The morning sun broke without a sound and bathed the narrow, sterile hospital room in a warm yellow light. Kim, awakened by the direct sunlight on her face, squinted at the strangely glowing curtains and picked her head up to look around. She'd fallen asleep in the only semi-comfortable chair that had been placed in Hego's hospital room and now several parts of her body were calling out in discomfort.
Sliding out of the chair, Kim tried to stretch herself back into shape but her muscles protested adamantly. She felt horrible and was quite sure, with her disheveled hair and clothes from yesterday, she looked it too. Running her hand through her hair to pull some of the tangles loose, Kim leaned against the wall and looked closer around the room for the sign that she'd been here.
The tests and examinations of Hego had run late into the night and were punctuated periodically by questions to Kim about the patient's life. Kim tried to get them to understand that she knew next to nothing about Hego, apart from his relationship to Shego. Kim figured that the doctors suspected she was lying. Why else would a woman spend the entire night in the hospital room of a man she barely knew?
Kim couldn't tell them that she was only hanging around because she was hoping Shego would stop (or sneak) in and then she could get answers to a few of her own questions. Surveying the room closely and tapping into whatever tracking skills she'd developed over the years of tailing bad guys led her to believe that Shego hadn't come at all.
Sighing, Kim went into the bathroom and tried to wash as much of the ick off herself as possible. With no spare clothes and only a hand towel to use, there was only a little she could do. After slightly straightening up her hair, Kim stepped back into the hospital room and was surprised to find herself not alone.
“Good morning, doctor… uh…” started Kim then trailed off when she noticed the blonde man was not the same as the midnight MRI technician. She tried to recover as best she could, anyway. “I'm sorry, what was your name again?”
“Justin Calley,” said the doctor, moving over to look briefly at Hego's vitals. “You can just call me Justin,” he said. “You must be Kim Possible. I've heard a little about you.”
“Ah, most people have,” admitted Kim, then felt silly saying so. “I used to be on the television quite a lot.”
“Really?” asked Justin. “I'm not sure about that, but I have talked to your mother once or twice.”
“You know my mother?” asked Kim, a little surprised.
The doctor nodded. “Yes, I met her at a WHO conference in Sydney a couple years back. “Racial Diversity in the Susceptibility to Meningitis was her topic, although she talked quite about her daughter who would be stunning the college world soon afterwards.” He looked at Hego. “I didn't think this was what she meant by stunning.”
“I was just helping out,” said Kim, quickly. “I don't know what's wrong with him.”
The doctor smiled. “I know.” He looked at his clipboard. “It says here that someone you were with performed some impromptu surgery on the street. Can you tell me more about that?”
Kim bit her lip. “Not really,” she said unevenly. “I don't know what she was doing but it seemed like it helped.”
“I would say that it did,” nodded Calley. “It seems like there's some sort of defect in Mr. Hego's brain. It's sending conflicting messages to the body, causing all of his muscles to try to contract at once, even opposing ones.”
Kim shivered. “That sounds terrible.”
“His body was literally trying to tear itself apart,” commented the doctor, flipping the page on his clipboard. “If it wasn't for his apparently superhuman physical structure, it would have shattered his entire skeleton. A few minutes longer under duress and it probably would have anyway.”
“Will he recover?” asked Kim.
Justin sighed and rubbed his nose as he stared at Hego's chart. “Now that's a difficult question.” He pulled a long vellum sheet from the chart and held it up to the window. The colored MRI shined splotches of red and blue across the yellowed floor. “I don't entirely understand this mess going on in his brain. To be honest I think we might be better off transferring him to your mother's hospital.”
Kim grimaced. “I'm sure my mom doesn't need this headache.” She looked at Hego. “Do you have any idea what's wrong with him?”
“It would be easier if he'd ever had a physical done or MRIs prior to now,” admitted Justin. “I'm not really sure what's 'normal' for him. But it appears as though he has some sort of a redundant nervous system, a series of supplemental nerves that have grown parallel to the normal ones we all have. I couldn't tell you if that's the result of what's been done to him or what's causing his sickness. To be fair, it could be both.”
“I don't understand,” Kim shook her head. “Why would he have all that?”
“Well, it's just a hypothesis,” the doctor waved the MRI around. “But, you see he's got all this extra muscle all over his body that reinforces his strength and makes him able to pick up cars and small cities and such. I suspect that this 'supplemental' nervous system is what actually controls those 'super' organs, so to speak. When his brain started sending conflicting signals, the 'super' muscles started struggling against his normal ones.”
“So how did my friend fix it?” The red headed ex-hero scratched her head. She'd had to listen to a lot of talk about the brain and the central nervous system from her mom growing up. But some of this was confusing her. A body couldn't possibly operate like the way the doctor was describing, could it?
“It's not really fixed,” explained Justin. “We did a full body MRI last night and it appears as though there is this cluster of nerves in his lower back that the 'supplemental' system is all tied to. Your friend performed a surgically perfect severing of those nerves and blocked all the conflicting signals going to the 'super' muscles.” The doctor walked over to Hego and partially pulled back the sheet that covered him. He was lying on his side to keep off of the large bandage on his back. “There's only one problem.” Justin grabbed the edge of the gauze and pulled it slowly away.
Kim gasped.
“He's healing,” nodded Justin as he admired the faint scar lines running to the side of Hego's back. They looked like they had been made weeks ago. “Not just his skin either. The nerves are weaving themselves together again. At the rate the damage is repairing itself, he may be back in the same condition by the end of the week. At that point, our only option may be to induce a coma to keep his brain… from…” He trailed off as he looked at Kim, who had her hand to her mouth. “Kim? Are you alright?”
“Those… scars…”
“I'm a little confused,” said Beth as she held desperately onto her seatbelt as Kim drove out of the city at breakneck speeds. “You have a car?”
“It's Shego's,” said Kim quickly.
“Didn't you tell me she's missing?” asked Beth as they took a sharp turn.
“Well, her car isn't.”
Kim turned into a smaller development and Beth stared in awe at the upscale buildings. “I hate to be 20 questions,” said Beth. “But why am I coming with you again?”
“Mon and Ron are too far away,” muttered Kim.
“Ah,” grimaced Beth. “Replacement sidekick.”
A few seconds later Kim skidded to a stop in front of a large colonial house and Kim nearly leapt out of the car. Beth was quick to follow as they dashed across the grass to the front door. She expected Kim to produce a key or ring the doorbell and was more than a little shocked when she kicked in the door.
“Kim!” yelled Beth.
“I don't have time,” Kim yelled as she disappeared into the house. Beth just shook her head and slowly chased behind her.
Inside the house, Kim stopped before a tall pair of white double doors in the living room, leading off to the west. Beth walked up behind her, staring strangely at the empty walls.
“Not much for furniture, is she?” she commented. “What's with the doors?”
“She told me not to go in there,” Kim softly said.
“Then you probably shouldn't,” warned Beth. “Let every girl have their secrets.”
“She was going to tell me about them, but then…” she trailed off.
“What?”
“That fight we had last month. She would have told me if we hadn't gotten into that fight. I'm sure of it.” Kim breathed heavily.
“Sure of what?” Beth frowned at her roommate. “What's going on, Kim? You've been going like a runaway train since this morning. I've never seen you act so reckless. Come clean with me and maybe I might be some use on this crusade.”
“She has the same scars as Hego,” Kim said. “The ones she gave to him yesterday, to make the seizures stop. She's got them too, I've seen them. Only they're messier, jagged.” Kim's eyes widened. “She did them to herself.”
“What? Why?”
“Whatever's happening to Hego is happening to her,” nodded Kim. “She knew about it. She was going to tell me but she didn't have the chance.”
“Maybe there's a reason,” suggested Beth. “I mean, she had a whole month to bring it up and she didn't. Maybe it's not what you think.”
“I know Shego, trust me,” assured Kim. “She's trying to handle it herself.”
“But you don't want her to.”
“No,” the ex-hero shook her head. “Now that I know, I can't just leave her alone.”
Kim reached out and gripped the doorknob firmly. With a quick breath, she twisted it and yanked it open. Immediately she was hit with a peppery smell that stung her nose and she felt dust heavy wind brush past her cheek. Squinting to keep the dirt from her eyes, she peered ahead at the half-moon room with the tall windows.
“Woah,” uttered Beth as the two girls stared slack-jawed at the tall room. “It's a library.”
From floor to ceiling, the walls were covered with shelves and most of those shelves were stacked with books. From new to old, books of all ages, sizes, shapes, and bindings stretched high on the walls. Those that were too big to fit in the narrow slots were stacked on the floor in random piles along a simple path towards a desk that was equally overflowing with books and papers.
Kim walked forward almost in a zombie trance towards the desk while Beth continued to gawk. “Who'd have known the trendy thief was a bibliophile, unless she just collects them for the appearance.” Beth walked over to the nearest shelf. “Maybe they're all rare or something.”
“Beth, look at this,” said Kim when she finally reached the desk. The brunette ran a finger along the shelf of battered books, eliciting small plumes of dust, and then stepped quickly over to Kim.
Beth looked down at the desk. “What's all this?” she asked, but she knew most of it already. Maps and diagrams of the human body were stretched out along the surface, some of them printed, others covered with penciled notations. A stack of open books on Chakra teetered to one side while an equally tall stack of open books on human physiology leered to the other. The most messy diagram on the table was marked in red ink and had circled an area in the lower left abdomen.
“She's been trying to figure this out on her own for some time, Kim,” realized Beth. “Maybe even before you two ever started being together.”
“She hasn't had this house that long,” said Kim.
“These books weren't marked yesterday,” pointed out the brunette. “In fact, this one is a library book from 2002.”
“Zen and the Art of Green Meteor Absorbing,” said Kim.
“You're kidding,” said Beth in disbelief.
“Yeah,” admitted Kim. “But she has it written here on this one diagram.”
Beth scanned the pages briefly. “This is pretty intense, Kim, are you sure you don't want to consult a professional?”
“What kind of professional do you think can help?” Kim asked. “The doctor at the hospital was only guessing and even though she's a genius I don't think my mother would really have much more luck.” Kim looked around the room, searching for… something. “That meteor changed her, altered her body, mutated her whole body.”
“Kim, that level of systemic gene alteration in is the realm of fantasy,” Beth shook her head. “Nothing I've learned in my biology studies suggests it's even remotely possible to alter the entirety of a biological system like that without rejection. And even if you got the body to accept it, the brain wouldn’t know how to control it. People who are born with extra fingers and toes can't move or feel them, the brain just doesn't know how.”
“But I've seen it, Beth, with my own eyes,” Kim said, turning. “I've seen things stranger than Shego show up to fight me back in the day. There was this crazy woman named DNAmy who used to splice whole creatures together, different species, ages, none of it mattered. She resurrected dinosaurs once with a scrape of bone dust. I'm fairly certain there's nothing she couldn't bond with a--”
A sudden loud crack interrupted their dialogue and Kim quickly spun on her foot and leapt towards Beth, slamming her to the ground and knocking the wind out of her. As the bespeckled brunette gasped to get air back in her lungs a black ball flew over their heads spraying a grey dust all about. Kim clenched her teeth as she turned to face the doorway where a man complete in jet black combat gear stood with a large barreled cannon of some sort.
Immediately Kim sprang from Beth and leapt into the quickly spreading cloud of gray dust, vanishing almost completely. Beth forced some peppered air down her throat and began coughing violently. Through teary eyes she tried to watch the burly man in combat armor but less than a second after she saw his hazy form through the cloud something human-shaped flew at him and tackled him. The man hit the ground hard and the lithe form sprang away, disappearing into the cloud.
Beth pushed herself up with her arms as she noticed a second, similarly suited man step up to the doorway. He raised his gun, a much smaller weapon than the larger one the first soldier carried, and swept it across the smoke carefully. One of his goggled eyes glowed faintly green as he seemed to focus on something in the gray. He pointed his gun evenly then suddenly jerked to the side to point at something else before being tackled by a shadow from out of nowhere. The second soldier went down just as fast as the first and the shadowy shape simply grabbed both men by the collar and began dragging them away from the door and towards the window.
Beth, finally breathing regularly, although now through her shirt to filter out the dust, scampered over to the large windows and pulled one wide open, letting the breeze in to quickly blow the smoke clear. As the shadows reached the window, Beth made out Kim's angry form dragging the two black suited men.
“Kim…” said Beth, somewhat awed. She'd never seen her roommate 'in action' so to speak, only heard the somewhat unbelievable tales. She'd known of the girl's skill in acrobatics from the sports she'd seen her play at the university, but to see her slight form direct that grace and energy towards a singular goal was just…
“Sad,” Kim spat, looking down at the two bruised men. She pulled off the goggles and masks off the men and held one down with her foot while gripping the other by the collar. “You think you could come barging in here, of all places, with little more than body armor and walk out successful? You haven't done your research.”
“Um, Kim?” the redhead's roommate said cautiously. “You're talking kind of funny.”
“Huh?” frowned Kim. “Oh, uh, I guess Shego's been rubbing off on me a little.”
“A little,” repeated Beth, slowly.
“Spill it, guys, who hired you to come after Shego?” asked Kim.
“N-nobody,” struggled the man propped up by his collar. “We didn't come after Shego.”
“No?” asked Kim, a little confused. “You came here following me then?”
The soldier shook his head nervously.
“You're after something in the house,” said Kim, nodding.
The scared man just shivered.
“I don't get it,” said Beth, now equally confused.
The soldier on the floor rose his hand, but Kim's gaze snapped on him immediately. “What are you doing?” she asked sharply.
“I'm just,” started the soldier as he slowly rose a finger to point behind Kim.
“I don't see anything,” said Beth, following the finger.
“The door,” he whimpered.
“What?”
“You broke the door,” continued the man. “You set off the security alarms. We work for HenchCo Security.”
Elsewhere, a figure equally as graceful and not quite as slight as Kim slunk between the tiny shadows around a tall building on a sunny day. The large, rectangular building stretched far in to the sky and displayed a large pair of letters on the top reading 'GN'. The figure shook its head distastefully and silently slipped around a corner into a loading area for the tower. With little more than a slight scraping of metal, the figure slipped into the shipping area, scaled the unfinished walls, and climbed into a ventilation shaft.
There, Shego took a moment to breathe. It'd been years since she'd done that, far more than she cared to admit, especially around Kim's rude friend Kelly, but she felt good to know it wasn't the slightest bit more difficult. In fact, years of honing her skills had made it slightly easier to slip between shadows in broad daylight, and made her approach quicker and stealthier than her last trip here, all those years ago.
Looking up the shaft, Shego ignited her hand and was not pleased to watch her entire arm light up in a bright inferno. She sighed. She needed her power, needed it now to be at full strength as she did this or else she would have done her makeshift surgery on herself after Hego yesterday. At least it wasn't burning her, the increased green flames, so it was tolerable, if not a little less graceful than normal.
She held no illusions about her condition, though. The pain would come soon enough if nothing was done.
“I should have told Kim,” Shego sighed quietly to herself. She felt terrible that she just up and left, but, old habits die hard. She was used to being a loner, to handling her problems herself, and she was halfway to Go city before she even considered getting Kim to help. It was a little pathetic, she felt, everything was changing so fast in her life and yet, here she was, back where it all started again.
VersaGene. Of course, now it was called GeneNominal, but that was just semantics. It was here, ages ago now, that she and her brothers gained their powers. That's not how the story went, of course. The way Hego always told people what happened made it seem like they were each playfully bitten by a spider or flew through seemingly harmless cosmic rays. The truth was much more brutal and involved days of pain, terror, and eventually, resignation to their eventual death.
That story didn't fit in the papers well, so it was 'adapted.' At least, that's what Hego said.
Trying her best not to use her glowing arm, lest she melt the shaft, Shego began slowly climbing. This shaft went all the way up the building, which was convenient, since she needed to get to floor 25.
As she silently climbed, she thought of Kim again. It was actually better this way, upon reflection. Kim didn't need to get involved with these people or she might get hurt. Safely back at the university, she wouldn't have to know the truth of their powers or the people they became beholden to. Shego also wouldn't have to justify the decision she'd made on her way to Go, which would probably be impossible.
Then again, she'd never just sit still. Shego blanched. She's probably out there looking for me now,she thought. Dammit Kimmie, why the hell are always so persistent?
Shego mentally kicked herself. She'd have to move quickly.
Picking up her pace at the cost of making a little noise, Shego found herself in the 25th floor vents less than ten minutes later. The building layout had changed slightly and she didn't exactly know where to turn, but she figured that some areas would be in the same geographical location, she just had to find the right duct to crawl through to get there.
She turned a corner and reached an unexpected dead end in the shaft where previously the ductwork had continued straight across the floor. She sighed quietly and moved over to one of the vents and peeked through.
A tall black man in a suit stared through the vent back at her. She froze, hoping he hadn't really seen her and was just looking around. Then she noticed the green lines across his jacket and realized that her arm was on fire again. Closing her eyes, she struggled to force the flames down and eventually the tingling along her palm ceased. Glancing down the vent again she noticed the man had pulled out some sort of a futuristic-looking weapon and was pointing it at her.
“Uh, hiya,” said Shego, embarrassed.
“Don't make me force you down,” he said in a deep voice that made the sheet metal vent vibrate slightly.
Shego swallowed.
“Now this is an unexpected call,” said the tall, lanky boy as he pulled a variety of rubber straps and nylon cords around his limbs. He stood precariously among the mass of cords hanging from the ceiling and waved his hand at the huge computer monitor against the far wall. The array of visual sensors around the room picked up the movement and recognized the command to answer the call. A static picture of Kim (apparently taken by surprise, mid-bite into a large hamburger) appeared in the lower right hand corner of the screen showing the caller.
“Kimmie,” said the boy as he continued wrapping cords around his legs and plugging them into ports in his boots. The room he was in was fairly small, so he didn't have to speak too loudly to have the microphone pick him up. “You're the last person I expected to call.”
“Sorry to disappoint, Jim,” Kim's voice came from the speakers to ether side of the screen.
“Jim?” said the boy, rather surprisingly. He rubbed his short stubble for a second then snapped his fingers. “You need something, don't you?”
“Uh,” stammered Kim.
“Hah, figures,” Jim shook his head but smiled all the same. “No 'welcome to college life, Jim,' no 'how're you adjusting, Jim,' just strictly business with big sis.”
“Not all that 'old' thank you very much,” replied Kim. “I am sorry though. I really meant to call more but… well, things have been kind of hectic since the summer.”
“I'll bet,” grinned Jim.
“What's that supposed to mean?” asked Kim.
“I've seen the trail,” he started. “Followed the breadcrumbs, so to speak. I thought it was odd at first but I pieced it together sure enough.”
“I'm not following you.”
“Ah, but I was following you,” Jim said smoothly. He reached up into the mess of cords and cables and pulled down a strange helmet with a visor and began strapping it to his head. “The pieces are all there on the internet to see, if you're looking right. Oh, and if you happen to be one of the best cyber-hackers in existence. That helps too.”
“Jim, if you don't start being straight with me--” Kim wound up but was interrupted.
“Just as soon as you tell me how 'straight' you've been with Shego in the last year,” Jim blurted, then immediately felt guilty. He wanted to draw it out more but he couldn't hold it in, not when she was acting all coy.
The ensuing silence was rewarding though. He pulled down his visor and snapped a switch on the side of the helmet. Immediately the cords began to pull and twist and the feeling of weightlessness engulfed him. He felt nauseous for a moment, just like he always did just at the beginning of a dive, but as soon as the screens before his eyes synchronized the sickness passed.
He suddenly stood floating before an endless array of stars, each linked by a filament thread of varying colors. Well, actually, he was still where he was before, but the screens on his eyes and the slowly adjusting suspension cords made it seem like he was floating in space.
From somewhere off in the distance, Jim heard his sister speak but it was hard to make out. He reached out into the darkness and with a flick of his fingers one of the distant stars suddenly drew close to him and displayed the picture of Kim with a glowing edge.
“What was that, I missed what you said while I was laughing,” Jim added, just for ire.
“What do you know?” Kim said forcefully but in a whisper. There was a pause. “Who have you told?”
“Don't worry Sis,” Jim said, honestly. “I wouldn't say anything until you do.” He wished for a second that Kim hadn't given up her Kimmunicator after the Maya Tromper thing. Then she could see the serious look on his face and not have to rely on his words which were, he had to admit, often not honest. He loved his sister, even as he mocked her growing up, and he would never betray her like she had insinuated.
“I…” Kim started but trailed off. “Okay, Jim. Thanks.” There was relief in her voice and Jim was equally relieved.
“So, really, you and Shego,” Jim said after a moment. “Never would have thought that.” He hesitated. “Well, maybe thought about that but never imagined it would happen.”
“Okay, just so we're clear? Sick and wrong,” Kim said. “I really don’t want to know what little boys think about their sisters.”
“Hey, I'm far from a boy anymore!”
“You're a genius teen who's attending college at age 16,” summarized Kim. “But even if you do something weird and happen to graduate before me, I'll always think of you as my little boy brother.”
“How compassionate of you,” grumbled Jim.
“But, to be clear about something else,” Kim continued. “I don't know what's going on between Shego and me but I can tell you nothing was planned. I haven't been harboring secret desire for her or anything so keep your little fantasies to yourself.”
“She's not coming for Christmas is she?” Jim said, starting to feel the topic had turned awkward.
“Uh, nothing is set in stone,” Kim said quickly. “Anyway, that's not why I called.”
“Right, what do you need?” Jim asked, moving around the space, looking at stars. When he touched each one it exploded in his hand into pages of text, each mote of light representing a source of information on the network.
“Ironically, I need to know where Shego is,” said Kim.
“What happened? Lover's quarrel?” joked Jim.
“She's… I think she's gone off to do something dangerous on her own, but I can't imagine what.” There was a sigh over the call. “I think she's sick and not telling me.”
“Sick?” Jim paused, midway through reading a star. “What kind of sick?”
“Something the meteor did to her, and probably her whole family. She could be dying.”
“Team Go is dying?” said Jim in shock. He shook his head and turned his attention elsewhere. From the black abyss he reached out a pulled back a long list of names, each with little filament lines disappearing into the darkness. He tapped one and felt movement as he was pulled through virtual space until he was floating right in front of the star connected to the name by the filament.
“The problem is that there doesn't seem to be anyone who knows enough to fix them. It looks like Shego has been doing some research for some time on it, but I don't know anything about biology apart from the five kingdoms. And the way that Shego fled from here when she saw Hego collapse… I know she's doing something crazy. She needs me to keep her out of trouble.”
Jim had opened over a dozen stars such that his entire view was filled with floating windows of text but he stopped at Kim's words and turned to listen.
“I know everyone's always seen her as evil,” Kim continued, unbidden. “But there are some things she cares about, she just never could show it before, when we were enemies. She'd go a long way to keep her brothers safe, and I'm not convinced she'd worry about keeping herself safe in the process.”
“That's why-” Kim hesitated. “That's why I have to be there, to help her stay safe so she doesn't leave-” she stopped suddenly, as if she still had more to say but decided against it.
Jim looked down.
“I'll find her for you sis,” he said softly. He reached out for a handful of stars and dragged them closer. “But you shouldn’t lie to me or yourself. It doesn't help.”
“Lie?” repeated Kim. “I didn't lie to you at all, I told you every--”
“You said 'I don't know what's going on between me and Shego',” quoted Jim. “But it seems clear, to me anyway, that you do.”
Kim replied with silence.
Jim nodded to no one in particular. “I'll call you back when I've got something.”
Shego didn't even remember being drugged. The last thing she did was jump to the floor that big suited man was standing on and stood. Now she was picking her head up off a strange white-colored bench with a pretty heavy headache and the strange taste of metal in her mouth.
“Bleh,” she said as she looked around. The entire room was colored white and was incredibly shiny, so much that it looked like it was glowing. The walls were all smooth and curved into each other leaving no seams except for the largely transparent wall opposite the white bench. Pushing herself to her feet, she padded over to the window and pressed her head against it to see past the bright white glare behind her.
What was on the opposite side of the porthole made her growl.
“Mason,” she sneered.
“Still treating me with such venom, are we, 457?” came the distant voice of the man behind the window through small speakers embedded in the room.
“That's not my name,” Shego spat.
“Neither is 'Shego,' but I bet there is a lot of people who think it is.” The dark haired man thinly smiled. “Truth is such a flimsy thing.”
“What is this place?”
Mason stepped up closer to the window. “It's a special containment unit built to withstand your unique condition. Feel free to let loose, you'll not damage it.”
Shego frowned and ignited her arm, flooding the room in a green light. Raising her fist she opened her hand and created a ball of glowing light as big as her head. Flicking her wrist, the pulsating globe of energy flew from her fingers and smashed against the clear material.
With a crash, the ball exploded into a hundred smaller fragments and was absorbed by the walls that pulsed green twice before returning to their normal white sheen.
“I'm disappointed,” said Mason after the display concluded. “That was far from your best.”
“It was enough to know you're right,” Shego said, flatly. “Why did you put me in here?”
“Why?” asked Mason, hinting at the slightest bit of confusion. “You trespassed on my property, broken into my building, and have a known history of violence. I don't really think I was overstepping my bounds by temporarily jailing you.” The man folded his arms. “The better question would be: why are you here?”
Shego eyed him suspiciously. He had never been trustworthy, but she came here specifically to talk to him, so holding out until conditions were better wouldn't help in the long run.
An ache shot down her arm and she flinched involuntarily. She also didn't have a whole lot of time.
“Something's wrong with us,” Shego admitted. “I have it, and Hego just started showing symptoms.”
Mason softened just slightly and rubbed his chin, turning to the side. “I'd heard about Hego's sudden vanishing, but I hadn't suspected it was because of illness. He should be impervious to a simple cold.”
“It's not a damn illness!” yelled Shego, her skin slowly sizzling in her cat suit. “And don't act like you don't know! I know you watch us.” She narrowed her eyes.
“And what would ever lead you to believe that?” the pale-faced dark haired man returned. “Someone opening your mail before you get it? I'd check a neighbor before even thinking about looking my way.”
“You're a controlling bastard and I know you.” Shego made a fist, causing lances of green light to play along her skin. “There was NOTHING that Team Go did without your watchful eye.”
“Ah, now that's a different matter,” the man's eyebrows rose. “Team Go was very much my concern. Since we were partially funding your skill development program as well as providing medical support to you and your brothers we could hardly turn a blind eye.”
“You stalked us like criminals,” said Shego.
“That's not fair,” Mason shook his head. “We were looking out for our investment. Since you departed to follow a life of crime, and, I might add, significantly damaged our efforts to sell the process to the military, I haven't spent more than a handful of minutes thinking about you. Mostly when I read about your failed efforts to 'dominate the world.'”
“I don't believe that for a second,” Shego said through gritted teeth, but she lowered her arm all the same.
“Suit yourself,” shrugged Mason. “So, do you want to tell me what it is, if it's not an illness you're here about?”
“We're losing control of our powers.”
Mason frowned. “That shouldn't be possible.”
“Well, it's happening,” said Shego, annoyed. “I had to damage my symbiote to keep from turning into a green supernova. Hego's body would have turned itself inside out if I'd hadn't done the same for him.”
“Wait a minute,” Mason stepped up to the window. “You damaged the symbiote and you've still got your power?”
“It's regenerating,” Shego said. “Just like everything else in my body does.”
“Go back a second. What do you mean you're 'losing control' of your power? Explain exactly what's happening.”
“No,” Shego firmly shook her head. “First tell me if you sold this crap to someone else, someone who should be warned.”
Mason looked annoyed but he looked at her straight in the eyes. “We didn't.”
“Why?”
“It turned out there wasn't enough of the meteor left to extract another symbiote from,” Mason frowned. “We tried to create another 450-series with the residual energy in the fragments but she did not survive the bonding.” He paused. “You and your brothers remain unique.”
Shego looked up. “I'm sorry.”
“You still proved our gene therapy process, so it was profitable for us.”
Shego's eyed glowed as she looked down at Mason with scorn. “Not for you! For whatever poor lonely soul you murdered with this ridiculous super soldier project!”
“I may be misunderstanding something,” said Mason with a raised finger. “But based on what I'm hearing so far, you came here to ask for my help. If that's the case, I'd appreciate it if you tucked your little superiority complex away. You're a damn criminal and you haven't been a particularly good one. Don't act so high and mighty before your creator and maybe he'll fix your fucked up body!” He was yelling loudly by the end.
Shego raised an eyebrow and looked at him strangely. “You have a serious god-complex, don't you?” She moved closer to the window again. “I don’t want there to be any confusion between us, Mason.” She rested her forehead against the pane. “You're a vile being and I would never, EVER, come crawling back here to beg you to save my life.”
“But,” she continued. “I will to save my brothers.”
Mason's eyes slightly widened.
“If you do everything in your power to save my brothers,” Shego deliberately said. “You can do anything you need to my body to find the cure.”
“Anything?” questioned Mason.
“I know you've wanted to study one of us,” said Shego. “None of your 450-series trials succeeded except for my brothers and I. You desperately want to know why. Here's your opportunity.” She took a step back and spread her arms. “Open me up, dissect me, turn me upside and backwards.” She lowered her arms. “Just use the information to save my family.”
Mason folded his arms and thought for no more than half a minute.
“You understand, I'll require you to sign a contract to that extent,” he said, the corners of his mouth turning slightly up. “Legal issues. You know what it's like these days.”
“Speak to me, Jim,” said Kim into her cell phone as she drove west out of the city. “Give me good news.”
“She's in Go City,” said her brother over the phone. “A tricky girl to trace, but I caught her on one of the street intersection cameras and was able to trace her from there.”
“You're amazing,” said Kim.
“Yeah, well, anything's possible for--”
“Don't,” interrupted Kim. “Just… not right now. Where in Go did she go? To the tower?”
“At first yeah,” said Jim. “But then she left about an hour later and entered a building for the GeneNominal corporation. I'm trying to get into their internal security system now, but it's not easy.”
“Wade could do it,” prodded Kim. She really was grateful to her brother, but she was short on time and she knew if she put the pressure on, he could work miracles. “You're not worse than Wade is, are you?”
“Are you joking?” scoffed Jim. “The only thing that guy has on me is age. I'll have the entire building mapped out before you reach the city limits. I'm assuming you're already on your way.”
Kim smiled. “I am.”
“Odds were that where she went,” said Jim. “I figured you'd try to save time. Let me know when you've reached the city. I've already hacked into the municipal systems. I'll have every light green your way.”
“Thanks, Jim, I really, really, appreciate it.”
“Hey, I'm just glad you came to me,” Jim laughed. “Although I suppose Tim wouldn't be much help with computers.”
“You're both amazing, and I'm really sorry for not calling sooner. I'll fix that in the future.”
“Just be yourself, sis,” said Jim. “We know you love us.”
“Thanks,” Kim smiled.
Betty Director stood silently beside the fairly large screen in her office. It was suspended against one of the large transparent walls and was capable of interaction, much like the multi-story screen below in the command center. It had been constructed with a series of motion detectors and movable cameras along its perimeter so it could act as a video phone as well as a virtual desktop and display. However, where she was standing now, was just slightly outside the cameras' ability to point.
Second-in-Command Agent Will Du's video feed was being displayed on the screen alongside Dr. Garrick and Agent Wade Load, all of which were looking suspiciously around as they spoke to, apparently, an empty room.
“We've combed over every security log and camera,” Du continued his report. “There's nothing on the overhead or the exterior cameras that doesn't coincide with a verbally confirmed departure of any agent.”
“A thorough examination of her cell also did not reveal how she was able to construct the Lumniocodec, either,” Wade chimed. “Our best guess is that she did it somehow with her electronic restrains and tracking chips, since they don't show up on scans right now, but I don't see how.”
“What about Prometheus?” asked Betty. “There is substantial technology in that project.”
“Completely non-functional technology,” reminded Wade. “Even though it physically fused with her such that we couldn't remove it, the repair centers were destroyed. It can't have started working again and nanite-based technology that's broken is nothing more than dead cells.”
Betty seemed to muse over that for a moment. “Doctor Garrick, tell me about the Luminocodecs.”
“I've researched what we have on record,” the wizened doctor replied, reading from a clipboard. “The remains of the holographic devices we recovered prior to her coma don’t directly compare to the one I found in Shaft-J or the ones in her care room. If these were made by the same person, they represent a significant leap forward in design, far beyond anything that Allucinere demonstrated during her initial 'rampage.'”
“I think we're stepping outside of the original point, here,” Will interrupted. “Either she has created a new Luminocodec that's capable of completely duplicating the biological signs of another person, or she's still here.”
Betty frowned and walked back in front of the screen to look at Will's picture. “Still here?”
“If she didn't leave,” said Du, ominously. “Then she's still here. Hiding somewhere.”
Betty looked down and tried to think. “Will, get all of our access codes refreshed. Implement strict guidelines about keeping people from communicating sensitive information in person. For the time people we'll have to be suspicious about who we're talking who unless they've been validated.”
“That could get insane, Director,” warned Will. “Outlawing person-to-person communication? How will we coordinate anything?”
“Use console-based and vidscreen communication for the time being.” Betty looked up. “You have to login and be authorized to talk over it, so it's a good stop gap method. Our assumption is thatAllucinere is mimicking people's appearance again, so we have to rely on key knowledge that can't be replicated on the surface. Logins are weak, but they're the best we have right now. Wade, you should start re-encrypting the entire database.”
“That could take days,” said Wade.
“We have no idea how long she's been out of her bed.” Betty shook her head. “We have to redo our security measures to lock her out in case she already has access.”
“Yes, sir,” said Wade, unenthusiastically.
“Dr. Garrick.”
“Yes, Director?” The man raised his eyebrows and lowered his clipboard.
“Find out how those new Luminocodecs are working and find a way to disable them.”
He frowned. “You records here say you never were able to block the old versions, I can't promise much better luck than before.”
“You have to try,” ordered Betty. “Stop all other projects. Until this matter is under wraps it has our full attention, understand?”
“Yes, sir,” said three voices in unison.
“Go make it happen,” nodded Betty. Then added, “Wade, stay on the line.”
Will and Garrick nodded and soon their video feeds vanished.
“What is it, Betty?” asked Wade after he was sure they were alone.
“We may need to get her back in here,” Dr. Director replied, cryptically.
“Her…? Allucinere?”
“Kim.”
Wade nodded slowly. “Oh.” He looked away. “She was the one who brought her down before.”
“Will she come if we ask?” Betty ventured. She walked over to her desk and leaned against it. “I'm not sure she felt entirely welcome during her last visit.”
“I can't say what she'll do,” Wade said. “I'm not sure we know her anymore. I mean, hanging out with Shego, working with Jack Hench. Is she the Kim we knew, or a new, different Kim?”
“It's hard to say,” said Betty. “But if there was anything that would get her moving in our direction again…” she looked away. “It's Allucinere.”