“Our best projections give us 24 days and an odd number of hours,” Professor Ramesh said. “The estimate will grow more accurate the closer the comet comes.”
“And no chance it will shoot past us?” Dr. Director asked, looking at the screen that showed a projection of the comet’s flight path.
“A chance? Yes. Is it likely? No. And I wouldn’t want to stack the survival of the human race on the off chance that we might have miscalculated.”
“What kind of damage can we expect if the comet hits?” General Reinhart was standing next to Dr. Director. He was a member of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff and had come here on direct order from the president.
“Well, the comet has a diameter of over one million kilometres, but most of that is just ice, dust, and particles, which will burn away once it hits our atmosphere. The solid core of the comet, the nucleus, is rather small in comparison. Just about thirty kilometres in diameter.”
“Yeah, well, that isn’t really that small,” Ron said. He and Rufus had joined the discussion at the insistence of Kim. The naked mole rat held its paws apart as far as they would go to indicate something really, really big.
“Astronomically speaking it is little more than a dust mote,” Dr. Possible said, “but Ron is correct. An object that size, travelling at roughly fifty kilometres per second… it won’t matter where it hits. We are looking at an extinction level event here.”
Icy silence spread through the room.
“We should make sure it doesn’t hit us then, right?” Kim asked after a moment, trying to sound upbeat. “I mean, don’t you have some nuclear missiles to shoot it out of the sky with?” She looked at the general.
“This isn’t a movie, Ms. Possible,” he told her. “Nuclear missiles don’t fly in space and if we wait until the comet hits atmosphere it will be far too late. And NASA doesn’t have that many interstellar space craft lying around, either. Certainly none large enough to deliver the kind of payload we would need to destroy this huge hunk of rock. Given enough time we might be able to come up with something, but not in three and a half weeks.”
“So what’s left?” Shego asked, feeling quite uncomfortable. “Hide in bunkers and pray? Don’t tell me you haven’t come up with some kind of funky plan, one-eye.”
“Several, in fact,” Dr. Director said, Shego’s barb sliding right off her. “Though praying certainly wouldn’t hurt. We have multiple options in the works at various locations around the world, but as far as we can tell so far the best option is right here in this room.”
Everyone present looked at Kim and Shego, the two young women unconsciously moving a bit closer together under the pressure of all these gazes.
“What?” Shego asked.
“Kimmie, Shego,” James Possible began. “That flash of energy you produced yesterday… its power reading was right off the charts. And if our calculations are correct, your powers will continue to increase with every moment as that comet gets closer to Earth. There is no telling how powerful you will become.”
Shego couldn’t help herself, she started laughing. “I… I don’t believe this. You honestly expect… really, you think that Kimmie and I here can blow a thirty kilometres wide comet out of the sky? What kind of drugs are you on?”
“Dad, I know I always keep going on about how I can do anything,” Kim said, “but this isn’t exactly the kind of thing I was thinking off at the time.”
James Possible shook his head.
“I know this is a tall order, Kimmie. But I wasn’t thinking just of the two of you. Professor Kruger has a theory based on the data we gathered from your energy discharge. If he is right, then the combined power output of two or more people with Go Powers is greater than the sum of its parts. We are hoping…”
“Oh no,” Shego interrupted him. “You didn’t…”
The doors to the conference room opened and four men in colourful costumes were escorted in by one of the Space Centre’s workers. Leading them was the hulking blue form of Hego, followed my Mego in purple, and finally the Wego twins in red. All of them cast weary looks at Shego.
“Hello, sister,” Hego finally broke the icy silence. “I am glad to see that the crisis has lured you back to the side of right.”
Shego just shook her head. “I am SO out of here!” Without another word she turned and headed for the exit, brushing past her brothers without even looking at any of them.
Kim didn’t need any words from her father this time, she went to follow the green-skinned woman on her own. Shego wasn’t running, but her walk was quite a brisk one and Kim had to jog in order to catch up.
“Shego,” she yelled. “Wait a minute!”
“Didn’t we have this scene just half an hour ago?” Shego asked, not slowing down. Maybe she was waiting for Kim to tackle her again.
“Then please remember what made you turn back then. The whole world is in danger.”
Shego finally stopped, looking at Kim with rage in her eyes. “I heard that part, princess. And I swallowed my pride and agreed to listen to the nerd squad and the one-eyed bitch in there. Your daddy said I could walk out if I didn’t like what I was hearing. Guess what, I didn’t like it. Not one bit of it. So I’m walking. Maybe Dr. D can build us a rocket or something because I sure as Hell am not sticking around.”
“Didn’t you listen? They need us!”
“No, Kimmie! What they need is a miracle. What they need is fuckin’ Moses parting the Red Sea or Noah cramming millions of animals into a single small boat. What they need is a bunch of guys stupid enough to think they have the power to pulverise a comet the size of a city. They certainly do NOT need some sane person telling them that they are out of their fucking minds, so I’m gone.”
Not bothering with words this time, Kim grabbed Shego’s arm to keep her from leaving. Shego turned to glare at her.
“You are so lucky I’m still pretty tapped right now,” she growled. “Let go!”
“Just because you can’t stand your brothers?” Kim asked, challenging. “What did they do to you that was so bad you’d rather let the world go to Hell than work with them?”
“Have you met them?” Shego threw back.
“To borrow your phrase: Doy! I know they aren’t exactly the easy sort, but…”
Shego huffed, shrugging of Kim’s hand. “They are the ‘drive-you-up-the-wall’ sort, Kimmie. Fuck it, listening to Hego 24-7 would turn even a goody-two-shoe like you to a life of villainy just to spite him.”
Kim gave her a long look. “Is that why you quit Team Go and became a villain? Just to spite him?”
Shego hesitated, obviously having said more than she wanted to. “It… it was one reason. Not the main one, but… God, have you ever tried listening to him for more than ten minutes at a time?”
“No,” Kim admitted. “But I think if he and the others can help us save the world, I can manage.”
Shego threw up her hands in disgust. “Here you go again. Saving the world. This isn’t another of Dr. D’s death machines, princess, with a neatly labelled self-destruct switch in plain sight. This is a rock the size of Go City hurtling at the Earth at speeds you can’t even picture. There is just no way…”
Figuring that words wouldn’t convince Shego, Kim decided to use the heavy artillery. She tilted her head to one side and forward, opened her eyes really, really wide and stuck out her bottom lip. Shego took one look at her patented puppy-dog pout and froze.
“Don’t do that,” Shego growled.
“Do what?” Kim asked innocently.
“That,” Shego pointed at her face. “Don’t do that!”
“I’m not doing anything,” Kim insisted while keeping up the pout.
“You… you… this isn’t going to work, Kimmie! I don’t cave! I never cave!”
Seeing that the green-skinned woman was torn, Kim reached out with one hand and captured Shego’s with it. She had told the truth when she said that she didn’t really remember much of what had happened when Shego had helped her discharge all that energy, but a few things she did remember. A feeling, no more than that. She called upon it now.
A soft white light began to spill over Kim’s hand and spread out to encompass Shego’s. As if in return a green glow emerged from the other woman’s hand, softly mingling with the white into the same mint-coloured hue they had produced earlier.
“What are you doing?” Shego asked softly.
Kim didn’t answer, she was putting her full concentration into the feeling of that light on her hands. For a moment she was almost overwhelmed by fear, the memories of nearly killing that man lashing out at her, but she forced them down. Her father had said that together they were much more powerful than apart and she wanted to prove that to Shego. To prove that they had a chance to save the world, no matter how slight.
The two different energies spilled across their joint hands, wavering, crackling, pushing against each other, mingling. White and green flowed over and through each other, pulsing along with the heartbeats of the two woman. Shego gasped as she felt it running up the length of her arm and right through her chest, flowing through her veins like molten quicksilver.
Kim shuddered at the feeling, uncertain what it was, painful and pleasurable at the same time. The light in their hands glowed brighter, white and green, green and white, merging and separating over and over again.
“Stop it,” Shego whispered, but made no move to pull her hand away.
“You stop it,” Kim answered, fascinated by what was happening.
The temperature in the corridor began to rise, heating up from the plasma unleashed by Shego. At the same time tiny cracks began to appear in the walls, almost as if some invisible weight was pressing hard against them, Kim’s mysterious power at work again.
“This isn’t a good idea,” Shego muttered, unable to tear herself away from the beauty of the shifting light. “We don’t know…”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Kim agreed, half-heartedly attempting to reign in the white glow she was putting out.
Still lacking control, Kim somehow felt it as Shego reached out mentally to snuff her plasma flames. Not sure how she was doing it, Kim just went along. The white light finally retreated back under her skin, even as the green fire was extinguished. Both women just stood there, their hands still touching, their breathing accelerated.
“What were you trying to prove?” Shego finally asked, looking at Kim with anger in her eyes. “You could have lost control again.”
“I’m not sure,” Kim admitted. “But didn’t that feel…”
“Strange,” Shego said quickly. “It felt strange.”
“And powerful,” Kim added.
Shego shook her head. “Princess, there is just no way we can…”
“You don’t know that,” Kim interrupted her. “We don’t know that. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s stupid to think that the two of us, along with your brothers and whomever else got comet powers, can save the world. But it’s worth a try, Shego. You never know whether you can do something until you try.”
Shego looked at her. “That ‘I can do anything’ slogan really went to your head, didn’t it?”
Kim just shrugged, giving her a slight smile.
After what seemed like an eternity Shego finally relented. “Okay, fine! We’ll give it a try. If Hego doesn’t tempt me into ripping his balls off, first. And I will give Dr. D a call to start building a space ship or something.”
“Do that,” Kim agreed, finally letting go of her hand. “There is a phone in the lab.”
Shaking her head in frustration Shego followed Kim back the way they had come.
“I won’t be a hero again,” she muttered under her breath. “No way, no how!”
TO BE CONTINUED