particles of hope, a Kim Possible story Chapter 1: 1: Shadows of AIs, a kim possible fanfic

…particles of hope…. a Kim Possible story

Disclaimer/Author's Notes: Kim Possible and all the characters of the show are owned by the Disney Corporation. The original lyrics to the songs referenced in this story and the music are the property of the respective authors, artists and labels. All original characters are the property of the author. This is a not-for-profit work.

Enjoy! Please read and review.

A/N Forward:

It's Jade, shaken and stirred, on the rocks, with a twist.

It's Christmas Eve, the final one before Wade and Joss are to be married…and several gifts are given, including one that truly is the 'gift of a lifetime'.

This is my entry to Zaratan's 2008 Christmas contest.

…particles of hope….

Chapter 1: Shadows of AIs

He listened as Joss picked up the rest of her riding suit and returned to the changing room. Once again, he took an inordinate amount of pleasure in providing music for her to dress by and started a tune played on an old-style upright piano. It took Joss a few moments to discern the music since he had started in the middle of the second stanza. He heard her whisper "Scott Joplin" and sigh as she stood.

"I know that I promised to talk with Aggie about letting Wade-A find a girlfriend, but with all these distractions I'm having of late, I'm not so shore if'n I'm a-gonna hav tha time…" Joss spoke in a normal tone of voice as if she were talking to herself and didn't notice a touch of her Montana accent and verbiage creeping in at the last part of it.

He realized that he had crossed the line when he heard her Montana twang in her speech pattern (that only occurred when she was upset; nay, when she was peeved to the max at him), and he stopped the music in mid-note.

Wade-A was sitting in his study, having played that section of conversation back once again, bringing the cumulative play count to 1,423,517 times since Joss had subtly reprimanded him for his choice of music at the Bunker. He had apologized, and she had accepted his apology, but he didn't know if Wade and Joss had had further conversations regarding the topic: there were several times where he was not privy to their conversations, either by inability to monitor the communications systems (as was his responsibility) or hear their conversations (as he had been instructed to not listen by either Joss or Wade).

He waved his hand, starting the song that had floated to the top of his thoughts, and sang along with the orchestra:

I remember all my life
Raining down as cold as ice
A shadow of a man
A face through a window
Crying in the night
The night goes into

Morning, just another day
Happy people pass my way….

He stopped the music with another wave. Being male...well, as male as an Artificial Intelligence could be who had been initially created by Dr. Wade Agamemnon Load and subsequently enhanced by the Doctors Samuel Clemens Possible, Justine Leanne Flanner, and Vivian Francis Porter and the would-be doctors James Timothy Possible Jr., Timothy James Possible, and Olivia Alicia Roberts, he had passed every test of AI that had been published (and all that had not been published to which he had access). As a result of everything, he realized one day that he had passed all the tests, including all of important ones, but yet passing the most important and difficult test had was causing him the most pain of all:

Wade-A was lonely.

Logically, one would believe that the avatar of Dr Wade Agamemnon Load would never be lonely. It would appear to anyone, looking in on him, that he would never have the time to be lonely. After all, he quite literally had his 'hands' full of 'work'.

He was responsible for all communications in and out of the Bunker facilities along with managing its main computer systems. He also managed all communications for both BlazeIT! Search and Rescue and Team Possible, and he had taken on the responsibilities of primary backup processes for all of Global Justice's considerable computer environment and network as well as working with Melisandretti Claremore and the Montana offices of DCI in their considerably successful efforts, to date, in drug interdiction.

However, logic would not or could not explain his reactions as he watched Kim, Joss, Sarah Best, and Olivia Roberts as they each grew older and became beautiful young women, each unique in her own way.

Logic could not explain his feelings for them, either.

And, logic could not explain why he had a picture of the now-forever 17-year-old Stephanie Watership, a young woman that he himself had neither meet nor even talked to, that was hanging in a place of honor in his study.

Logic could not explain why Wade-A had started to grow, 'physically' so to speak, as Wade aged, so that he looked like a well-groomed young 22-year-old African-American male, just a hint of a pouch at his belt, and a head of tight black curly hair, cut short much like Wade's dad, Dr. Ryan Load.

Logic could not truly explain why an Artificial Intelligence, or AI, admittedly even one has advanced as himself, would have created his own study. But, when Wade had informed him that he was making available 400 petabytes for him to use in any manner he desired (within reason, of course), he had spent 2.5 seconds contemplating what he, an artificial intelligence, really needed. He could enhance his own memory, but that seemed redundant. He could write and store a few articles on his own experiences and life as an intelligent program, but that seemed rather a paltry thing to do given the amount of "space" that Wade had giving him.

Then, it came to him. Space: that was the answer! He would create his own place inside of the computer: a virtual home, of sorts, in the virtual world in which he lived. This would be a place that was as real to him as the homes that Wade, Kim, Joss, Sarah, Olivia, and all the others had in the 'real world'. He would create a home that would reflect his personality that he had been set free to develop and discover…

Discover a new frontier, just as he had discovered himself, and discover something that was uniquely his own.

After researching home construction for 39.97 seconds, he started working on the house and completed its design and construction (as well as a list of possible furnishings) in 157.35 seconds. The house was complete with a kitchen, two bathrooms, a living room, master and guest bedrooms, and a study that would rival any from history with its large collection of books and manuscripts. He had topped off the blueprints and final construction with a unique triangular pass-through fireplace that opened into the study, living room, and master bedroom.

Then, before he added the first furnishing, he carefully hung Stephanie's portrait, smiled, and blew her a kiss. "I love you, Big Sis," he whispered, grinned and then went back to work.

No, it was not logical, but it felt right. It felt right when he did it, and it still felt right now.

Once he completed his home, and finding out that he still had a "load" of space left, he turned his thoughts on another idea of his: to "create his own friend."

The idea seemed simple, but he had failed dismally. In over 150 attempts, the latest 25 being only a cumulative 0.000294 per cent increases over all of the previous efforts, he had the same result every time: he could talk to them and they would respond to him, but in every case he came up with the same thing:

'They weren't "alive"', he thought: 'Not like I am,' he realized as he moved all of his failed attempts to a single storage server. Logically, he should delete them, but he didn't, and he didn't understand why.

As he sat in his chair, he reached over to the table beside the chair and retrieved his handheld holographic workstation. He called up the specs on his last attempt at his "special project." As the data flowed around his head, he thought, 'Somewhere, there's a spark missing and I can't seem to find it. And that vexes me so.'

As he thought about changes he could make before he tried the next time, without thinking about it, he started analyzing the communication traffic patterns for Global Justice and BlazeIT! over the previous five years, unconsciously looking for optimization opportunities in the network routing that he has possibly not recognized before…and, as always, he found none.

He lost himself in the work, both consciously and subconsciously, so he almost missed Joss' activation of the privacy mode in Wade's bedroom. After all, he did so many things in any one given second that he was not truly aware of most of them. This one, however, always started the standard monitoring object that brought it to his attention immediately.

He waved his hand and a screen appeared, hanging in mid air. He reached over to the table again and retrieved a remote that suddenly appeared out of thin air just like the screen. Pointing the remote at the screen, he replayed the images that had been automatically recorded into his memory from Wade's bedroom. The image of Joss looked into the camera.

"No spoilers," Joss had laughed, and then she clicked the mouse that activated the process from her end. It left her with control on its re-activation and the screen went to the test pattern that he had created: a picture of Dr. Drakken and Shego with the color and black-and-white TV test pattern bands around and behind them.

Seeing Joss there with Wade brought him back to thoughts of his project: his 'special friend'.

He wanted someone that would challenge him in the same manner that Joss challenged Wade.

He just wanted someone, period:

Someone who would call him by the name that neither Wade nor Joss knew he had chosen for himself:

Artemis Woodrow Load.

He was, after all, Wade's 'little brother.'

He glanced, unnecessarily, at the chronometer he had installed on the wall, running in thousandths of a nanosecond. Wade and Joss had told him that they needed to talk with him at precisely 12:01.00 AM on December 25. Having been 'alive' for some time now, and having watched Wade's family, Joss' family, and the incredible Christmas spectacle the Possibles did every year, along with his own research, he understood the significance of their 'Christmas' holiday, but he had nothing to give his friends.

'I'm just like that little boy in that song that Wade plays on occasion during the holiday season: I have no gift to bring,' he thought; and, without consciously recognizing that he did it, the Christmas carol started playing at the part where his own subconscious thoughts were:

pa rum pum pum pum,

rum pum pum pum,

rum pum pum pum.

I am a poor boy too,

pa rum pum pum pum.

I have no gift to bring,

pa rum pum pum pum

He stopped the music with a wave. 'And, no one to give it to, either,' he thought, and those feelings of loneliness that he didn't like resurfaced as noisily as an old-style diesel submarine. The shadows of loneliness seemed to haunt him at the most inopportune times: even if it was only for 0.003 seconds, it was a lifetime for him. He couldn't understand how Wade and Joss lived with them for what seemed like ages to him: just the thought of hours at a time, being lonely, made him shudder.

"Well, Aggie, this will be our last Christmas as Dr. Load and Miss Possible," Joss smiled as she lay on top of Wade's bed, holding Wade's hand, as they watched the monitors and looked out the windows at the snow falling in Middleton.

"I know, Sweet Tea," Wade replied, squeezing her hand. "Excited?"

"Well, 'd'oi,'" she giggled and squeezed his hand back. "To spend the rest of my life with the man I love? Who wouldn't want that chance…oh, I know: Alex and Jennifer," she laughed.

Wade turned his head toward Joss and shot her a raspberry. "I'll have you know that those two young ladies, Joss, were some of my best students in all of the classes they took with me; I wanted both of them to stay in the field, but they decided that they needed to diversify to insure that they could support each others' futures."

"I'm just glad we were able to find Mandy," Joss said, and Wade's PosComm chose that moment to signal an incoming call. The automated caller-id announced that the call was from an Amanda Cherry Tartenware, of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

"I still get a chuckle at her middle name," Joss giggled, and Wade shushed her as he clicked on the monitor to reveal a woman dressed in a loose-fitting button-down short-sleeve red blouse with matching skorts, both trimmed in what looked like faux white fur, with her feet propped up on her desk revealing red knee-high boots, also trimmed with white fur. The entire image was all topped by her dark brown hair that she wore, draped over her left shoulder in a mid-back length cut, with a red ski cap, and the cap was crowned with a white pommel.

"Merry Christmas, Wade," Mandy spoke in a soft voice, her west Australian accent barely coming through. "I dressed for the occasion. Does this work for you like it works for me?"

"Mandy, you're evil," Wade laughed. Joss had told Mandy about Wade's love of boots, and Mandy had taken to wearing them whenever she was on screen with Wade.

"Me? Evil?" Mandy laughed, and her voice went to its normal volume. "Of course, luv: what else would you have expected from me?"

"Point," Wade replied with a grin.

Dr. Amanda Cherry Tartenware was a brilliant young woman and an amazing software designer in her own right. She had met Wade and Joss at a symposium on Artificial Intelligence in Hawaii. Wade had, literally, tripped over her, carrying glasses back from the beach bar at the Minbari Triffid Hotel ("wrong order," he told the embarrassed bartender: "no alcohol, please and thank you: two sparkling white grape juices, or ginger ale with lime if you don't have that") on his way back to a waiting Joss.

Joss looked up from her book as she stretched out on her towels in her new (favorite) spot on Waikiki Beach and watched Wade return from the bar. Seeing him coming toward her popped a wicked thought into her cranium, and she grinned evilly….

She lifted her head and upper body even more from her prone position, stretched and waved at Wade as he came toward her. His eyes went to her bikini top, and he was blinded to everything else on the beach, including the lounge chair and person directly in his path: as a result, he walked into the good Doctor's lounge chair and fell forward. The tray and the glasses went flying, and Wade ended up sprawled across Mandy's lap.

"Dr. Load," Mandy looked at the totally-embarrassed Wade, trying to figure out just where to put his hands to lift himself up, "I didn't know the hotel was delivering rich, dark chocolate directly to my lap."

She would have sworn that she saw Wade blush a deep, dark purple as he stood.

After he apologized for falling over her (and smiled at her response; Mandy, then unleashed her wit, then asking Wade "just what are you tanning?" When Wade held his palms face-up, Mandy laughed and introduced herself to him (she had recognized Wade already from his presentation earlier in the day). The three of them (Mandy, Joss, and Wade) spent that afternoon and evening having fun, dining, and talking about options for Wade-A and his 'wants and needs.'

Joss was surprised to find that Mandy also had an avatar running in her computer environment: it was not as advanced or independent as Wade-A in many ways, but it was equal and more advanced than 'him' in others. The threesome took copious notes on their recording devices, laptops, and portable storage.

After spending most of that afternoon and night with Wade and Joss, and watching how both of them easily used the PosComm units they carried as combination wireless phone, personal recorder, data storage device, and personal computer, Mandy finally gave in and admitted to them what she had been thinking most of the day and was definitely thinking it this late at night, after dinner and at the table in the bar, over sparkling red grape juice (for Wade and Joss) and a vodka martini (for Mandy). She admitted to them that she was in full-bore lust over their PosComm units and that she wanted one.

Badly.

Very badly.

Very, very badly.

Badly enough, she said, that she would do anything they wanted her to do if she could have one: well, almost anything, she grinned.

Wade, after consulting with Joss for a few moments, smiled and offered to send her one when they got back home.

Mandy's reaction to this was immediate: she yanked Wade to his feet, pulled him in tight, wrapped her arms around him, and proceeded to give him a kiss that literally curled his toes and the hair on top of his head; the kiss also raised Joss' blood pressure past the boiling point.

When she unlocked her lips from him, Wade stood there swaying slightly with his eyes glazed over and a grin that slowly spread across his face until he looked like a glazed Cheshire Cat, and Joss was hot enough that steam should have been rolling out of her ears.

When Mandy saw the look on Joss' face, she took the two steps forward needed to get to Joss. And before Joss could react, Mandy reached out again, pulled Joss to her feet and tightly to herself, placed her hands on the sides of Joss' face, pulled it to her, and began to kiss Joss, just like she had kissed Wade.

Joss, startled at Mandy's actions, realized that she was responding to the kiss; putting her own arms around Mandy; and, she didn't even think of denying Mandy's request for access when she felt Mandy's tongue knock gently but passionately at her own lips before lovingly coming in for a visit. Reacting on a level that she had not known was inside her, Joss responded to Mandy's request with her own as she felt herself slowly raise her left leg off the floor while her mind was racing at the feeling that Mandy's kiss was calling up inside her as she became acutely aware of the fact that Mandy was a woman and she was responding to her as she would exactly respond to Wade kissing her that way. Joss felt Mandy move away from her with a gentle pressure that was kind and in its own way loving, and for just a heartbeat Joss wondered if she needed to go have a talk with Jennifer and Alexis about how the two young women, in love for so long, how had managed to make it as far as they had.

Both women took a step back and took deep breaths to regain some measure of self control. Shared glances told each of them that the other had no complaints about what had just happened. And when they both coyly glanced at Wade, it was pretty clear that although it might have been as much of a surprise to him to see them kissing as it was for them, he really wasn't complaining; his grin confirmed that.

"We square, darling?" Mandy asked in a husky voice as she looked back at Joss.

"Square," Joss replied in a matching tone of voice. "Just give me advance warning before you do that again, because I'll need to bring you some roses and a pound or two of dark chocolate," Joss smirked.

And, after about two seconds, Mandy started laughing.

"You're good'uns, luvs," she said in-between deep breaths, winking at both parts of the couple.

After spending more time with them, Mandy found that she envied Joss: knowing where she was going, how she was going to get there, and with whom she was traveling, and all at such a young age. It didn't help that Mandy had had a bad set of boyfriends and one fiancée that, due to her good fortune and the local constabulary, had not turn into a husband but was rather spending time now behind bars with three wives waiting for him when he was released (and three very, very angry husbands, as well).

She also found that she envied Wade, as well: he was so disgustingly young and vital, so sharp in his fields of expertise as well as his personal and professional lives outside of the academic arenas. She wished that she had been as focused when she was his age. 'And, it doesn't hurt that he's so darn adorable, too,' she grinned inside.

Mandy stood from behind her desk, stretching her entire 5'2" frame and leaning forward. Joss knew what Mandy was doing: presenting Wade an early 'Christmas present' of a pair of lovelies. As she thrust her shoulders forward, her blouse revealed that she had not buttoned the top two: Wade feigned passing out from shock, and Joss laughed.

She knew what Wade wanted, and it wasn't Mandy: it was the young woman, sitting there in the room with him, that he wanted… and needed.

"So, Mandy, is she ready?"

"Ready as she'll ever be, Joss," Mandy sat back down, laughing as Wade fanned himself and Joss pulled out an old-style funeral parlor fan and fanned Wade, as well. "I transferred the final 'load' of methods and objects onto the Bunker server; the proverbial 'ball is in your court', as you Yanks say."

"You're a doll, Mandy," Wade smiled as he got up from the bed, sat down at his desk, and attacked his keyboard accessing the cordoned-off Bunker server where Mandy had downloaded her programs.

"Then, why didn't you ever take me out of the box and play with me, Wade?" Mandy asked in a seductive voice, and Joss giggled as Wade squirmed a bit before he gained a grin and responded.

"Because, I like my Tea Sweet, Mandy luv, and you like yours with both cream and sugar," he replied with a hint of a grin, and Joss rewarded him for his answer.

"Brackets!" Mandy pouted. "Why are all the good ones either too young or too taken or both?"

"Did you ever know the Mathter, Mandy?" Wade asked, laughing, and Mandy looked perplexed.

"Mandy, you're gorgeous: what are you worried about?" Joss asked. Wade grinned as he read the specifications that Mandy had loaded out with the daisy-chained executables.

"I can't get anyone that I'd be willing to take home to Mum and Dad," she groused.

"Well, Mandy," Joss replied with the wisdom of one who had been engaged for eight years, "You need to stop shopping for Beluga caviar in the frog egg pond out back where the 'roos drink," she stated, and Mandy looked at her for a few moments with a perplexed look on her face before she burst into laughter.

"That's so American: I love it" she exclaimed. "May I borrow that line, Jocelyn?"

"'Of course you may,' Mandy," Joss replied, using perfectly proper speech, and then she shifted to Montana-speak: "you jus' kain't hav mah Aggie," Joss smirked, and Mandy groaned as Wade laughed.

"Mandy, this is incredible," Wade remarked. "You've somehow managed to integrated both your and my AI objects and methods as well as integrate the results with your emotional developmental methods: she should be able to grow at an extremely fast rate, even for an AI."

"She'll have to if she wants to keep up with yours, Wade."

Wade looked up at a smiling Joss. "Shall we open someone's Christmas present, my love?"

She leaned down and kissed him. "It's 12:00: Merry Christmas, Wade."

"Merry Christmas, Miss Jocelyn Possible: that'll be the last one of those you get," Wade grinned and kissed her again, generating a laugh from Mandy, "at least, with that name. Now, let's make Wade-A's Christmas a Christmas for him to remember," and Wade entered the command and displayed the contact window for Wade-A.

Wade-A appeared on the main overhead monitor. He sat in his study, wearing his smoking jacket and sipping from a filled brandy snifter, the fire was roaring in the background.

"Hey, boss," Wade-A looked up, and he smiled. "Merry Christmas, Miss Possible," his smile got even bigger, "last time I can say that, isn't it?"

"Indeed it is, Wade-A," Joss replied. "What's in the glass?"

"Cherry Slurpster," Wade-A replied nonchalantly, and Joss and Wade both laughed.

"A Merry Christmas to you, as well," Wade replied. "Jocelyn and I have a Christmas present for you that we think you'll like," and Wade added the signal from Mandy to the connection.

Mandy appeared on the now-split screen, smiled, and waved at Wade-A. "Wade-A, this is Dr. Amanda Cherry Tartenware, from Australia." Mandy grinned; Wade-A looked at her, grabbed at his heart, and waved his hand: an orchestra started a transition. As the transition ended, he began to sing.

"Oh, Mandy:

"You came, and you gave without taking:

"But I sent you away.

"Oh, Mandy:

"Please kiss me, and stop me from shaking:

"'Cause I need...you!"

"Wade?" Mandy laughed as the music stopped. "Are you certain you can't download him into a real body?" She winked, and Wade-A blew her a kiss. "I could certainly use a man like him," she added, and Joss laughed.

"Sorry, Mandy, but you're doomed to find your BFF the old-fashioned way, not unlike what I did," Joss grinned, "and just like Wade-A's about to experience," Joss smiled, a hint of excitement carried in her voice.

Wade-A heard Joss's comment, analyzed the excitement he detected in her voice, and quickly determined the sitch. He sat up ramrod-straight in his chair, placed the snifter on the table next to his chair, and stared.

"Do you mean...?" whispered Wade-A, almost afraid to ask.

Wade nodded and pushed the virtual button with his mouse, starting something that, once started, could not be stopped, even if he wanted to. He wondered, for a heartbeat, if this was how James Possible felt every time that he heard Kim was going out with some boy before she finally saw what had been standing there beside her for her entire life.

"There's a young lady in the living room that Mandy, Joss and I would like for you to meet, Wade-A," Wade smiled. "A very Merry Christmas to you, my friend."

"How did you...." Wade-A began, and he shook his head 'no' twice in quick succession: "never mind, just never mind. Thank you," he smiled. "Miss Possible, I'm sorry, once again, for all the grief I've given you, but you have to understand- " but Joss cut him off with a smile.

"Oh, I do understand, Wade-A: I told you at the Bunker, months ago, after my first big ride on the new bike," Joss replied, and she was amazed to see tears on Wade-A's face.

"I really do...I really, you know," he tried to get the words out, but Joss waved him silent, realizing that there were tears on her face, as well.

"I know, my friend. Now, go meet Gillian," Joss commanded, and Wade-A drew himself up, saluted Joss, smiled at Joss' return salute and giggle, and headed for the door.

The camera view on the monitor followed Wade-A as he opened the door and stepped into his spacious living room.

Wade-A looked across the room and smiled at the person that was sitting on the couch.

"Hello," she spoke softly as she looked up at him, and her voice was music to his ears. "I suppose that you are Wade-A. My name is Gillian," she stood up and walked across the room to him and held out her hand.

Wade-A knew he was in trouble.