The goo-thrower was already pulled back, ready to launch the last sphere. “Oh… snap…” he said.
The catapult launched, and they both watched the purple ball disappear in a flash of blue light.
And all hell broke lose.
First there was an ear-piercing CRACK!, followed by a a rumbling they could both feel in their bones. In front of them through the wall, they could see a purple blotch somewhere in the salt. It was growing.
“Dr. Drakken! What happened?” Kim shouted over the rumbling.
“Slight mis-calculation… I… uh… We should probably leave. The golf-cart would be-” Before he could finish the sentence, another CRACK! noise cut him off, and but this time they could see what made the noise: the floor was suddenly divided into regular two-foot wide squares, like tile – and they were moving. Every other square was rising up, while the others sunk down. There would be no driving over this…
“Run for it Kim!” Drakken yelled, and took off in the direction of the elevator shaft, far to distant to see in the now-dusty air. Luckily, the lights hadn't shut off yet.
Kim didn't have to be told twice. The purple blotch now covered half the twenty-foot wall in front of them, and the crystals of the floor were taking on a purple hue as well. The goo-goo was expanding along nanometer thick cracks in the crystalline structure of the salt, re-distributing stresses throughout the whole dome. Things were moving everywhere…
The unevenness of the floor made running difficult, like trying to run on a rail-road. They had to leap over the lowering squares, one at a time. It took a lot of concentration to make any speed at all. They couldn't spare a second to look anywhere but right in front of themselves.
Kim could have easily outrun Drakken even so, but, of course, she wasn't about to leave him behind. Whether he'd turned “good” - or not - that was not an option. She would endanger herself for his sake, running from a disaster that was his fault. It kind of pissed her off…
“What did you DO, Lipsky?”
Between pants, Drakken answered, “Forgot the… constant of… integration. Instead… of being far away… this quake is… right on top… of us…”
“In other words – you did it again…”
“Was in a… hurry! Had to… be sure… you'd come…”
“Why me?”
“You bring… the press…”
They ran on.
As they did, the floor began to level out, and eventually even the checkerboard cracks disappeared, as did the weird purple hue in the salt. The rumbling was still going on, but this far away the lights of Drakken's console and workstation could barely be made out as a bright patch in the haze of the distance. Things felt a lot safer here, at least. Drakken had to stop and catch is breath. Kim, looking back, wondered about something:
“Hey Drakken – your stuff is still turned on back there. It won't, like, explode or anything will it? The loop thingy was still energized too.”
“Oh, don't worry about the Loop” he said, pausing for a few more breaths, “It was calibrated specifically for the goo-goo spheres. Anything else tries to go through will just short out the phi-delta phase coils.”
“Yeah, well… I'd still feel better if we could unplug it or something. Where's the power cable? Up on the ceiling?” Kim always looked forward to using the GJ toys – the new, improved piton-gun, for instance would be just the thing to pull her up to the ceiling, and maybe the lipstick laser would make a handy cutter.
“Oh, the power cable from the mine's lights would never meet the needs of the Transporter Loop. I had to bring my own reactor for that.”
Kim considered that for a moment, then asked, “You mean as in nuclear reactor?”
“Well… it takes a lot of power to open an inter-dimensional tunnel-”
“Drew… you're telling me that there's an OPERATIONAL nuclear reactor back there?”
“Don't get so excited. You laymen are so ignorant about nuclear power! The fact is, they're perfectly safe!” Drakken rubbed his chin, “Well… once they're turned off, anyway.”
“Drew…”
“Well, uh… I was rather excited at the time…”
“You were scared shitless. How bad would it be, worst-case? Scale of 1 to 10.”
“I don't think it's reasonable to consider the worst case scenario when-”
“Don't play politician with me! 'Fess up.” Kim said sternly.
“Uh, well… maybe… eight?”
Kim made up her mind what she was going to do with her customary speed, “I'm going back.”
“Kim! Are you mad?” he asked, but Kim was already off.
“What?” she yelled over her shoulder, “Saving the world from one of your dumb schemes? It's just like old times!”
That hit him where he lived – in the ego – so he humphed and crossed his arms as he watched her run back. The rumbling seemed to be quieting down, the anxiousness wearing off with it. As he watched her back slowly receding into the distance he noticed something. The pillars of salt that supported the ceiling – they looked funny. They seemed… almost twisted somehow, the light refracting through them was skewed. That was odd. Salt doesn't twist… well, a twenty-foot tall column of crystal might twist a LITTLE, but -
While he thought about it, one of them seemed to explode into sand. Pebbles, grains, and dust flew from where it had been, and shortly there was nothing but a pile of granular salt where the pillar had been. Then another pillar exploded, in front of Kim's position this time. Then two more – one of them only 30 yards away from Drakken himself.
“KIM!” he shouted as loud as he could, but with more of the columns exploding, it was doubtful she'd hear. He tried to yell again, but ended up coughing from inhaling a lung-full of salt-dust. As he coughed, he noticed something else – the ceiling too, now, was divided into squares, but these squares were at least half a football field wide. That might not be a good sign…
Another nearby column exploded, and Drakken had to leave – the salt dust was too chokingly thick. He headed back towards the still out-of-sight elevator, hoping that it still worked.
Kim managed to dodge the exploding columns and make it back to the relative safety of Drakken's work area. Apparently wherever the purple goo had spread was safe – in a relative way. The tables and chairs were of course tipped over, and the Transporter Loop had indeed shorted out when the catapult apparatus had tried to slide through it. But the console lights were still on – and there, behind the console, was the the tiny reactor, judging by the radiation signs and DANGER! stickers all over it.
Ten sausage-sized poles stuck out of the top, with regular, measured markings on the sides, and red handles on the top.
Red. Did it mean “danger” or “safety”? Kim wished now she'd taken the time to ask Dr. Drakken just how to shut the damn thing down. She'd sort of assumed there'd just be a big red button, or switch that said “OFF” or something, but no. Except for a panel of gauges and dials, and a cable snaking out of the side, there were no controls on the thing at all. Just those red handled poles.
Pull them out, shove them in, or turn them – that was the question.
While she considered her options, she heard a strange, high-pitched screaming noise behind her. She looked.
Nothing there. Yet the noise went on… A barely-audible squealing. It was hard to locate the source – it seemed to be coming from everywhere. And yet, nothing seemed to be going on… Wait. Was the ceiling divided up into blocks like that before? Seems like she would've noticed that… and why were some of the blocks just a little lower – she couldn't be sure – yes, some of the blocks were just a little lower than the others. Wait a minute. Okay, that one there was noticeably lower than – oh my god, they're falling! The ceiling is falling down in giant blocks! I'll be- … First things first – she had a job to do. Get a grip Kim. Push, pull, or turn. Gotta shut this thing down…
Her brain going a mile a minute, she re-hashed everything she knew about nuclear power: Uranium. It gets hot when the reaction happens. But it's not ALWAYS hot – they control how hot it gets… with those rods, I bet. But which way!? Okay, the uranium atoms split when neutrons hit them. And when they split, they GIVE OFF neutrons. That's the chain-reaction. So to stop that, you gotta get rid of the neutrons. Otherwise it'll go on forever – melt it's way to China. Those rods must be neutron-suckers. Or… are the rods the uranium, and something down under them sucks neutrons. no, that wouldn't make sense. That would mean there's uranium in those rods I'm looking at sticking out of the box. They'd be zapping me. And him. That'd be stupid. Of course, this IS something Dr. Drakken built… nah… nah, he's not THAT dumb. He just makes mistakes. He's not an IDIOT. So they MUST push in! My chances of being right are about 50/50.
Those odds had been working in her favor lately.
She pushed each of the rods in as far as they would go. It even felt like the right thing to do, although she had no idea why.
The lights of the console flickered faded. Proof enough. Time to go, Kimmie!!
The movement of the ceiling blocks seemed to be getting faster the more they lowered. What with the blocks in the floor and he cumbersome running, she couldn't very well keep an eye on the ceiling without stopping. After maybe five minutes of running she stopped to re-assess the situation.
She wasn't going to make it. Well, she might – if the falling of the roof-blocks didn't speed up any more, and if the blocks didn't extend any farther than where she'd left Drakken, and if she got a move on immediately and ran faster than she had so far, and if-
That was too many ifs. Kim turned around. She made it back to the area next to east wall and watched her route back to the surface slowly become closed off by tens of thousands of tons of solid, crystalline salt. The lights went out.
“And this sad event in the news,” the National Public Radio anchor man said, “teen hero Kim Possible is missing and presumed dead in a mine disaster on Avery Island, Louisiana. Apparently she had-”
That was all Will heard in his office before the alarms started going off. He could guess why. Shego had a habit of listening to NPR news as well. She'll be going ape-shit about now… Damn! If I know her, she'll probably – yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she will… Yeah! Okay, listen up you green bitch – I know there's no talking to you right now, he jumped out of his chair and lept for his office door, but if you can get TO ME, I'll get you to HER! Deal?
Shego slid into the broom-closet – another correct guess - and looked around while listening to the guards running towards her apartment. Ah yes, a air-conditioning duct. Of course. Always air-conditioning ducts… oldest trick in the book.
There were a lot of tricks in Shego's book, and she'd used them all by the time she got to the top of the Admin building, where she knew there was at least a helipad. And lo! There was a chopper on it – but she didn't pause to consider her luck. Besides, someone was already warming it up, it seemed. No time to lose.
She ran across the roof to the helipad – zig-zagging slightly in case anyone might be watching her through a sniper-rifle scope, and jumped in.
Will was there. He appeared to be ready to go somewhere.
“Out” she commanded simply. Right now, Shego had no time for pleasantries.
“Sit down, strap in, and shut up, Shego. I'll take you.”
“I don't have time for this shit Will! Remember that line I never cross? I'll cross it now. I kid you not. Get the fuck out.”
“One: you can't fly this particular chopper. Look at the controls. See a throttle? No. See a collective stick? No. Did you happen to notice a tail-rotor when you got in? It doesn't have one. I can only guess how you feel, Shego, but ya gotta let me do this. You'll blow yourself up trying to fly this thing.”
“Will… I'm not fucking joking here…”
“I know. I know you're not, Shego. Try to calm down. Think about what I said. We're going. Now.” The prototype chopper lifted into the air so sharply that Shego was almost thrown to the floor. It was enough of a surprise to get her to at least take the time to consider her situation.
G-forces continued trying to slam her down, and then back, as Will set his altitude and course. Finally, when it was safe to let go of the back of the co-pilot seat, Shego climbed in it and buckled her harness. “You heard?” she said, still wondering if she was going to have commit her first murder.
“Yeah. Avery Island, Louisiana. That's where we're going.”
“In a helicopter? It can't possibly have enough fuel to-”
“It does. Trust me. This is one odd bird. And besides, seems to me you got nothing to lose.”
“You have something to lose if you're trying to pull something…”
He looked at her out of the corner of his eye as he adjusted the hydrogen peroxide flow valve, “We'll get there. Now sit down.”
She thought about that for a second, and decided to give him he benefit of the doubt. Meanwhile, she considered what to do next. Sit there?
“I… I can't just fucking SIT here!” she tried to shout at him over the roar of the blades as Will set the pitch for speed. He motioned for her to put her helmet on.
“I said I can't just sit here! Let me fly! Let me do SOMEthing!”
“You can navigate. Oh! And here, take the stick for a sec – now that we've got forward speed, it behaves just like a regular helicopter. I'm going to see what I can find out about the situation.”
Shego took her stick and searched the strange-looking control panel for a map-display, a GPS read-out, a fucking compass, ANY-damn-thing… “Navigate? With what? I see six dials – none of them have to do with navigating!”
“Yeah. Prototype, like I said. No radio, either, my Communicator is all we got. See the highways? Keep going east to the middle of Kansas, then turn right – that'll be I-35. We'll figure out the rest later.”
Shego flew, her mind still flashing images before her eyes that she was helpless to stop. This couldn't happen again! What? She looked up into the October sky, searching for blue patches amongst the gray, What is it you WANT from me? I did what I could do, and you're taking her away from me AGAIN!? What the FUCK?!
She tried not to think about it, to concentrate on the flying. Normally, she'd be double-checking her instrument cluster, but this time, she had no idea what the dials meant. Most of them were calibrated in kilograms-per-hour and dynes-per-square-centimeter. Fucking Euros and their fucking metric system.
“Okay, Shego,” Will said, after he'd unplugged from his Communicator and jacked his helmet cable back into the comm box, “Uh… maybe I should take the stick back. For awhile.”
“I'm just barely holding on to my sanity here, Secret Agent Man. Just tell me. Fast. Or else.”
“Right. Uh… apparently it's… I mean, she was sent to a salt mine on a place called Avery Island. Home of Tabasco. Dr. Director thought it might have something to do with some seismic activity that was detected-”
“Drakken” Shego interrupted.
Will hadn't really wanted her to figure that out yet, but apparently she'd put the pieces together anyway. “Yeah. Uh… his story is that he was trying to prevent a major-”
“I don't CARE what he was doing, or WHY he was doing it or even where the FUCK Tobacco comes from, Will!”
“Uh, oh yeah. He was setting off little miniature earth-quakes somehow. Apparently he mis-calculated-”
“Big fucking surprise.”
“- and the last one was right at the salt dome he was inside. Weird things started happening, and the ceiling of the room they were both in – at the lowest level – sort of came down. Kim had-”
“Sort of came down?”
“Dr. Drakken said it didn't 'fall', but just slowly lowered in a bunch of huge cubic blocks of salt. Kim went to shut down the nuclear reactor he was using as a power source. That's the last he saw of her.”
“So… she's trapped. Or…” Shego cut her thoughts before they could finish, “ So she's trapped. Got it.”
“Actually, it gets worse. Uhm, I'm taking the stick.”
Shego let him take control, as she stared out the window without seeing anything. Worse?
“Tell me…” she said calmly.
“They can't mount a rescue operation because the mine is filling with hydrogen sulfide gas. It's extremely poisonous.”
Shego closed her eyes. Of course it is. It's always hopeless, isn't it… Earthquakes, fire, floods… now collapsing mines and poison gas. What the hell is your PROBLEM? she thought, addressing one of the blue holes in the clouds,Are we not SUPPOSED to be together, is that it? Or… or is this your version of a test… or a joke… or something…
“On the other hand,” Will continued after a pause, “If she is trapped, there's a chance the gas can't get to her.”
She slowly opened her eyes and looked at Will. He felt a chill run down his body, making his hair stand on end.
“Yeah, right, Will. I'm sure that's what happened.” Her tone was… odd.
“I was just trying-”
“I know what you were trying. Look, I… Just leave me alone for awhile, okay? I… I need to… I need-”
“Okay.”
Shego turned her head the other way, looking out the side door of the helicopter, at the countryside passing underneath them. They were only about five thousand feet high, still low to make out cars and people and dogs and horses doing what cars, people, dogs, and horses did. None of them knowing – or caring – about what had happened to Kim Possible. She wondered why she should care, if they didn't. In fact, they wouldn't even care if she were to just open the chopper door and step out. It would be easy. She could do that.
And really, she should do that… before she finds Kim's body – or what remains of it – under a thousand-ton block of salt or lifeless in a chamber full of poison gas. Because if that happened…
Lift handle, open door. It wouldn't be easy, against the force of the wind, but she should be able to force it open enough to squeeze through. If not, well, she could just blast it off. Good ole Comet Powers, eh? How did other people get by without 'em? Only her and her brothers were “blessed” with Comet Powers… and she got the plasma. Plasma was great for destroying things.
Why couldn't she have gotten super-strength? Or the ability to clone herself – that'd be kind of fun – or grow as tall as the Sears Tower? Something… useful, something that could be handy for something other than destruction? But what she got was the Plasma. Another joke on her from above. Another sign. Is that it? Are you trying to TELL me something? Well how about if I don't care to play your little game, eh? Suppose I just ditch it all. Right now. You gonna stop me? I doubt it. Not this time. What're ya gonna do, put a hay-bale under me? Have me land on a big pile of cotton? I don't see no cotton down there… hay either. Looks like I finally gotcha, Big Guy. Suppose I call your bluff and just do it…
She put her hand on the door-handle.
“Shego…”
“Shut it, Will. This doesn't concern you.”
“Listen, I've been thinking-”
She light her other hand, bring her plasma up to her highest possible temperature. Will felt the heat. “Dead serious, Will. Shut it.”
Will stared into her eyes. Oh yeah, she meant it… She was serious. Kim was probably dead, and now Shego intended to follow her. But what if she was wrong? In her state, Shego probably hadn't thought of that. Did he dare bring that up to her? The Most Dangerous Woman in the World was the Most Angry She'd Ever Been. Not a good time to say something unless you were sure that…
Then Will realized that he was sure. Weird. He was absolutely spot-on confidently sure that this is what he should say, plasma or no plasma, insane glare or no insane glare. He'd have to think about that later, though, because Shego was pulling the handle.
“What if you're wrong, Shego? What if she's down there waiting on you?”
Shego froze, but her hand still flamed. Will went on. “I mean, she's trapped down there by god knows how much rock and-”
“Salt” Shego interrupted, her mind beginning to work again. The plasma snuffed out.
“Yeah, salt – whatever. Miners would have to dig through it. Maybe blast their way. It might take days or weeks. But you… you have another way, don't you… you could melt your way through, right?”
“The gas-”
“Scott Air Packs. Like SCUBA gear for fires and haz-mat places. The mine will surely have 'em… all firemen have 'em. We'll have to bring along one for Kim, for when you break through, and-”
“We?”
“Yeah. 'We'. What, you thought I was just dropping you off, then back home and watch it on the news? Give me a little credit, Shego. Good guys aren't like that.”
She took her hand off the handle and went back to staring out the windshield. There was one little problem with his happy little scene -
“And what if I'm right, Will. Huh? Answer that one.”
“Well… then if I know you – and how it is with you two – you'd be joining her shortly anyway. Although frankly I'd have never thought you'd be such a dip-shit. Bad things happen, and life goes on, Shego. Just how it is.”
That got her attention. She'd heard that argument before – from Kim, rationalizing her fear of being “known” as being “with” Shego. And now, her mind cleared by the very intensity of what she'd felt only a moment before, she realized: yeah, things just are like that. Some things. A lot of things. But you can't let it beat you down, Kimmie… sometimes ya just gotta roll with the punches. You oughta know that.
I oughta know that.
It looked like some sort of major city was coming up. Shego had cleared her mind now, not quite with Kim Possible-like clarity, but the most sane she'd been so far, anyway.
“Isn't that Houston? Or is it Dallas… We're going to need a map.”
“A map? Wouldn't you rather just ask for directions?”
She looked at him incredulously, “You have no idea how close you are to getting your ass blasted out that door, Secret Agent Man…”
“I think we should stop and get a map” he said.
The mining company did in fact have Scott Air Packs on hand. But only two, and only four bottles of air. Will had the Fire Chief scour the nearby fire stations for more – as many as he could get. Meanwhile, Shego got a lecture about the hazards of H2S, hydrogen sulfide.
No one's sure, but it comes from oil, somehow. Especially in oilfields undergoing what was called “secondary recovery”, meaning that the oil isn't coming out on it's own anymore, and to get it out, you have to put something in. Usually carbon dioxide. Whatever the case, it stinks like rotten eggs. Which isn't exactly deadly – but that's a very, very low concentration. In concentrations above about 2, one wouldn't smell it at all anymore because it would kill the sense of smell entirely and permanently with the first sniff. Then it would kill you. Then she was told something that worried her:
“… it's also explosive in any concentration between 4 and 44. Any spark or open flame will set it off. Very reactive with oxygen. So-”
“What's the concentration in the mine?”
“Hard to say” the fireman said, “it has the mine's gas sensors pegged. So more than 30 anyway. No way to tell without going down there. But the mine people say their seismographs are still showing activity, and we're not about to go down-”
“Hold on. So you're saying that it's not explosive anymore in concentrations above 44? And you know that it's at least at 30 in the mine?”
“Uh, yeah, right on both counts. Probably more at the bottom level. It's a heavy gas. Why, what are-”
“Keep your people out then” Shego said, and raised a hand to demonstrate her power, “See this? 14,000 degrees Fahrenheit. More in short bursts. I'm gonna use it to tunnel through the salt. If you're wrong about the exploding part… well, let's hope your not.”
“Shego!” Will shouted, running over to her, “Okay, we have an idea where she is. What we don't know is how much salt is between us and her. But Drakken said that the in the area he was… working… or whatever, the salt looked purple. He didn't know if that had anything to do with the ceiling falling or not, but there's a distinct possibility that where Kim is is more stable than the part that fell down. We got a chance here!”
“I'll be going down alone Will. Help me get suited up.”
“The hell you are.”
“The gas is explosive, you idiot! But it might not blow up if the concentration is high enough. Which no one knows. You wanna take that chance?”
“That's what I'm paid for, Shego! That's why I get the big bucks.”
“Doy! You're such a… cop!”
“And yer a bit of a bitch, ain't cha… Here, hold this while I get my arms through.”
“Okay, Shego. When the buzzer goes off, it's time to head back!” Will shouted through his face mask as the elevator began its descent.
“How long do these bottles last?” Shego asked, also yelling.
“About half an hour – maybe a little more for you, being a woman! Less if you're under stress!”
“Less if we have to keep screaming like this too!”
“Press the face masks together!”
They pressed them together, looking something like aliens kissing.
“Can you hear me?” Will said at normal volume.
“Yeah, okay. Got it. Half an hour isn't very damn long, Will…”
“I know. This trip is just to see what we're up against. We'll have to come back for more tanks once we see what it's like down there. By that time, they should have more tanks we can bring down with us.”
“We're gonna have to change tanks while we're down there?” Shego asked.
“Supposedly, you can breathe the air inside your mask for awhile… but I'd hold my breath, if I were you.”
“You think of everything.”
Once they reached the bottom of the mine, Shego stuck her arm out to prevent Will from walking out while she studied the floor. Salt-dust covered everything, turning everything a ghastly yellow under the sodium-vapor lights - like a dusting of snow. And there were tracks in the snow. Drakken's, most likely. They lead east. That made sense. Check. She put her arm down and they began to follow them, Shego in the lead.
They walked a long time – it seemed longer to Will, and like forever to Shego. The lights near the elevator faded out in the distance behind then, so they used their flashlights. They walked on in silence. Eventually, they came to a crack in the floor going across their path, from which yellowish fumes lazily poured out and ran along he floor before dispersing into the air. Probably where the gas is coming from Shego and Will both thought.
Not far on the other side of that crack, they found the Wall. Drakken's footprints disappeared. Will's buzzer went off.
He tapped her on the shoulder and leaned in to touch face-plates. “We gotta go back. I'm half out of air.”
“Then go. I'm staying.” She turned and held up a hand, preparing to ignite. He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around again.
“Shego, your lungs may be a little more efficient than mine, but you don't have that much time, either! And I for sure don't have time to stand here and argue with you. Now come on. If you die here, what good does that do her, huh? We're coming right back. They should have more tanks for us by now. We'll carry as many as we can. You think about what you need to do. Okay?”
Torn in half by logic and need, she tried to think about what he'd said – but couldn't. So she did something surprising, to both of them:
She took his word for it.
He lead them back.
An hour later, they were at the wall again, each of them with two full tanks of air in their arms. Will's buzzer had gone off fifty yards before they got there, but he assumed there would be enough reserve built in that he could make it back. If not… well, maybe he could re-breath the air trapped in his mask for a while… As long as I can get to the elevator and start it going up before I pass out, I should be okay, he thought.
They dropped their tanks on the ground, and Shego leaned in to talk.
“I'll give you until I'm out of air to get out of here, Will. Then I'm lighting up. If I blow up the mine, I guess you'll know it didn't work.”
“Negative. You start doing it now. There may not be time to wait. I'll take my chances. You know how to change tanks by yourself?”
“I can manage. Okay. I'd say 'stand back', but I don't think it'll make much difference. Here we go.” She broke contact and faced the wall. She held out a hand, soon enveloped in red plasma because of all the sulfur in the air. She looked at it in wonder for a second, until she figured that out.
The mine didn't explode. Will tried to calm himself, and turned to leave – he didn't have time to be a spectator.
The plasma around Shego's outstretched hand formed into an ellipse, the narrow end away from her palm. Slowly, it lengthened, until it was burrowing into the salt face. The salt melted and ran like liquid metal. Towards Shego's feet.
She cut her plasma and jumped aside to avoid it. Damn. This wasn't going to be so simple after all. It was going to take some engineering. That salt was going to need somewhere to go…
Like that crack in the floor, a little ways back. Yeah. She could melt a canal, of sorts, from here to there, and – wait. Better start at the crack, and work her way here. Otherwise she was going to have the same problem all over again. Fine. More time wasted. Her buzzer went off. Half-way on her air. She ran back to the crack and started carving.
Will didn't pass out in the elevator, but he was inhaling his own breath by the time it reached the surface. He clawed the mask off and took a deep breath. He'd carried only two bottles down this trip. That was unsatisfactory. Maybe he could load up the elevator, at least saving the time it took to go up and down. Shego had enough air for probably an hour longer – did using her plasma make her tired? He didn't know. Nothing about that in her dossier… No matter. Work to do.
Well, it wasn't quite the load of tanks he'd hoped for. Five more. Apparently the volunteer Fire Departments of the nearby little towns didn't have the budget for many Scott Air Packs, they were going to have to go all the way back to Lafayette to get them. It would be awhile. He hoped they showed up before Shego ran out, because it was going to be hard to get her to come back out of there again. And even if she did, he didn't imagine she would be able to just sit around and wait. She'd probably start looking for Drakken and revenge. That would be bad.
By the time he got back to Shego, she'd carved a six-foot diameter tunnel twenty yards into the solid salt. A little river of molten salt ran down from her “plasma torch” down into the gully, which she straddled as she cut. He dropped the two tanks and extra Air Pack at her position. It occurred to him that he wasn't going to be able to keep bringing the new tanks all the way there anymore: he'd have to start changing his own tanks in route to be able to do that. More air for him, less for her. Shego was just going to have to return to the entrance of her tunnel for fresh tanks from now on. And the farther she went, the more time she was going to spend walking, and the less cutting…
Next time he came to the Wall, he just dropped the bottles there, and race-walked as calmly as he could back to the elevator.
The Fire Department had managed to round up twenty more Scott Air Pack tanks when Will returned to the surface. Several firemen volunteered to help Will shuttle bottles, and he considered letting them – then it occurred to him, they would need bottles themselves. So that plan was out. Will was also informed that they intended to set charges at the entrance of the mine before the H2S gas filled it and began spilling out the top. That would still be awhile, ten our so hours, it looked like, but they thought they should tell him. They asked him to place the charges. He took them, and said that he would do it – on his last trip up. At least he had an elevator full of tanks when he went down again.
Hours later, Shego had melted a tunnel almost half a mile long through the salt. And still no sigh of it ending. She would run to the entrance for a fresh tank of air, and then run back to the end of the tunnel to melt as much as she could before her buzzer went off, and then repeat the process. She had another Air Pack, with a full tank, at the working-end of the tunnel, but that was for Kim. Shego dared not use that one. Getting Kim out of there on only tank for her – and whatever was left in Shego's tank - well, she tried not to think about it.
She'd never used her comet-power for this long a stretch continuously before, and it was tiring – something she hadn't known. She'd only been cutting for a little more than eight minutes this time before her buzzer went off. She was beginning to hate that sound. She cut her plasma off completely – usually she kept it on at 'cool' to use as a light, but this time it just seemed like such a relief to finally be able to turn it all the way off. The yellow river of molten salt gave her enough light to see her way back.
Then something caught her eye. She thought she saw something flash in the salt in front of her. Probably just molten salt dripping in the hole – no, there it was again. And again. A faint flash of blue. Blue? Another one! It was longer than the others had been though. Shego began to count: - again with a long, then another long, pause, short, short, short, pause, long, long, long, pause…
Like Morse Code. Which all pilots are required to learn. The simplest 3-element letters - “O” and “S”…
S-O-S!!
“KIM!!” Shego screamed uselessly into her face-mask.
There would be no going back for tanks now.
She cut for five more minutes, then paused to watch again. Yes. The flashes were more distinct now. Still obviously a lot of salt to go, though. Shego fired up for more.
Ten minutes later, the flashes were concentrated and bright. The remaining salt must be pretty thing. Now there was going to be a problem, though. She knew from Will that Shego didn't have an Air Pack in there – her air was good. Shego's environment was deadly. And as soon as she broke open that wall, Kim's chamber would be flooded with deadly gas. Probably in the explosive concentration, too.
Shego was going to have to blast the remaining wall between them. Hopefully – hopefully – her plasma would dissipate before the incoming rush of oxygen allowed the gas to ignite. Then she was going to have to rush in there like she'd never rushed before and get Kim's Air Pack on before she even took one breath.
She was going to have to communicate. The same way Kim was. Shego hoped she could remember enough code to do that…
Kim kept flashing her laser at the wall, but the strange red glow had stopped for awhile now. Something must be going on back there… it had never stopped for so long before. Perhaps they were preparing to break through! She'd better get out of the way…
Standing to one side, she stared at the wall waiting for something to happen, and wondered about the bright red glow. She expected them to use mining equipment, or dynamite, or something. Not fire! Well, obviously it wasn't fire… but some kind of torch. Too bad Shego wasn't here – she could have just melted her way through. But Shego's glow was green, not red. Too bad. Note to self: DO NOT go ANYWHERE without Shego AGAIN!!
It was a lesson she'd learned before, but hadn't remembered.
Suddenly the wall flashed red, but just as suddenly stopped. Then flashed again. And stopped. Ah, they're talking to me! Okay… e, e, e, e, d, o, n, t, b, r, e, a, t, h, e, pause, pause, (don't breathe?), pause, e-e-e-e-e, pause, t-e-e-e-e (huh?) pause, t-t-e-e-e, pause (oh!, that's right, uhm… 5, 4, 3), t-t-t-e-e, (2 – I was right!), pause, t-t-t-t-e, (oh my god…), pause, t-t-t-t-t, pause -
Kim took a deep breath and covered her eyes.
The wall blew outward.