She had it all, and all to herself. What could be better than that?
It didn't take Kim long to figure out that it might be longer than a year before she would be able to build her own 'Transporter Ring'. Just glancing through Drakken's notes, she saw symbols everywhere with which she was completely unfamiliar. Things like large, angular capital 'E', and one she dubbed “squiggly-line k”. There was some sort of lower-case cursive-looking 'd', and everywhere, large 'S's with sub-and-super scripts. Kim didn't even know what branch of mathematics she was looking at.
At first, she thought she wouldn't need to know. She found the engineering drawings at Drakken's lair the following day, but they too were covered by scribbled-on notes to the effect that certain dimensions – she guessed – were to be determined by certain equations rather than just measured and then cut.
Through what could only be called heroic effort, she tried not to let any of that dampen her enthusiasm for the project. It was her only hope, after all… she would do whatever it took to make it happen. She had time. She had… as long as it would take.
By the fourth day after Shego had left, her nose was buried in her own high school Algebra book. Twelve hours a day, reading, working through the problems until she could tell she didn't need to work on any more, then going on to the next chapter. Kim Possible was going to do this right. That was what everyone would expect of her. So that's what she would do.
Four months – and one Analytical Trigonometry textbook - later, she was starting Fundamentals of Calculus. It gave her heart that she was finally beginning to see at least some of those funny symbols in Drakken's notes. She read and worked on, living on canned beans and Spam, Vienna-sausages, Sno-Balls, and Slim-Jims.
Around her, the world had gone to hell.
Bears roamed downtown Middleton freely. Downtown Go City had burned to the ground, as had much of Los Angeles and the Eastern Seaboard Megalopolis. With nothing to stop the fires, they engulfed entire counties. The largest non-nuclear explosion on earth – from a chemical plant in Louisiana – had wiped Shreveport off the map in a fraction of a second.
In the absence of pesticides, the North American Locust, thought to be extinct, was re-emerging in the billions to eat the mid-west down to the roots. Oil-tankers adrift on the high seas gouged themselves on reefs, covering millions of acres of ocean with thin, deadly sheens of oil. Rabies made a comeback in North America, as did bubonic plague in Europe.
It was the beginning of the Earth's first Cycle of Cleansing, and like everything else, it would have to get worse before it got better.
“Kim?”
Kim jumped in her chair. Shego was back? After… how long had it been? She couldn't remember… in fact, she had no memory of the passage of time at all. Her heart skipped a beat. “Shego?”
There was no answer, only stillness. Fully winter now, not even the sounds of insects broke the stillness. “Shego?” she said again, louder.
She ran out of the warehouse, unsure from what direction, or how far away, the sound of her name had come. She looked and ran and looked and ran… She'd heard Shego speak her name! She knew she'd heard it!
But Shego was not there.
Two weeks later, she heard it again, much more distinctly, and repeated the drill, but still no Shego.
In January she heard “Kim, it's me” instead, and right behind her. Her heart skipped several beats. She knew by this time that Shego would not be there. She forced herself to remain seated, and read the same sentence in her Advanced Engineering Mathematics book over and over: “This can be proved by setting x 0 over all values of R and taking the limit…”
Outside, by the door to the warehouse, two mangy cats kept watch for rats around a pile of empty cans eight feet high.
Shego stood outside the entrance to the Cave, as she called it, just staring at the hole in the rock. She pulled the hood of her parka tighter to keep the snow off her face. She couldn't go back in there. Not yet. She was going crazy in there…
At first, she used to “go outside” every day, just to get some fresh air, feel the sun, look at the scenery. Gradually, her visits “outside” had tapered off, and by today, well, she couldn't remember the last time she'd set foot outside the Compound. In fact, it had been seven weeks. Seven weeks of mind-crushing boredom, trapped there with only her thoughts, memories, and movies she'd already seen too many times. She'd tried to read some of the books, but didn't have the concentration for it anymore, which saddened her, and that was really the last thing she needed – another reason to feel sad.
She would just stay outside a little longer.
The Most Dangerous Woman in the World – even back when she'd been in the World – and all she could do was feel sorry for herself. Ace pilot, extreme martial-artist, plasma-spewing Villainess, not to mention Stone Cold Fox – and for what? For who? Who was going to be impressed now? What could she steal? Who could she piss-off? Who would be eating their heats out over her? No one. No one at all. Ah, but she'd discovered a new skill, latent in her mind, hadn't she… yeah. Shego could obsessively dwell on the past better than anyone on earth. Back when there had been others on the earth. She had regrets with a capital 'R'. And they haunted her endlessly.
Hego, her big brother, haunted her. The big stupid naïve… hero. Yeah, he was a hero, now, adored and appreciated by millions. Leader of Team Go. Saver of the World. He just sucked all that right up, didn't he… He lived for that, didn't he… Idiot. She'd once been a part of Team Go, although it was against her better judgment. The way Hego idolized their father had just been more than Shego could take.
She knew things about him that her brother didn't. Things she couldn't tell him either. Besides, he'd never believe her. Hell, he was jealous of her because their father had always called her – and treated her as – 'Daddy's little girl'. If her brother knew what that meant… The stupid… I mean, “Hego”… Doy! How did I EVER let him talk me into using those names? GOD I must have been as dumb then as he is now!
Lots of regrets. Lots of things she should have done, should have said… And would have done, would have said only – only now it was too late. Well, fuck… it was too late back in The World, too… it was “too late” as soon as that comet came and killed him. The comet that made us what we are today. If it weren't for the god damned comet…
I wouldn't be here now. God DAMNED comet!
It's too cold to stay out here. I'll come back out next spring. Like a rat… she thought.
In fact, she didn't make it back out until early the next summer. She forced herself out. She didn't want to go, but she knew that if she didn't, she would die in there. Oh, die comfortably enough, sure… all the comforts of home! But she'd made up her mind – it took two months – that Cheyenne Mountain was not going to be her “home”, let alone her tomb. And if she didn't leave, and leave NOW, it would, surely, be her tomb. Eventually. As good as, anyway. Not that anyone would ever know it. Or care.
She marched herself straight ahead down the third-of-a-mile long entrance, watching the daylight at the end grow larger ever so slowly. It took mental effort borne of desperation to keep her mind still enough to take each step; what every fiber of her being wanted to go back in that cave, pop in a movie, nuke a bag of popcorn, and vegetate the rest of her life away. Would that be so bad? That is what she tried not to think about. Because… because no… it wouldn't. Under the circumstances, it was about as good as any other option. So she tried not to think at all, rather than think about that.
She walked out of the cave, squinting her eyes against the awful sun.
She went to the Humvee she'd used last year, the keys were still in it. Of course they were still in it… what a dumb thing to be surprised by now. Eventually, it started, and Shego let it warm up for awhile until the engine finally smoothed out. Then she drove down the mountain for the last time.
Driving… the serene calm of driving. Just enough stimulus to require attention, but not enough to be burdensome. She drove on, completely uninterested in where she was going. What did it matter?
By that night she found herself in Colorado Springs. She spent the night in the back of her Humvee. Tomorrow maybe she'd explore the place. The thought was ever so slightly exciting – which to her, made it seem like Christmas Eve to a six-year-old. She slept better than she had in months.
First stop next morning – Winn-Dixie. By now, the smell of rotted meat had pretty much gone, and she could browse the store without gagging as she had last year. Everything un-touched, and if only the lights would work, it would have been oddly comforting. They didn't, of course, so Shego grabbed herself a cart and loaded up on cases of bottled water, protein-bars, canned meat, and pasta. She threw in a pot to cook it in, too.
Which put her in Survivalist Mode: a raincoat, knives, a bigger pot, gloves, lighters, a couple of flashlights and a lot of batteries. She picked a battery-powered radio/flashlight off the shelf absent-mindedly, read the advertising on it as any shopper might… then suddenly scowled and threw it down the aisle, sending a plasma-ball after it to destroy the damn thing. Radio. Fat lot of good that would do her…
The plasma-ball exploded against it like a grenade.
Shego began to feel better. That was fun…
Next stop – Army/Navy store. Yeah, lots of good stuff in there. She actually began to enjoy herself. She'd thought she'd forgotten how.
Hey, porn! Cool… in the Cave, all she'd found were a few (and certainly fewer than she'd have thought she'd find) girlie magazines, and that didn't do her much good. They wouldn't have any porn for women, of course – she never understood why, but for some reason, there just wasn't much for women to choose from in porn – but they'd probably have some magazines for gay men, and that would be good enough… Maybe 'Blueboy' or something… yeah…
That's when she saw it: 'Barely Legal', with a cover that showed some under-age looking model dressed up as a pre-teen schoolgirl. And that, finally, is what set Shego off.
She torched the magazine stand with her plasma.
Then she ran outside and torched the whole building. Then she turned around and torched the bar on the other side of the street. Then she walked down the street and torched everything.
Fuck Bank of America! Fuck Traveler's Insurance! Fuck Phoenix University! Fuck Starbuck's! Fuck B.Dalton's!The list went on as she walked, turning when she felt like turning, throwing plasma left and right. She knocked down street-lights with her energy-field encased fists, “And MOST of all – FUCK Hego and FUCK YOU DAD!” she finally screamed, breathless and drained. She fell to her knees in the middle of the street, buildings ablaze all around.
She was so good at destruction. It was her true calling.
The blazes – five city blocks were now in flames – created their own vortex of wind, sucking air from below and billowing smoke from the top. Shego felt the cool wind pick up, not realizing why. Buildings she hadn't torched began bursting, exploding into flame. Shego had started a firestorm. A force of nature, the fire now had enough power to feed itself, without any help from her. All of Colorado Springs was going to go up within the next ten minutes.
And Shego was right in the middle of it.
She looked up when she heard the first skyscraper begin to fall, it's steel skeleton softened from the intensity of the heat. It was two blocks behind her, but there were more. And the fire was in front of her as well.
Shit!
Forward was at least better than backward. Out of shape from a year of atrophy, she began to run as best she could. It seemed obvious, somehow, to go against the wind that was now roaring down the streets. So, her direction had been chosen for her. What else did Nature have in store?
Rain, is what. The intensity of the heat from the firestorm's core carried the smoke all the way into the upper atmosphere, melting the ice crystals, creating an artificial thunderhead. It rained black. Not enough to put out the fire – not enough to even slow it down. The rain would evaporate long before it could do that. But enough to drench Shego in acidic, black, wet ash, blowing in her face, stinging her eyes. She ran on.
The interstate! Ahead, half a mile – maybe a quarter, she couldn't be sure – I-40 cut through the edge of the city. The fire wouldn't be able to cross a 12-lane highway… if she could just get to it…
The rain fell into her open mouth as she gasped for air, tasting sharp and acrid. She tried to wipe it off her face with a black, greasy arm, to no avail. Her eyes burned just like the fires she'd started. Her diaphragm ached from the unaccustomed use and she ran bent over, holding on to her stomach, but still she ran. Her legs felt like jelly – any moment she was going to fall on the asphalt and if she did… she doubted if she would be able to get up again. Not for awhile. Not until she caught her breath. No time. The interstate… now a block away, the buildings next to it already engulfed in twisting, all-consuming fire.
A block away.
By the time she got under the shelter of the elevated highway, she simply collapsed, while the fire burned on. She lay there, cheek to the road, barely able to keep her eyes squinted open for the pain of the ash-laden rain, and watched it. This was her doing. What she was seeing had come from her… an expression of her, a reflection of her, her child. Her
baby. And yes, in a way, she loved the fire. They had a lot in common.
Then she heard a horrible sound, like a low-pitched scream. Not a human sound, that much was obvious. Maybe it was just a trick of the wind… or the fire. No, there it was again… There! Coming down the street! A figure bathed in flame… a figure with four legs…
The bear was on fire from head to tail. Perhaps it had been inside a building when the fire got to it, or perhaps it had run through the fire - who could know, but whatever the case, the bear was on fire and in pain. It stumbled blindly down the street in front of her, fifty yards away, meandering from one side to the other, turning when it ran into something. Wailing all the while.
Shego watched as it finally collapsed on the sidewalk, unable to go any further, and still it burned.
A bear.
Shego had done this. Her baby. Herself.
She finally closed her eyes and passed out.