Multiversing with Kim

Chapter 2:

How Hard Could It Really Be?

Fourteen Days After Ron's Return:

"What was I thinking of?", exclaimed an extremely upset computer genius. "What made me ever think that I could do anything worthwhile with this? What indeed was I thinking, or was I even thinking at all?"

"What's the sitch, Wade?" asked a somewhat confused Kimberly Anne Possible, who had just sat down on the floor near Wade's computer desk, and was expecting a somewhat less intense version of a weekly status report regarding any progress made in the multiverse mission sitch her young genius friend was working on. Did I arrive here too soon? I thought you said I should be here at about-".

"No, it's not you, it's me it's me it's me!" Wade confessed, slowly beginning to sound much like a broken record.

"Okay Wade it's you, not me", affirmed Kim, her balancer self working overtime already. "But, just what is it about you?"

"Well, 'junior partner', it's about me not understanding as much as you did when we had our first talk last week about your concerns for Ron, and why we had to get into a multiverse mission sitch, like the one we're in now."

"What…What do you mean, Wade?"Kim asked cautiously, not quite sure what she understood better than her super IQ'd partner.

"What I mean is that you understood a whole lot better than I did last week about the dangers facing us if we were ever to lose Ron again, and then if we had to try to mount another rescue mission to that Wal-Mart world or one even more bizarre than that bizarre enough one. In fact, Kim, we almost didn't get him back last time." Wade paused, not really relishing what he was about to confess to, but also realizing that he had no choice in the matter; Kim deserved nothing less than the harsh truth, no matter what. "In actual fact, your fears about my genius not being enough the NEXT time were actually realized the LAST time!"

"What do you mean, Wade? Now I don't understand…"Kim was thoroughly confused; she and Wade had succeeded and they had gotten Ron home safe and sound, although it had been a close one indeed!

Wade continued, very reluctantly indeed. "What I am trying to say, however badly, is that last time we didn't really get Ron back the way I had planned; you see, there was not enough convergence in the convergence field that I had setup to get him home, and back to our reality. The truth of the matter is Kim, that I failed you, big time!"

"What are you saying Wade? I've gone out with Ron on six dates since then; don't tell me I've been dating a hallucination for two weeks? That all my time with him since then has been solely in my imagination?" Kimberly's balancer self was about to go off the track itself as it tried to figure out at what point the conversation had taken a turn into the "Twilight Zone", or, indeed, whether it had ever been out of that zone since Ron's disappearance into "Wal-Mart World".

"No, Kim, No!" reassured Wade firmly, very certain that he did not want to 'lose her' that way, either. "That's not at all what I meant; Kim, you are totally sane, and our Ron is indeed back with us." Wade then took a deep breath, and held it for several seconds; he did not really want to say it, but the truth needed to be told, and he had to do it right. "But I didn't do it myself with my genius solutions; you did it. You see, Kim, you, and you alone, are why we have Ron with us now. You are the reason we got Ron back safe and sound, not me, and not my so called genius solution. You, and you alone, my dear 'junior partner', are the only reason we didn't have the tragedy that you feared would happen the NEXT time around".

"But, Wade, what did I do other than follow your instructions like you told me to do?"Kim was becoming increasingly confused. Had she somehow disobeyed the instructions he'd given her back then during the rescue Ron sitch without meaning to?

"Kim," began Wade, gently. "Do you remember a slight pull on you when you reached out of our world into Ron's new world?" Inquired Wade, very cautiously, with a trace of fear creeping into his voice. How would the red headed teenager react when she heard the story behind the story she thought she already knew?

"Yes, Wade, I do," affirmed the only slightly more calmed teenager. She wasn't crazy, Ron was really home, and she had not been fantasizing the past two weeks! But, then, why was she feeling as if she should be feeling some sort of fear? What was her young friend trying to get at with this conversation? "But, actually, Wade, it was much more than a slight pull; I actually had to put a lot of myself into stretching those extra inches to make contact with him. It was almost like trying to support our cheerleader pyramid level of effort, but I did do it!"

"That's just it! You see, Kim, you weren't supposed to be able to stretch those extra few inches. My convergence field wasn't actually properly tuned to allow you to do that; it was actually fighting you all along the time you were trying to reach him. You were supposed to have failed to reach Ron then and we're supposed to have lost Ron FOREVER two weeks ago! All that crying you did as you imagined that horrible NEXT time was actually supposed to have happened that LAST time; you were supposed to be intensely hating me for the past two weeks, never ever forgiving me for letting you down in such an unfair manner." Wade stopped, and hung his head down, nearly weeping with deep emotion over his admission of utter failure.

"But, Wade, I did it; I got my boyfriend, and I got him back here with us, safe and sound, and really ready for a round of nacos, Grande sized!….

"Yes, Kim, you did indeed do the impossible! You see, your Kimness, your great love for Ron and your intense emotional ties with him, as well as your constant, almost arrogant, disregard for what others accept as undoable, allowed you to bridge the gap between my totally inadequate and failed solution that would have left Ron trapped in that strange world that you now hate and fear so much, and instead, bring him safely home to us all." Wade appeared as if he was about to break down and cry uncontrollably. He paused for several moments, then continued with a strange, almost emotionless tone of voice.

"But that impossible action that saved Ron almost doomed you; we almost lost YOU that time, Kim."

"What?" Exclaimed Kim, taken aback not by so much what he had said, but by the sinking sensation that somehow he was absolutely correct in his statement regarding the near double tragedy. That horrible world had almost claimed her as well!

"By extending yourself beyond the safe parameters of my inadequate convergence field to reach Ron and bring him home, you almost trapped yourself in that world. And, worse yet, you would not have been trapped in the same form that Ron was trapped; it would be more like a two dimensional poster of yourself, unable to move, talk, or probably even think. Ron might have even thought it was cute that his favorite cartoon character was now available as a full size poster, and he would have taken you home to his apartment and never know that you were trapped in that form. And I would've lost both you and him, and then have to explain to your family and his that you and he would never be coming home again."

Kim sat speechless, totally stunned by Wade's shocking confession. Her balancer self then re-established control, and moved the conversation forward, carefully. She remembered all too well what she had told herself last week, during their first mission sitch conversation, that there would be no third chances in this game of heading off future dimensional crises.

"But I didn't lose myself there, and I got myself and Ron home, safe and sound. Successful end of sitch, right?"Kim asked, quietly, unwilling to risk triggering another emotional outburst from Wade, who seemed to be ready to beat himself up more than she had almost done a week before after the "personal space" issue. "And now, that you know about that convergence field thing, you can adjust things better and take care of that next time; after all that's what this mission sitch is-".

Wade cut her off. "I don't know if I can do it; I'm so sorry, Kim, but this whole crazy situation is ferociously more complicated than I thought last week, when I was already trying to do everything I could to talk you out of doing it." Wade then paused once again, preparing himself for another confession. "And on top of all that, I feel very very very bad about having lied to you, and misleading you the way I did-"

Now Kim cut him off before he could finish his sentence. "No, Wade, you did not lie about us rescuing Ron; you were just mistaken about some of your explanations until you realized the full depth of our near miss with him, and then you brought me up to speed, right? So not the drama!"

"No, Kim, it wasn't that I lied about; it was about the puppy dog pout not affecting me last week, just before you went to plan B and….."

"What do you mean, Wade?" I'm not sure I understand; after all, you've already said that we don't have to talk about my….mistake…anymore here, and that we should move on…."

"No Kim, you don't understand; you were winning me over before you ever went to plan B. You see, I lied about the puppy dog pout, and how it was affecting me".

"I….What…?" A confused redhead pondered, all three of her selves in equal disarray over the new revelation from her mission leader. Wade lied about my puppy dog pout? Why?

"You see, Kim", Wade continued, morosely, your PDP was indeed breaking down all my defenses, and you almost had me eating out of your hand, just like you sometimes have your rents and others do in so many things. And I knew I could never get you to stop doing it just by telling you do it. So I misled you into thinking it wasn't working on me, so that you would stop doing it on your own, and I could regain control over myself in the conversation we were having". Wade stopped speaking, sighed deeply, and then continued.

"You see , Kim, I thought that it was the only way I could stop you from putting me into total agreement with you without even mustering a token amount of resistance. I am so sorry, Kim, that I lied to you about the puppy dog pout's effect on me; especially since it then forced you to go to that plan B, which wound up hurting both of us more than we would have wanted it to. You have always trusted me to be truthful with you; I broke that trust with you before you ever did it with me. I….."

"No, Wade", interrupted Kim, her balancer self once again taking full charge, and loving it. You are a very young man, who no one can expect to act as maturely as a supposedly more mature teenager, like I'm supposed to be….like what I would….like to be. You may have lied and misled me to have me abandon my formerly ultimate weapon of the puppy dog pout, but that does not excuse me from any of my misjudgments and incorrect actions that occurred after that really cunning trickery by you." Smiling, if Kim paused for a moment, then continued.

"Besides, Wade, as you said last week, we both have to move beyond what almost happened, being thankful that it did not, and get our heads in the game about solving this multiverse sitch. After all, you are the mission commander, and we can't get this done without you being in charge, right?"

"But, Kim, can you really trust a mission leader that lied to you?"

"Well, technically, Wade, you weren't mission leader when you tricked me into stopping my puppy dog pout face trick. So, actually-"

"You know what I mean, Kim-"

"Yes I do, Wade, but again, the current circumstances mandate that we must do what we can to move forward and get this sitch solved as best we can with our available resources, human and otherwise…." Kim paused yet again, deeply thought for a moment, then continued calmly on ward. "So, let's both agree, that, from here on out, they'll be no more lying by either mission leader or his junior partner, and we'll do our honest best to solve the mission objective if at all possible, OK? We'll do it together, as a really terrific team, but one that is, sadly, all too human; we will simply have to deal with it, right?"

"OK, Kim", agreed Wade reluctantly. "I guess that that will work; I certainly don't have any better ideas about that at this time".

"Good "concluded Kim, also in agreement. "So, now, Wade, what do we have to do to work that issue successfully?"

"I don't know", started Wade, sadly. "My initial studies seem to indicate that there are so many alternate universes or multiverses that I don't know if I can resolve the individual ones well enough to keep you a safe passage sitch to either one or the other. If we're not careful, you might even be split between more than one of the separate universes or alternate realities and I don't think that we, or they, would be happy with the end result. You know, when we were treating the alternate universes as if they were just cable channels, we were both more right and more wrong than we thought. But the problem facing us is as if we had a cable system of infinite or near infinite channels: how can we select just one channel, so to speak, without the others bleeding through or jamming our signal? "

"OK, Wade, concern noted", responded Kim, calmly considering her next words. "So, would increasing our resolver strength on the discriminator circuit help us in that regard, and pull out the one we want from the surrounding near-misses?"

"Increase resolver strength?" Said a pleasantly surprised Wade; it sounded like a valid concept to consider more deeply, later on. "What made you say that idea, Kim?"

"Well, didn't you once suggest during a mission some time back that I increase my Kimmunicator signal strength and resolver power when I was trying to scan for something that was very difficult to view with the sensors at maximum strength? You know Wade, I'm certainly not as technical as you are in so many specialized ways, and you and Felix and Ron are so much more into video games and stuff like that, but I'm not quite as much of a slouch in those departments as I sometimes appear to be to those of you who are really into such things, and I do listen to what you say and do, and at least some of it tends to rub off on me, eventually. And besides, I do have a real incentive now to try to understand better what we're doing and trying to do. After all, I'm not really too much into smashing zombies, maiming mummies, vanquishing vampires, or other such video fun, but I'm really into figuring out how to save Ron, and how to keep him with me here in our reality."Kim paused to take a deep breath before resuming. "So, do you really think it's a possible sitch solver?" Both Kim and Wade completely ignored her apparently unintended attempt at humor by using her family name in conjunction with resolution of the issue before the team, both were apparently intent on avoiding any and all distracting influences on either of the two partners involved in the ongoing effort.

"Well, we'll certainly give it a shot and see what comes of it, Kim. After all, once again, you keep proving to me you're not just an average girl, no matter what you say otherwise." Wade acknowledged, as a wide smile displayed itself on his face. "We'll see what we can do to move us forward; we are not licked yet!"

"That's excellent Wade, said Kim, her balancer congratulating itself on somehow avoiding another showstopper, in keeping the keep Ron safe effort alive, and in keeping her dear young friend from beating himself up too much. And now, for a tiny dollop of well deserved praise and encouragement: "You know, you really do rock big time, Wade, and I am so very thankful that you haven't given up on me or on this whole Ron thing. I just know that you'll get us through this, no matter what, as long as both of us remain calm and work together…"

21 Days After Ron Returns:

"Kim, what are you doing?" asked Wade as he entered his computer room, and finding the redheaded teen busily typing in numbers and letters into a secondary entry terminal several feet away from his main keyboard console area.

Kim paused in her effort, and turned to see the concerned computer genius approaching her from the side. Holding back for a moment to make sure that she had her thoughts promptly arranged, she answered calmly with almost no trace of emotion in her voice.

"Well, Wade, your mom told me to wait in here for you, and that you would be joining me shortly after finishing up your shower activity. And when I came in here, I saw this stack of datasheets and your little note about getting them all in before we could move forward with some checkout activities on those discriminator circuits and those pesky convergence compensators."Kim smirked as she paused for a moment before continuing her statement. "So, I decided to put my mad texting skills to good use and get some of these into the system and save you some typing time later on. And don't worry, Wade, I'm being really careful to make sure that I get them in right; after all, I do now FULLY understand what would happen if I deconverged at the wrong time and place."

The young boy's face had begun to turn a slightly darker shade as his embarrassment rose regarding his mother mentioning his shower activities, especially as they were repeated by his "junior partner", but he quickly forgot all about that as he struggled to deal with the calm but earnest teenager in front of him.

"But Kim, you are not a typist, and you're not a temporary employee working for me. I did not call you here to listen to a status report on my effort and instead have you do menial data entry for me!" Wade said, exasperated.

"So not the drama, Wade", responded Kim, merrily, resuming her typing activity. "After all, I'm just doing what every other junior partner does with the mission leader; doesn't Ferret Girl help out the Fearless Ferret in the Ferret Cave by entering clues and other information into the ferociously fantastic Ferret Computer? After all, crime doesn't fight itself, and this sitch isn't going to solve itself, and I'm not going to have you wear yourself out over this whole thing without me helping out at least a little bit."

"And when have you started watching the Fearless Ferret, Kim? You know, you don't even like the show, and you even turned down dressing up like the Ferret Girl with that Timothy North actor! "

"That's because that was a "make believe" adventure, and I'm into real life adventures. But Wade, there are some lessons and examples from even those make believe shows that play into real life concerns. And this whole mission sitch is a real life concern issue, so I'm not just acting out a role but I'm doing my best to help out our team for real this time. Besides, I have told you before that I have an incentive that I didn't have back then…"

"You mean Ron, right?" Inquired Wade, knowing full well that was exactly who she meant.

"Yes, I mean Ron, you funny boy" chuckled Kim, smiling as she concluded her entry activity. "There, all done! Now, all you have to do is double check me on my entries, hit the verified key and you have your compensator array values all ready to go! And now I think I've actually earned my status report update! So, what's the sitch now, Wade, and what can I do next to help out?"

"Well, Kim, we have made some progress since last week, but we're still not there quite yet." Wade paused to look over Kim's entries, and pressed the verified key to complete the process before continuing speaking to the auburn headed temporary typist. "And, I have to admit, I could use a little data entry help today. Are you really sure that you don't mind just typing this stuff into the system?"

"Not at all, Wade, not at all" confirmed Kim, pleased that she made the right choice when she saw the stack of paper and the little note on it. She was certain that the more she did help to Wade work through this now, the less likely he would be to call off the whole thing before she got her chance to check out six different universes, including the one that she almost lost Ron to for good. Of course, she knew that there were no guarantees in this effort, and she would have to be very very careful to avoid a potential tragedy or disaster, even now. But, every bullet dodged was a step in the right direction, and Kim was more determined to keep dodging those bullets until mission success was hers. And all she had to do was to firmly control her Kimness until it was truly needed in a sitch…..

****To Be Continued****

Kim Possible © Disney (created by Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle)

The Twilight Zone™ © CBS, Inc. (created by Rod Serling)

"