“Yeah? Well, you're doin’ good, Kim. Keep it up.” Bonnie got up to take the empty space next to Brick.
The Chinese Secretary of the Interior was found assassinated in his hotel room, apparently by a single small-caliber shot to the head. In the room was found an ashtray with a stubbed-out butt in it. Odd, because the Secretary didn't smoke. The cigarette turned out to be custom-made. A special-order blend for the Venezuelan Oil Minister.
Tension between the oil-hungry China and oil-rich Venezuela reached a new, all-time high. The rest of the world, producers as well as consumers, kept their fingers crossed. 15 of the world's oil-supply came from the small South-American country, and almost all of that came from one place within it: Lake Maracaibo. Disruption of that flow could easily double crude prices around the globe, by the time the speculators got through jacking up the market. The consequences of THAT could escalate unbelievably quickly. No nation in the world was more than three meals away from revolution.
Lake Maracaibo was very much like an industrial version of hell on earth. The entire lake was covered with a sheen of spilled oil, chunks of tar, and a mix of other petro-chemicals used in the drilling industry. The derricks and platforms were constructed cheek-by-jowl next to each other, the only object: to get as MUCH oil out as FAST as possible. This is what happened when foreign Capitalism met the undeveloped Third World, and that world had something valuable to take.
-----
“I need to be there! They… they might need me!”, Kim was protesting. She damned them for going without her. Shego – okay, that was her job. But Ron? And then Josh? They had no excuse! That stupid away-game! Stupid cheer-leading! Now she was alone, her friends – and her love - half a world away. It was a first, and she didn't like it.
The Director considered her situation, as well as her own.
“I'm afraid we have another job… perhaps you could attend to. We believe there may be a plan – we don't know what kind of plan – to wreck havoc in a certain South American country. This plan needs to be found out, and foiled. I'm afraid we don't -”, she was interrupted by Kim.
“Can't you get someone else? Hong Kong! I need to go to Hong Kong!”, Kim cried desperately.
The Director considered again. “No. No Hong-Kong. This mission I'm proposing, though, is not just my idea. It's actually part of what your… partners… are involved in. If you really want to help them, you'll help me.”
“How is it involved with them?”
This was going to be the hard part for the Director. She couldn't very tell the young world-saver that she had a hunch that Mr. Mankey was on to something. And she couldn't show her what Mankey had done, either. She didn't understand it, frankly. What he'd shown her looked like some weird sort of drawing of the structure of a crystal… he'd pointed to things and looked the Director saying “See? See?”, and she'd nodded her head as if she'd understood: but she hadn't. It wasn't her job to understand technical details. It was her job to understand the people that did.
“Suffice it to say that it is – or may be, at least – part of a pattern. A very complex pattern, the pieces of which are beginning to fall into place very rapidly. We have people scattered all over the globe, and we can't spare anyone for this.” Dr. Director stood behind her desk and looked at her globe, giving it a careless spin as she collected her thoughts. “I would consider it a personal favor to me, if you would go to Venezuela and look around.”
Those would be light words coming from anyone else, and easily dismissed. But there was still one problem.
“My partner. Ron's over there. I… I need someone to watch my back”, Kim said.
“I'm sure we can find someone who -”
“No, not ‘someone’. I need someone I know, someone who's reactions I know, whose capabilities I know… someone I can trust…” Kim said uncertainly. There were few such people, and they were all in Hong Kong.
The Director sighed. She'd known this was going to happen sooner or later, ever since she'd reluctantly sighed the purchase-order for the parts. It was just inevitable, really. “Take Sheaghen.”
“I'm going on a mission? Yay!”, the syntho-drone chortled.
“You did not just say ‘yay', did you?”, Kim responded with amazement.
Sheaghen smiled wickedly at her, “Why? Don't like your side-kicks all perky? That's not what I heard…”
Kim sighed. She really was just like Shego, in a lot of ways. A lot of ways.
“Listen, Sheaghen… I need to know your capabilities, if we're gonna do this. I've dealt with syntho-drones before – I hope you can fight better than they could.”
“Oh, I have a lot of upgrades. Seriously. You'll be surprised, I think. Watch:”, Sheaghen said, and proceeded to do a double-flip backwards, with a kick from each leg, and a balancing punch from each diagonally-opposed arm, every time she went around 12 o'clock. It was impressive. “Well?”
“Okaaaaaay… so you can move. Are you water-proof?”
“As a sheep's gut.”
“Can you take, say, 7 g's?”
“14, actually. Enough to totally crush you squishy meat-bags.”
Kim tried desperately to push each image out of her mind. “Well, what are you vulnerable to?”
“I'm an electronic device, so EMP will hurt me. Other than that, well, and fire – my green goo, as you call it, is flammable – I'm pretty much immune to most things that would kill a human.”
The teenage hero cataloged the information away in her mind. But she had one more question, and was unsure how to ask it… or whether to believe the answer, whatever it was; “Uh… can I trust you?”
Sheaghen thought about it, deep and hard. It took almost a full second. And it only took that long because of all the emotion simulation sub-programs running. “Can you trust Shego?”
Now it was Kim's turn to think. She could now…but what about before? As Kim had gotten to know Shego better, as they'd started training together, Shego had shown her how she'd pulled punches, and ignored targets of opportunity, in order not to seriously hurt her. All those times they'd fought, Shego never did have any intention of seriously hurting her. When she did, it was an accident.
“Yes.”
“Then you can trust me”, Sheaghen said.
Kim sighed again. This was so weird. “Okay, well, just so I'll know, what else can you do?”
“I possess the greatest weapon known to Man, which I can use at will on my opponents, rendering them senseless within seconds. How's that?”, she said, suppressing a chuckle.
“Huh?”
“Check it out.” And with those words, Sheaghen's nipples suddenly became fully erect under her skin-tight green-and-black suit (with a six-inch diamond-shaped cut-out around her belly-button).
Kim's mouth hung open for only a second before she came to her senses. Then, of course, came the blush - the curse of all red-heads.
Sheaghen laughed out loud. “See? Didn't know it was going to work on you, though… oooooohhhhhh”, she grinned, “You're one of…”, and before that reaction could finish processing, a new connection was made in her neural net, and assigned the highest priority, “Oh my gawd! You and Shego… you're… you're sex-partners!”
To be embarrassed by, and in front of, a machine, were in themselves, embarrassing.
“Oh my GAWD!”, Sheaghen cried, “This is just TOO precious! So for you to be with me…! Oh my GAAAAWD!”
Kim had to turn away to hide her face. She could feel it burning. “Look, Sheaghen, maybe this isn't such a good -”
“Oh, come ON, Kimmie! I'm just… it's something I hadn't thought of before! So that's why she never brought you around! That explains -”, Sheaghen stopped, obviously processing something complicated. She looked at Kim questioningly. “So… was it that Shego was afraid of what I might do… or what you…” But she began giggling too hard to finish the sentence.
Kim still hid her face. This had to count as one of the most “sick-and-wrong” experiences of her life, so far.
Sheaghen tried to contain herself, “Ok, look. Let's just forget about the games for awhile, much fun as it is for me. Kim, I may have Shego's personality – or that is, it was her personality when it was first installed, ‘cuz it changes as my own experiences are added to the mix, you know – but I don't have her glands. I really, really don't ‘get’ the whole sex thing, or love thing, or any of that stuff. That's why I make fun of it so much. To me, it's hilarious.”
Kim turned around. “So you won't be hitting on me?”, she said, her face still flushed.
“Uh… If I were to, it would just be teasing. But since it seems to be such a sensitive topic, I'll make a point of not doing it. Really, I like people to like me. I try not to go too far.”
During the fraction of a second after the “Uh…”, while Sheaghen had been looking at Kim's blushing face, something amazing had happened to the robot. Amazing, unexpected, and unprecedented. But she filed it away for later analysis, rather than deal with it now. Whatever it was, it seemed to make her entire net glow, the connections between individual processors almost overloading with input.
Kim said, “So… you want me to ‘like’ you, but you don't ‘get’ love?”
“Yeah. I haven't got it all figured out either. I keep telling people my emotions are simulated, but what I don't tell them is that it doesn't feel that way to me. In fact, I don't know why I'm even telling youespecially you… this.”
Things were getting weirder by the second. Even the drone herself didn't know what she was capable of…
“Sheaghen… it seems like you have a lot of ‘issues', and I'm not sure -”
“And you don't?”
One thing you could say for Sheaghen – she did know when to make a point.
Sheaghen begged, “Please let me come on a mission! Did you know that they don't even allow me out of the building? Please? Let me see some of the world?”
“You've never been out of this building?”, Kim asked, actually feeling sorry for her.
“Well… that's not what I said… but please, can I come? Pretty-please?”, and out came the puppy-dog face, Shego-style. Sheaghen-style, Kim corrected her own thoughts.
Kim's heart turned into soft butter… Even if Sheaghen was a machine, and even if her emotions were simulated, and even if she was filled with green goo… Kim couldn't say no, helpless in the face of her own secret weapon.
“Alright. Cut that out. And Sheaghen… if you ever do that again… I'll have Drakken dismantle you”, she said half-seriously.
“Oh, thank you, Kimmie!”, Sheaghen's arms flew out to embrace the red-head, but stopped while still in mid-closure. The robot looked into the somewhat terrified eyes of the human. “Too weird?”
“SO too weird!”, Kim replied.
Sheaghen stood down. “Okay. Well, thanks anyway, then. And… I'd like to see him try. I gotta go pack!” She skipped off down the hallway, humming and giggling to herself.
Kim thought, Pack? What could she have to pack? Oh, THIS is going to be one for the old scrap-book.
-----
Josh found him in Shego's room in the compound. Shego was still there, folded up in the corner. There were scorch marks in the floor beside her, where the tile and cement seemed to have been melted. Josh went to the bed to wake Ron up without saying anything.
“He's out. Probably for another two hours or so”, Shego said behind her knees.
“What happened?”, he asked, still looking at Ron, trying to find a bruise, a cut, anything.
“I… I zapped him. I'm sorry, Josh.”
“What do you mean ‘zapped him’?”, he wanted to know. He had turned his attention to her now.
“With my plasma. Remember? You once said it looked ‘cool’. You once…”, but she couldn't finish the sentence.
Josh considered what he'd been told, and started to become angry. “Mind telling me why you thought it was necessary to ‘zap’ my boyfriend, Shego?”
She swallowed, but said nothing.
“Shego?” Josh was at the end of the bed now, right in front of her. “Shego?”
Older is supposed to be wiser, she thought, guess that doesn't apply to me. The best friends I've ever had – and my lover besides – are all high school kids. And me, I'm the stupid one with super-powers. THEY are supposed to be looking up to ME! Why is it that I have to be the one who keeps screwing up? Why couldn't it be Ron? Or Kim? I could forgive them…
Will they forgive me? Will SHE?
“SHEGO!”
“I SAID I WAS SORRY!”, Shego cried. It caught Josh off-guard, the pain in her voice, her squinted eyes. He could see that she was, indeed sorry, and it took a little of his anger away. Only a little. He just stood there, looking at her, looking at Ron, trying to decide how he felt.
Behind her knees again, Shego said, “Josh… I'll explain what happened… but it's going to be hard – and humiliating – for me. So please, wait until Ron gets up, so I only have to do it once. Okay?”
Josh didn't say anything.
She added, “I really need… I really need someone to not hate me right now.” She was crying again, Josh could see her shoulders hitch.
“Swear to me he's going to be all right?”, he said.
“To the best of my knowledge, Josh, he'll be okay”, she looked up at him, “That's the best I can do. I'm sorry.” She buried her face again.
Josh continued looking at her for awhile, then at the scorch-marks in the floor, then over at Ron. He took a space next to Shego and sat on the floor, cross-legged. “Okay. I won't hate you. For awhile.” He went on staring at Ron, unconscious on the bed.
The shogun greeted his favorite concubine with his usual bow. He was a stickler for formality, she had learned, so she bowed back, respectfully deep. Being sold to him was the best thing that had ever happened to her, because he actually allowed her to pursue her own interests. She was allowed to practice with the samauri – who tolerated her presence only because she was too beautiful to turn away. She was allowed to learn to read and write. And, on those few occasions when she felt compelled to be away to the Zen temple, he ignored the rules of tradition to which he usually attached so much importance. She led him to the bedroom with a wink of her hazel eyes and a bit of extra swing to her hips.
-----
The Shaman could be so infuriating! He knew he had a purpose… he could feel it stronger every day, but when he'd talk to the Shaman about it, he got nothing back but riddles. He was supposed to be a Guide, wasn't he? Well, Guide me! He looked at the pile of black ashes from the night's fire in front of his own, equally black, crossed legs. And next moon, he would have to begin his Walkabout. He hoped he would know his purpose by then.
-----
The other knights were reveling at the inn, their stomachs full of what had to be the worst mead he'd ever tasted. But he didn't feel like celebrating. Something was left un-done. The capture of Malta had cost a high price, and he just felt that something important had been ignored. All his compatriots had laughed at him for mentioning it. “Hazel!”, they'd say, making fun of him for the color of his eyes, “The battle is over, and we are still alive… it's time to celebrate!”
-----
It sickened her to see this; thousands of dead buffalo at the bottom of the cliff. Such a waste. The “people” seemed to think nothing of it – it was simply the easiest, least dangerous way to get a winter's worth of meat. Watching from a neighboring hill – she wasn't allowed to partake in the kill since she'd been Cast Out – she sighed, apologizing to the Spirits in her thoughts. “We can always take one of the injured ones that ran off”, her lover said softly into her ear. “Yes”, she replied, “it's just so wasteful, is all. It makes my heart sick.” Her lover – the reason she had been Cast Out in the first place – carefully backed down from the summit so as not to be seen when she stood. Watching her with hazel eyes, she thought yet again: it was worth it.
-----
“Aspirin…”, Ron moaned. “Many, many aspirin…”
Josh flew to his feet at the sound of his voice. “Ron! Are you okay?”
“My head hurts. And… I've been having the weirdest dreams…”, Ron opened his eyes, squinting at the light.
Looking at him, Josh said, “Uh… You sure you're okay? What happened to your eyes?”
“Huh?”
“They're… they're different. They're… what's the word… ‘hazel’?”
Author's Notes:
Sheaghen's “yay” and “perky” lines and idea are courtesy Chibi-Zion, and used without permission. I don't think he'll mind. He seems to steal thoughts from my brain, without asking… or maybe it's the other way around.
The kernel of the idea for changing eye-color came from NateGrey's “Twinkle Little Star”, but mine is a loose enough adaptation, you probably wouldn't have known if I hadn't said something.
Think of these as clues, as you're sifting through the fics looking for “the good ones”.