Glasses.

Cindy looked for some way to escape. On the right was a door. Locked.

On the left was her mother, in the grip of some hideous compulsion.

In front of her was the madman who had done this to her.

Behind her…well a wall.

"No, I mean—this can't be happening!"

"Cindy," Dr. Michaelson, said, "You can't read anything if it's closer than three feet to your eyes." He pointed at an image of her- provided by mom, you betrayer. With a data pad of equations…held out as far as her arms could reach. The fact that she was squinting was also pretty obvious. "Now, you managed to conceal it from us, and I have to admit, building an optical recognition camera that looked like a shirt button, hooked up to a computer and ear bud mike so you could pretend you were reading was very intelligent."

"James helped-" Cindy started and her mother broke in.

"Yes, I know. Kim is going to talk to him about that." Shego Lipsky-Go said frostily. Cindy wasn't' certain if it was because James had helped her or if they'd been able to put one over on mom for nearly a month.

"Look, it's not that bad." Cindy said. Her mother sighed, put a hand to her forehead as the same argument they'd gone over for the last week continued.

"Come on, Mom-"

"Don't mom, me, young lady." Shego said, her parental patience exhausted, looking at the 15 year old. "Now, we can do this one of two ways. You don't give us any more grief, and you can continue to do your missions, and see James, and go out. Give me more grief and you'll be on home restriction for a week-"

"But-"

"Or we could shoot for two weeks…and make it complete restriction from computer, phone or lab."

"Okay." Cindy said. Given how domestic Shego was now, some people forgot her origins, but Cindy realized that the limits had been reached on this particular point.

"Good. Go ahead, Doctor." Shego continued.

"Well yes, her father's idea….to ah, remove her eyes and replace them with: Perfect inorganic eyes that can, er…'fire poison darts', I felt was a bit ambitious." He paused, "Tell me, was he serious?"

"Not about the poison darts, he was joking there." Shego replied.

"Quite." He knew better than to think Shego was joking. "Well, the problem is young lady." He quickly checked to make certain Cindy wasn't glowing, "Is your plasma."

"My plasma?"

"Well that and your biology—see, your body won't take retroviral treatments, and your regenerative traits will simply insure that any surgery of your eyes just gets reversed—probably in a matter of hours."

"So contacts-"

"So you can weld them to your eyeballs when you fire up?"

"I could make-"

"No." Her mother said.

"But-"

"No." Shego said and continued, "Cindy, dear, you're better now than I ever was, but strong emotions can cause even you to lose control—and do you really want to have that happen if you need to focus on something else."

"No."

"And in any case," Her doctor said, "You only need these when you're reading and so-"

He brought them out.

No.

Oh No.

Oh. No. Cindy looked at her mom.

"I'm sorry honey—but they're completely immune to your plasma." Shego said.

"And you should be happy, because you have very severe far sightedness, but they actually should correct it completely."

"That's what the bifocals are for." Shego added, "So you don't have to take the glasses off if you look up and see something a bit further away." Cindy took the proffered package and whimpered as she put it on.

"See!" Shego said, holding up a mirror.

Yes. Now Cindy could see. Unfortunately.

"They look…" Her mother tried to find a word, "Distinctive on you."

So does full body leprosy.

They were huge. Really, the glasses were so wide they were almost goggles, not quite…she'd seen glasses that big, but….

"We needed to make them wide to anchor the lenses." The doctor provided, "Since they're made out of plasma resistant material…and we couldn't use modern self-focusing models because of the danger of your plasma interfering with the control mechanisms." He laughed, "It took me back to the old days—it's been years since we made glasses like this."

"How…how thick are they?" Cindy said.

"Oh the lenses are only an inch thick at their thickest point."

Cindy looked into the mirror and squeaked in horror. The lenses actually magnified her green eyes in the mirror so they looked huge, like some anime characters eyes…and brought home the fact that she was wearing a pair of portholes….

Moan…

"Don't worry, Cindy… they don't look that bad." Shego said. She wanted to be supportive, but she was also supposed to be honest.

"Thanks."

Cindy paused.

"Mom?"

"Yes, sweetie?" Cindy didn't even care about that.

"When you were at school….did any kids have glasses like this?"

"A few."

"How did they get along?"

"Um, there was some good natured ribbing…" Shego said, starting to look nervous.

"And you?"

"Ah, well…." Shego now was looking really nervous, "it was all in fun, Cindy…"

Now her daughter was looking at her, and Shego desperately bit her lip to keep from laughing, at the glasses. She probably should have suggested something other than a black frame.

"You laughed. All in Fun." Now Cindy wailed, "Why did James have to be right!"

"Right? Right about what?"

"That this is Karma, and not even my Karma but your Karma that the postman mis-delivered!" Cindy said, "Everyone is going to laugh at me and I won't even be able to flambé them! Even David!" Shego gestured at the door and the doctor wisely got.

She's really upset. Who is David? Oh, that well mannered non-entity who would never dream of Jay walking. Right. That one.

"Cindy." Shego said, "First of all, anyone who laughs at you is an idiot. Secondly, if you act really upset, they will laugh at you and half of them will do so because they think it's a joke." She paused, "Thirdly, if this is the best mocking material they can find about you, they're pretty pathetic mockers."

"What?"

"Hello! This is Cindy G-" Now Cindy was really glaring and Shego quickly dropped her middle name, "Lipsky-Go, who unleashed prehistoric monsters on Middleton during Earth Day, who managed to save the town from her Best Friend's uncles little oops…" She paused, "Believe me, even if we only count the times you and James have had to clean up after your own projects, there's mocking gold there. Anyone using glasses…." Shego shrugged, "It's a bit like trying to start your national comedy career with knock-knock jokes."

"I still don't like them." Cindy said, looking at herself in the mirror. "They make me look like a complete near sighted geek."

"What would James say?" Shego said, knowing the answer before it came out of Cindy.

"He'd say of course they make me look like a geek, but that's okay, because I have a supercomputer in my house. I am a Geek." Cindy said. "Then he'd demand I take him to Bueno Nacho because he made me laugh."

"And you don't sound upset."

"Why would I be? That's James. He never means anything like that."

"Good." Shego paused, "Now I'll go pay the bill and we'll go." She smiled, "Besides, you don't have to wear them all the time, just when you're working up close…have you considered the advantages?"

"Advantages?"

"People always trust your scientific mumbo-jumbo better if you wear glasses…that's why your father once had me steal a collection of them."

"He did, what happened?"

"Well, since he has 20-20 vision and he put on the thickest set he could find, he couldn't see anything and stumbled over into the Killer Penguin pit, and Kim had to rescue him."

"I never heard about that!"

"Of course not—the Penguins went for her pants, and well…she lost them. Mr. Possible-Stoppable threatened to sue us all for stealing his shtick if we didn't let the matter drop…."

With that, mother and daughter left the room, Cindy putting the glasses in their case.

I wonder if I should tell her. Shego shook her head, After all, this touching moment would last about twenty minutes and Cindy would start trying to figure out ways to get out of wearing them. That would be the time to tell her Shego was buying 15 spare sets….

End