KP-TZ - The Middleton Files: Going Home
Disclaimer/Author's Notes: Kim Possible and all the characters of the show are owned by the Walt Disney Corporation. The Twilight Zone was created by Rod Serling; all rights to The Twilight Zone are owned by Viacom. All other characters are the creations of the TZ2-KP team, and may not be used without their express permission.
This is a strictly not-for-profit effort
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(Prologue)
"Joss, Justine, James, Timothy: I think we're ready," Wade spoke into the microphone clipped onto his shirt, then leaned back in his chair and placed his arms behind his head.
They were on the cusp of something wonderful….
Dr. Wade Agamemnon Load was smiling: his latest construction, the realization of the experiment in dimensional bridging, appeared to be stable, the energy spikes from the previous 45 attempts had been eliminated, and the bridge had remained stable, now, for the last 24 hours.
The QuiDoc Bridge, named after its creators: Dr. Wade Agamemnon Load; Dr. Andrea Jocelyn Possible-Load; Dr. Justine Leanne Flanner-Cotton; Dr. James Timothy Possible, Jr.; and Dr. Timothy James Possible, was designed to successfully bridge Dimension Zero, the dimension in which they currently existed, with alternate dimensions. Dr. Flanner-Cotton had successfully proven the existence of alternate dimensions and realities in defense of her third PhD dissertation in the most dramatic fashion possible: she had tapped into a video stream of an alternate dimension in which all of them existed as animated characters in a television show.
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Justine was in the lounge when she heard Wade's announcement over her headset, and she acknowledged it with a click. She tossed the remainder of her lunch, an almost-empty plate of salad greens and an almost-completely-devoured baked potato, into the disposal and ran it, washing the remains into the lab's recycling system. As she washed and dried hr hands, she thought again about that television show she'd tapped into that had made her dissertation the talk of the scientific community.
Justine had laughed, long and hard, when she learned, as she watched, that she was the star of that animated series, and that her sidekick was none other than an old friend from her past, Ronald Dean Stoppable: Kim Possible-Stoppable's husband in Justine's reality. She had wondered, out loud and at home, for a moment what it would have been like to have been dating, let alone married, to Ron, but those wonderful hands of her husband of the last 10 years, Michael O. Cotton (a. k. a. 'Big Mike,' his nickname from high school) were wrapped around her waist and squeezed ever-so gently and lovingly, and that thought had been driven away faster than the Kepler had left the Middleton Space Center the last time that Motor Ed had stolen it; he still didn't get it up to the top speed, thanks to Jim and Tim, this time.
Well, it was those hands of his, and those of their daughter, reaching and saying "up, Momma: up me."
She had laughed the hardest when she heard the TV show theme song, and now that darn tune was stuck in her brain!
"She's an extra-special girl,
"In an extra-special world;
"But, she rocks the bad guys:
"Jus-tine Flan-ner!
"There is nothing she won't do,
"And, when danger calls
"Just know Team Flanner's
"On!
"Their!
"Waaaay!"
'Jus-Tine Flan-ner!' she hummed, mentally, and she giggled again. How preposterous
"Justine? Are you all right?" Justine snapped back into reality when Jocelyn touched her shoulder.
"I'm fine, Jocelyn: just thinking about my show," and Joss giggled.
"Yup, I guess that might have been just a bit of a surprise, wasn't it? 'Like, who would make a television show about me?'" Jocelyn quoted Justine's question back to her from their first joint viewing, and Justine laughed.
"Yeah, that's almost as crazy as 'making one about Kim and her high school adventures:' who would ever believe that a cheerleader could save the world from crazed super-villians, doing just what Kim did, all the time? Sometimes, even I didn't believe it, and I was there, on the sidelines, watching it all," Justine smiled as she turned off the water and headed out of the lounge, followed by Jocelyn.
"'Save the cheerleader, Ron, and you'll save the world,'" Jocelyn authoritatively announced to the air, and both ladies laughed as they turned and headed back, together, to the laboratory to make history.
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"Are we ready to make history, ladies and gentlemen?" Wade asked the assemblage, and they all nodded; well, all except for one..
"Just a sec, Aggie," and Joss stood from her console and walked over to Wade, grabbed his head, and kissed him passionately, eliciting snickers from James Jr. and Timothy and Justine.
"For luck," Joss pulled back, and Wade laughed and slammed his chest over his heart several times with his fist in a vain attempt to re-start it. Joss laughed, and she went back to her console.
"Boys," James and Timothy turned to see Justine standing in front of them and grinning. She kissed each of them on the cheek. "For luck," and the gentlemen returned the favor, each kissing Justine's cheeks and drawing blood to her face in a major-league blush. All three laughed, and they all stepped back to their stations, Jim and Tim simultaneously turning the initial arming keys, firing up the power to the QuiDoc.
The unit activation was anticlimactic: no science-fiction humming sounds, no electromechanical clicks or whirrs: just the click of the keys, and the meters on the monitors gradually showed the power increasing as it flowed into the QuiDoc dimensional accumulator and aggregator (the QuiDoc triple-A).
"Power at 75 per cent," Jim called out.
"First dimensional connection occurring in three…two…one…NOW!" Tim yelled, excited. "We have a new dimensional connection forming, Wade!"
"Images coming through clear, Wade!" Justine called out, and she clicked the icon, transferring the image to the 120-inch holographic viewer in the center, surrounded by all five consoles.
The image snapped into view, and there was an animated image of…
"That's our old house in Middleton, James!" Timothy yelled, excited. The image shifted to an interior view of the home, the kitchen. A man sat at the table, reading the newspaper, and he lowered the paper as he heard his wife enter the room.
"Dad," James and Timothy said softly, together, and tears formed in their eyes.
"Good morning, honey," Dr. Anne Possible leaned down and kissed her husband on the cheek.
"Second dimensional connection forming!" James saw a sudden change in the readings, and he popped on the head's-up display (HUD) so he could see the readings without having to look down, and the second image formed next to the first one.
The image shimmered for a second, and then snapped into view: an image of a house at night, part of the roof suddenly blowing upward and outward as a gigantic figure came up through the roof:
"Diablos," Wade growled, and the solo image was joined by a second, then a third giant figure. A young woman's scream could be heard in the background, and Wade looked over at Joss: she was pale.
"My house," she whispered, and the image zoomed in through the roof and focused on the image of a young woman, wielding a bat, swinging at the giant figures, and the image of a robot horse, rearing and using its front legs to deliver a blow to the lower body of one of the downed creatures, smashing a part of it. The man on the back of the horse yelled, then screamed as he was knocked from his mount by the claw of a Diablo.
"DADDY!" Joss yelled and ran towards the edge of her console, but she was met by Wade and restrained.
"No, Sweet Tea, you can't do anything: it's only an image," Wade held her as she glanced up and saw the Diablo deliver the death blow to Slim Possible.
"NOOOOOOO!" she screamed, and the image snapped to another view, one Wade knew far too well: his room, and a Diablo was staring at him, a younger him, then knocking him to the ground and laughing as it extended its claw, morphing it into a scalpel…
The image snapped again, and it went to a hospital room filled with flowers.
"Third and fourth images, forming, Wade: We're experiencing a cascading effect!" James yelled, and the images all snapped into view with different views: one showed the Twin Towers, intact; another showed an airplane flying into one of the Towers; another showed an airplane flying into the White House; and, yet another showed a mushroom cloud forming over Los Angeles.
"Shut it down!" Wade yelled.
"It won't disengage, Wade!" James yelled, and Tim ran to the console and entered multiple commands into multiple keyboards.
"Feedback loop, Wade: we can't shut it down!" Tim yelled.
"We're losing the command console, Wade," Justine stated calmly as her heart raced.
Wade ran to his console, typed in the master override commands, then ran down to the holographic projector.
A spark shot from the projector, and it struck Wade clearly on the arm, burning away a part of his shirt. Wade slapped at the spark on his arm, and a shape extends itself from one of the projected images, touching Wade's arm, and then -
Darkness.
The lights all snapped back on, almost immediately, and the QuiDoc began its power-down process.
"We're coming down, everybody!" Tim yelled, and a cheer went up, halted by a scream:
"Where's Wade?" Jocelyn Possible-Load screamed.
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Wade looked around, and he was confused:
He was in his room; well, his old room, before he'd gone to Montana the first time. There was his a picture of Joss, swinging from her rope gun, her hair blowing in the breeze, sitting in a frame on his desk.
He turned in his chair, and there was Lucky, swimming in the fish bowl in the corner.
He looked down, and he was 13, again.
'Oh, snap,' he thought, but he could remember everything:
'I remember moving out of this house, I remember our wedding, and I remember our wedding night…' he grinned: he and Andrea Jocelyn were happy that there was no one on their floor or the floor beneath them.
"And, I was certainly glad that they had Room Service, especially when Joss walked out, wearing that nightgown," Wade laughed as he remembered her nightgown….
"Hello…who's there?" and Wade turned back to see…
…himself: standing in a room like his, holding a white cane, and wearing a pair of designer shades.
He removed his shades to reveal artificial eyes: he was blind.
"Who's there? Hello? Who's there?" he called, amazingly calm, Wade thought, as the man replaced his shades.
"It's me, Wade," Wade called out, and the young man with the cane stepped toward the voice, then grabbed the body in front of him in a tight hug.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I'm you, it seems," Wade replied, and he took Wade's left hand and lifted it to his face, letting him feel it.
"What's going on, Wade?
"And, why are you here?
"And, even more importantly, whose nightgown were you talking about?" Wade grinned.
"I was going to ask you about yourself, as well, Wade," Wade grinned.
"Wades?" the two young men turned, and they found:
Another Wade, standing, out in a open area, smoking building all around him; this one appeared to be older than the others, mid 30s, holding a plasma rifle and wearing a well-loved battle suit, still smoking from burns all over it..
"Oh, man," was the simultaneous response.
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(Director) cue the ticking clock...
(Director) cue the music…and...
ACTION!
(The camera zooms in on the back of the self-same chair in the room filled with computers and monitors, and the chair swivels to face the camera, revealing a young African-American male, approximately 16, holding a water bottle.
"Good evening: I'm Dr. Wade Agamemnon Load.
"Submitted for your consideration:
"Team Possible's "Q", Dr. Wade Agamemnon Load," Wade stops for a moment and wipes his face, tears streaming down it. He mutters for a moment, then looks square into the camera, even more tears appearing as he :speaks.
"I can't do this; I just can't do it," and he gets up from the chair and walks away, out of the camera frame, calling "JOSS!"
His chair remains vacant, and we hear sobbing and whispering in the background, then footsteps coming towards the camera, and.
A young Jocelyn Possible, approximately 17 years old, appears in the camera's frame and sits in Wade's chair, smiling a sad smile.
"Good evening: I'm obviously not Dr. Wade Agamemnon Load, as you can tell," she laughs, "which is good, since this story is about him.
"I'm Andrea Jocelyn Possible, Dr. Load's BFGF, and I'll be your guest guide tonight, as Dr. Load is a bit under the weather," she crosses her legs, revealing her cognac-colored tall boots.
"My Wade," she smiles, "excuse me: Doctor Load has always been, for the most part, in control of his situations," she grins; "well, except for me," and Kim's laugh can be heard from off-camera. "But, what happens when he's not in control? When, in fact, he has absolutely no control whatsoever and he's so far outside of his comfort zone that he cannot comprehend what is happening? Especially, when 'he' keeps popping into his room: no, not into a different room, a different Wade appears in the room alongside the first one, then another, then another…"Joss let her voice trail off for a moment, then thought: "multiple Wades…" she grinned lasciviously.
"JOSS! Head in the game!" Kim yelled, and Joss snapped back into focus.
"Can he discover the secret of the appearances of the Wades, and can he halt their appearance? Even more importantly, can he help them all get home so he can get home, himself, even when some have no home to which to return?
"And, what if there is no Wade, at all?" Joss' scrunched her face and wiped away a tear. "What happens to the others, when they see Wade for the first time, in a long time: are they willing to give him up, to return home?
"What happens to Wade: all of the Wades; in fact, what happens to everyone, especially for those that don't want to leave? We will have the ultimate 'ringside seat' for all the action…courtesy of tonight's episode of KP-TZ: The Middleton Files:
Going Home (and the 2nd movement of the Dvorak "New World" Symphony began to play in the background).
(Director) "CUT! That's a wrap! Thank you, Miss Possible, for stepping in on short notice: you handled that like a professional.."
(Jocelyn Possible) "You're welcome." she turns her head and calls offstage, "Hey, Cousin Kim: how is he?"
(Kim, offstage) "He's doing better, Jo-WADE!"
(Jocelyn, smiling as she whispered to herself, barely heard over the open microphone) "Oh, yeah, he's feeling better…now."
Jocelyn stands up and goes off-camera, leaving the set vacant; then the lights dim to black as more sobs are heard off-camera.
"I'm sorry, Joss: I just couldn't do it; I thought I could, but it's too close, and it hurts…"
"That's all right, Wade, that's all right, my Aggie," and more buried sobs could be heard from off-camera. "It's all right, Wade…."
