the hell are you?”
The red head and the older version of Wade exchanged glances, and he spoke very carefully. “Shego, I think there are some things you just have to find out when the time comes.”
Kim ignored the bone-crushing grip on her hand and spoke up, “Can we at least know how you got here?”
“Uh, yeah. After the twins were tied up, Wade found a temporal link between the closet in the library and… and I'll just say it was linked to itself. And while Uncle Jim and Sheki were arguing about who should bring the twins back through, I just grabbed them and jumped into the library closet with them… and… um… here we are.” She finished with a shrug.
“Why did you do a fool thing like jump into a space/time portal?”
“Well, you two wouldn't have let me do it if I asked. You're no fair. Kasy and Sheki always get all the fun! Should I go back through the library closet?” she asked older Wade.
“You better not risk it. The field has a strong random element in it. You probably only got here the first time because you were carrying a pair of twins and a timer. But once we turn off the containment field the improbabilities should all flatten out. You and I should disappear to our respective times and everything will be fine.”
The level of chaos slowly receded throughout the house. Older Wade and Dr. Drakken were able to concentrate their energies on the tachyon field generator, Will and Monique concentrated on Keeping the diminishing number of Kasys and Shekis occupied in the nursery, Kim and Shego concentrated on a sweep through the house to find errant twins and Bonnie concentrated on finding out how the substitute Ron’s Tonsils tasted.
In the Basement, Kim and Shego found the last set of twins and an apparition. They stared at it open-mouthed for a few minutes as it poked and prodded their washer and dryer. Finally, it spoke. “Yeah,” it said dismissively, “I’ve seen dis kinda thing too many times. Someone cooks up a time-travelin’ doodad an’ inverts a tachyon field in da center o’ th’ house…” he shook his head, “Dey end up openin’ doors t’ all kindsa places no one wantsta go…” he shrugged, “kids… What’cha gonna do?” The apparition took off his thick-framed glasses and cleaned them on his light blue work shirt. After placing them back on his face, he pulled a business card from his breast pocket and placed it in the outstretched hand of a stunned Shego. She glanced down at it:
Bill Tanner
Electrician and Adventurer.
Est 1850
Cell- 555-1986 Fax- 555-1987
“Well…?”
“Well what?” Kim snapped.
“Are we gonna sit down here gabbin’ all day, or do ya’ wanna’ shut dis stuff down an’ finish th’ poker game?”
Kim and Shego each picked up a girl and followed him up the stairs to the kitchen.
“Hey! Bill.”
“Hey! Wade. I shoulda known you’d be involved in dis.”
“Got any bright ideas?”
“Have ya tried reverting th’ panfreontic multiplier?”
“First thing.”
“Didja discharge th’ mangoriel flutes?”
“Yeah, but it made the secondary fluctuations more gibbon.”
“Wot about th’ oh-en-oh-eff-eff?”
“Now you’re just being deliberately insulting.”
Bonnie walked into the room with a stunned, lipstick smeared, red head claiming to be Ron. “Blimey! I never knew you Yanks were so…” He glanced around and back at Bonnie then blushed to match his hair.
“Kim,” Bonnie said brightly, “Were down to five sets of twins and no more have appeared for at least half an hour. Monique’s got ‘em all occupied in the nursery playing tag-team GWA.”
“Will,” Kim called, “How many time eggs do we have?”
“Five… now four.” He replied quickly.
“Let’s get these two into the nursery and throw the switch, please,” Kim requested.
“Does this mean we lose this Ron?” Bonnie asked.
“C'mon, Bonnie,” Kim complained. “He's already told us he can't cook.”
“Yeah,” Bonnie agreed, “but I found out he has other, uh, advantages.”
Bill examined the wires on the cook top.
“Who’n the hell wired dese connections?” he demanded.
“That would be me,” Drakken answered testily.
“You are never allowed t’ hook up jumper cables. EVER! You got dat?”
Drakken retreated to the corner, sucking his thumb, while Bill reversed the wires on the cook top and older Wade made adjustments to the can opener. Younger Wade groaned and sat up. “It's almost over,” Wade assured Wade. “Give me a reading on the tachyon pressure gauge.”
Still a little groggy, young Wade announced, “Eighty-seven point six ppz.”
“Perfect!” the older Wade declared, “We should be able to shut it down with no problem now.”
Kim and Shego glanced at Bill, who nodded.
Monique came into the room with Kasy and Sheki. “Only one set left.” She smiled. “The others all collapsed into these two. I made sure neither one had an SCPPTDD.”
Young Wade flipped a switch on the device and the house seemed, somehow, almost to lurch in place and those inside had an odd feeling of being disoriented -- as if the house had fallen on its side and they were standing on a wall. Bill, the mysterious red headed woman and the older Wade were all gone. The blonde Ron they all knew somehow replaced the red haired Ron. They couldn't be certain, since the new Ron's tongue appeared to be conducting an examination of Bonnie's tonsils. She gave no indication of being displeased with the exchange.
Everyone moved cautiously towards a chair, afraid that they might somehow fall and hit the ceiling if they moved too quickly.
“I am quite sure I had more chips than this.” Will said thoughtfully.
Monique stood quickly and gathered up the girls. “Bedtime!” she said brightly and hurried them from the room.
After putting Kasy and Sheki to bed, again, Kim and Shego returned to the kitchen to find that Wade and Drakken had beat a hasty retreat. Shego was ready to fire up the plasma enemas, but Kim restrained her gently, saying that as long as everything was back to normal, retribution could wait for another day. Shego was still in shock after seeing the mystery red head and didn’t put up much of a fight about it. She just grumbled and went over to open the basement door. She had seen a pool table down there at one point during the night, and was hoping that it might somehow have stayed. She startled the others when she slammed the basement door and stood with her back to the door, her eyes wide with surprise.
“What's wrong,” Will asked.
“I don't think things are quite back to normal. We've got Confederate soldiers camping in the basement.”
THE END.