"What's that smell?" Pojko snorted in disgust from the MaceCo warehouse and workshop's storage area, "I hope this clean up will help us find something help make the Holo Stages work… Or will we be unable to use them at all?"
"Possibly," Kgs-wy muttered from a nearby workbench where he sat soldering components to freshly developed circuit boards, "If Wade and Oster can fix the problems with the prototype there, anyway."
"What's wrong with 'em?" Amers, Kgs' fiancée, asked as she helped Pojko and Neo clean out and sort the storage area.
"Careful with that," Neo cautioned Amers as she lifted a box with a complex chemical name on the front, "That should go over next to the flammable materials box… Who organized this mess?"
"Who knows?" Kgs queried with a shrug, smiling as he completed soldering the last of the components on a circuit board. "Wasn't Ron supposed to be here helping you guys while Kim helped with preparations at her parent's place?"
"They got called away to help guard some new invention Dr. Lipsky made... They should be back within the next half hour or so." Poj answered, then looked at the device, "To answer your question, Amers, from what I was told the Holo Stages work by recording the person on the stage, then send it to the central unit which can project a really big hologram of them. But apparently, we won't be able to send it back out to the other Holo Stages." Poj paused and went over his mental notes on the device's purpose versus actual operation, then finished with a wry smile, "Um, in a nutshell, right?"
"That's the theory, but unfortunately, no, it's not how they work 'cause of how badly the implementation went…" Kgs sighed, "We can't project out to - or receive from - the remote sites at all currently, and we have to send all the info back to the Central Command Unit, and then rebroadcast via traditional video equipment… Not to mention that the audio-visual quality tanks!"
"That's…" Pojko started, then screwed his face up in consternation, "Why, exactly, was it set up like that?"
"It wasn't set up like that at all!" Wade Load, via a Wade Bot, and OstermanA growled at once from the main work area.
"Not according to the specs sheet, anyway." Wade agreed.
"The spec sheets are solid, surprisingly, but the implementation?" Oster shook his head, continuing in an aggrieved tone, "The whole telecommunications setup on these things is related to the spec sheets in about the same way it is to the price of tea in China!"
"Hey," Wade protested, "Not all of it is junk! Some of the things he used were solid tech, an-…"
"I meant the manner in which it was put together, Wade," Oster soothed, knowing that some WadeTech electronics and holographic projector optics had been used in the MaceCo Holo Stages, "I mean…" He paused to glare at the Holo Stage Central Controller, then walked over to the work table next to the machine and grabbed an inexpensive looking router, "Not even Smarty Mart carries these pieces of junk!"
"You have a point," Wade conceded, "But that doesn't explain why this won't work! The idea, blueprints and specifications are sound, and the workmanship seems solid…"
"Oh, it is, until you get into the meat of the problem," Oster said as he got on his hands and knees, crawling literally chest deep into the device.
"Well, I haven't been in on this too long, y'know…" Wade defended himself, earning an oddly echoing laugh from Oster.
"Yeah, that's part of why I have Kgs working on re-soldering all the crap over there on table two…" The older techie muttered from within the machine, his voice echoing like a mix of Darth Vader from Star Wars and Dark Helmet from Spaceballs. After a series of grunts and curses under his breath, he popped back out holding a breadboard with cheap looking components soldered to it.
"Urk," Wade choked on his soda, "Is that solder? On a solderless breadboard?"
"Wade," Oster replied in a deadpan voice, before calmly turning the device over. On the back of the breadboard was a complex looking half sphere with half a dozen lenses plainly evident, and a simple telephone jack and phone cord that had been clipped connecting to the board, "As you can see, that's not the worst of this monstrosity! This is connected to two of the 1BASE5 switches…"
"There was a breadboard connecting one of my holo projector-recorders to this thing, using an ancient StarLAN switch to transfer information?" Wade gasped, glaring at Oster as if it was the older techie's fault.
"Don't blame me!" Oster protested vehemently, "I'm just dismantling this thing so we can fix it!"
"But…" Wade started, before carefully settling his Super Slurpster down to avoid making a mess by squeezing his soda out of the flimsy cardboard, "I've worked with Mace, helped him out with a few things, in the past…" as his protests continued, they gained in volume, and the incredulity on his face became more and more evident, "His work is never that bad! Most of it's actually damn good, by my standards, or I wouldn't have sold it to him! He just gets too eager, or too ambitious with single devices in what should be multiple device setups!"
"That doesn't change the fact that this is a MaceCo device, and that is what's on the inside!" Oster protested back, "And that's not the worst! The built in network for this thing should be connected using PCIe and fiber optics for internal communication! But all of the internal communications are running through a pair of eight port 10BASE-T Layer 1 hubs!"
"He could've contracted to someone that cheaped it out and ran off with the money, right?" Icarus interrupted softly, his eyes wide and soulful as he stared back and forth between the two arguing techies.
Icarus' mild tone and the soulful, pleading look the young man was giving them stopped the argument in its tracks. "Um… Yeah, I guess?" Wade answered as he scratched his neck and looked at Oster. The older techie glanced back and forth between Wade and Icarus before shrugging and crawling back into the device. After all, it was better than the almost overpowering need to give hugs and reassurances the teenaged Canadian's expression brought out.
"That's exactly what happened!" Kitpup growled as he stormed over to the workstation Kgs sat at, holding a thick sheaf of paperwork in his hand.
Frugal Lucure, who was pouring over the newly purchased company's paperwork, called out, "I might need those back, so try not to damage them too much, printers hate crumpled or wrinkled paper!"
"Whatever!" Kit muttered sharply, before taking in the entirety of the scene. He turned to glare at Icarus, who shrank back slightly, some almost panicked tears forming at the corners of his eyes, "Icky, fix your face, you're distracting Wade, Amers, Neo and Pojko!"
"Yes'm!" Icarus squeaked, his face dropping the Puppy Dog Pout, Icky Version. "I did good, though, I got them back to working, right?" His defensive tone and comment earned a hearty chuckle from Kgs, who Icarus turned to with a withering glare, "Shush, you!" before continuing to help with the clean up.
"You did good buddeh…" Kit said with a deadpan tone, before turning the same tone on Kgs, "And you'd better not hurt yourself laughing, Kgs! Those two nerds don't have enough time to do what you're doing." Kit growled at him as the older man.
"Yes'm," the older man affirmed with an ironic smile as he finished another solder joint. He paused to let the joints cool before working on more, turning to regard Kit seriously. "What's up?"
The brunette shook the sheaf of papers at him in reply, "Do you have any idea how many MaceCo inventions would've worked if he had only hired more competent people to build the mass market versions of his inventions?"
"About what we figured, at least," Kgs answered after a moment of thought, "Possibly as much as double, perhaps triple if what we're seeing here is an honest indication of the truth. And I take it just some relatively simple rewiring'll do the trick?"
"If the Holo Stage is any indication," Oster commented dryly, his rant mode started once again by Kgs' simple question, "Most of his inventions needed to stay in the prototype and testing stages for a lot longer! And don't forget…"
KPFA KPFA KPFA KPFA
"Thanks, Kimmie." Shego said with an ironic lilt to her voice as she jumped from the back of the cargo van, "Sorry it was a false alarm, but with our last two shipments of rare earth metals being attacked, you never know..."
"It's not a problem, Shego!" Kim replied easily, dusting her hands off, "What Dra-... Erm, Drew is doing will help humanity a lot, according to Wade and my dad. Why are people attacking the shipments, anyway?"
"Rare earth elements, Princess," Shego grumped, managing to mix a teacher's tone and her old sarcasm at once, "Some of 'em are almost as, if not more valuable than, gold. I also think someone's trying to steal either the farming robots or the super irrigation and nutrient delivery system from Drew to make a mint from the patents, not to mention the shafting they'd do to any country that wants the tech..."
"That's horrible!" Kim cried, her eyes wide in shock.
"Yeah!" Ron and Rufus, who was riding on the blonde's shoulder, agreed in unison, Ron continuing in a somewhat vacant tone, "Kinda worse than anything you two or any of the other major supervillains tried to do!"
"Ron!" Kim warned sharply, elbowing her BFBF in the ribs none too gently.
"He's got a point, Kimmie..." Shego said with honest humor in her tone, "I don't even think Big Daddy Brotherson would've done something this low." Shego glanced at the laboratory entrance and saw the hotel style 'Do Not Disturb' sign still hanging from the door's handle and grunted in dismayed frustration.
"He's been up all night, hasn't he?" Kim asked softly, earning an annoyed grunt from Shego. "Don't worry, Shego... If he's anything like my dad, he'll work until he's finished, and then he'll be back to normal." Kim almost giggled as a thought occurred to her, "At least as normal as former mad scientists can get, anyway!"
"I hope so," Shego sighed, glaring at the laboratory entrance to the former underground lair.
"Problems with Dr. D. again?" Ron asked in concern, a mild frown forming on his face.
"Eh, we're taking a break," Shego said flatly, "Again. And after our last disagreement, I really don't think this break'll end, either."
"You sure you're okay?" Kim asked, placing a friendly hand on Shego's shoulder, "You and Drew can skip out on the Fannies if you need to."
"Oh, I'll be there," Shego groused firmly, "I don't want to miss this one, since they're actually managing to pull it off! And I'll be backup security, so if things go the way they have the last four years..."
"I hope not!" Kim grated, her mouth screwing up indignantly, "Especially considering who the Fannies are dedicated to!"
"Uh-huh, uh-huh!" Rufus cried from Ron's shoulder, making several martial arts moves in various stances, making loud, naked mole rat barks and cries as he did so.
"Yeah, you got that right, li'l buddy!" Ron agreed, slapping his palm with a closed fist. His eyes widened, then closed as he winced, shaking the palm he'd smacked with an embarrassed look crossing his features, much to Shego and Kim's amusement.
"Speaking of which, we have to head back to Middleton!" Kim gasped in realization, "I'm supposed to help the preparations at the house, and Ron's supposed to help the Fannies Committee with some stuff at one of the MaceCo workshops."
"Better get going, then!" Shego said, a weak smile on her face as the two teens raced off. She called out as they got to Kim's Sloth coupe, "I-It was good seeing you two again, try and stay in touch more, 'kay?"
"We will, and we'll be seeing you in a couple days, too!" Kim called back, then smiled at her former nemesis, "And try to get Drew to come along too! I'm sure he wouldn't want to miss out..."
"Will do, Kimmie!" Shego promised, before turning back towards the lab and her on again, off again boyfriend and employer.
KPFA KPFA KPFA KPFA
"Oh, man that's rank!" Ron Stoppable gagged as he stepped up to the MaceCo workshop where Kit, Kgs, Pojko and Oster stood clustered away from one of the entrance doors.
"I know, right?" Kgs coughed from his position beside the door, taking a drag from his cigar, "You should've smelled it when they first uncovered it!"
"Um, what is it?" Ron asked uncertainly, then flailed his arms about as he realized the second most glaring problem with the situation, "And why are the doors opened? It's freezing out here!"
"Well, bud, first off, you don't want to know. I mean, seriously, you and Rufus specifically don't want to know…" Kgs said with a chuckle, "As for the smell? Well, it was a biological disaster, of sorts… We only had two facemasks, two face shields, two sets of goggles, and five pairs of chemical gloves so the Wade Bot, Amers and Icky volunteered for clean up. And despite using some heavy duty, industrial strength janitorial cleaner in there, it's only now making a dent in that stench."
"It was worse?" Ron's jaw dropped in disbelief, "I… Dude, what was it, I mean… I can take it, whatever it was…"
"Should I?" Kgs asked, looking around the group, earning a jab in the ribs from Kit.
"Just tell him," Kit urged, "He'll find out when we bring it all out, anyway…"
"True…" Kgs admitted, taking a deep drag from his cigar and then turning back to Ron, blowing a long stream of smoke as he spoke, "Well, apparently one of the moving crews decided to have a late lunch sometime mid summer or late spring…" Kgs started, his voice full of awe at the idiocy his story was going to unfold, "And so they got some Bueno Nacho…"
"No…" Ron said, and Rufus' eyes widened in horror, "They didn't…"
"Yup," Kgs nodded, "And not just a couple things… They left behind a '24 pack and a gallon', Nacos and Chili-cheese Potato Rounds…"
"But…" Ron began, then stopped, staring. Rufus hung his head with a heavy sigh, shaking it in shock. Ron's face was screwed up in outrage, disgust, and most of all, confusion. "That's almost twenty five dollars worth of food!"
"Oh, trust us," Oster said with a strange look in his eyes, a look that mixed humor and violence in one, "If you saw some of the stuff that MaceCo's former fabrication contractors had done, you wouldn't be the least bit surprised that moving contractors would forget something like that…"
"That bad?" Ron asked in a concerned tone.
"Wade was cussin' like a sailor on a three day drunk," Kgs said in a deadpan tone, making Ron boggle in surprise at him. The comment also earned the older man a bap on the back of the head from both Kit, followed quickly by Amers, who had just walked out of the workshop after tossing her used gloves in the trash next to the door.
"Be nice, dear." Amers quipped with a smirk as she adjusted her facemask down around her neck.
"Hey, he was cussing like a sailor," Kgs defended himself with a mock aggrieved tone, "Not my fault that someone treated his components like a cheap, throwaway kid's toy…"
"Oh, that'll do it, alright…" Ron nodded sagely, before shaking his head with a laugh, "So, how's the cleanup going?"
"Just about there!" Amers said brightly, "We're just about done cleaning it out of the concrete, and we have the crates that were soaked in… Whatever that was… In the recycle bin out back."
"Um…" everyone else said, Kgs continuing with Ron in alternating commentary, causing everyone's heads to bounce back and forth between them, "So, rotten food…"
"Got turned into sludge?" Ron picked up behind him.
"That soaked into compressed, treated lumber?" Kgs' voice rose slightly in surprise.
"And lemme guess," Ron added, "That was what was holding in the stench?"
"And potentially leaving a toxic mess," Kgs' expression darkened in concern as he half glared at Amers, "The Wade Bot had better handled that instead of you and Icky!"
"He did!" Amers soothed, a laugh in her voice as Kgs sighed, pulling out his cigarette case and opening it to get another of his mini-cigars, "Trust me, neither of us were gonna touch it. Luckily whatever was inside was encased in some kind of leakproof plastic, and the Wadebot scanned it to be safe."
"Well, that's good, then…" Kgs muttered around his mini-cigar as he pulled out a Zippo, opened it and lit his cigar, "Thank God for the bot, eh?"
"Yeah… So, what was it?" Kit asked, pulling out his DSi to make some notes, "In the sludged up box, I mean? And what was the it box it was transferred to supposed to contain?"
"Um, the new box didn't have any markings or anything," Amers sighed, "But Wade had the bot mark the new one with the contents of the old box. He said it was probably a good thing that the sludge from the Bueno Nacho mess didn't contact the chemicals in the box…"
"What was in the box originally?" Kit said in a slow, worried tone.
"Um, some kind of hair color treatment?" Amers said with a shrug, leaning against Kgs and sighing happily as he put his free arm around her. "I guess if the sludge had gotten into the hair coloring, it would've either turned anything it was touching into a poisonous Jello or caused a ten kiloton explosion. Wade's not sure, and he didn't want to try testing it."
"Good thing the Tweebs weren't here!" Ron gasped in horror, everyone else standing outside agreeing with him.
"Hey, guys?" Icky called in from inside, "The smell's pretty much gone, and nothing really toxic is in the air according to Wade, it should be safe to come inside!"
"Thank whatever gods there are!" Oster said in a genial tone.
"Yeah, we have work to finish!" Kit agreed vehemently, making a few more notes into his DSi.
"As soon as I'm finished with this," Kgs said as he waved the half finished cigar at them, "I'll be in to help move things since I'm finished up with the soldering for now." He punctuated his comment with a sharp cough as he finished a particularly deep drag in the cold weather.
"Maybe you should cut back?" Icky cracked with an innocent smile from inside the workshop.
"Yup, I should," Kgs agreed easily as he started to shut he door behind everyone, shrugging expansively, "But I like 'em."
KPFA KPFA KPFA KPFA
"Two…" Kgs grunted out, performing a strict chin-up on a low hanging overhead bar that seemed to have been put into the workshop for just that purpose, "Three…"
With an explosive grunt he barely finished the maneuver before dropping back to the floor. "Still at three…" he muttered, chuckling as a couple of the others rolled their eyes at him.
"Just three chin-ups?" Icky called out from deeper in the workshop storage area, "I can do a lot better than that!"
"Yeah, Icky," Kgs griped good naturedly, "But if we strapped another hundred and twenty pounds of dead weight on you like there is on me, how well d'ya think you'd do?"
"Touché!" Icky replied with a laugh, "Still, that's pretty good with all the extra weight…"
"If we weren't basically done," Kit sighed, "I'd prolly be annoyed at you two for goofing off."
"But I'm working over here with Ron!" Icky cried out with a pout, drawing a roll of the eyes from Kit, "And we're doin' great! Even though this thing feels like it weighs more than the two hundred pounds the box says!"
"Hey!" Wade, who was listening in on the conversation, protested, "That's what it should be! Fifteen bottles of hair color treatment, ten pounds each, and fifty pounds for the box, that's two hundred!"
"Anyway," Kgs cut in with a mock glare, before a humorously triumphant grin spread across his face, "Oster and Wade are busy finishing the placement and final soldering on the Holo Stage Central Command Unit. Not to mention, there's no room for me and my big butt to get in there and help Amers and Neo!"
"Yeah, right…" Neo muttered with a grin as Kgs glanced at where Amers and Neo were carefully opening the last crate that needed to be inventoried before being moved to its new storage area.
"You're not that big, dear!" Amers added with a cherubic grin as she looked at his rear end, a blush spreading across her features.
"Ok, well, I'm still big enough to cause problems over with you two," he joked, "At least until those remote stun rods, if that's what they are, get inventoried…"
"My question is," Kit twisted his eyebrows in bemusement as he looked into the box, "Why, exactly, did they have a sealed plastic bag holding the whole lot like that? I mean, there's nothing in the computers or from the notes I put on my DSi from MaceCo's central computers for why they're like that?"
"It's something MaceCo's movers did," Icky called out as he and Ron moved the last box, which was particularly heavy, from the back corner of the storage area to the loading doc area.
"So they probably tied them into a garbage bag and stored them like that!" Ron added, shaking his head in disgust at the whole situation. "I mean, at my worst, if it was going to be stored a long time, at least I tried to store it right!"
"Besides, they're Mark II versions, right?" Kgs said as he moved over towards Icky and Ron, intent on giving them a hand, "The info might be at one of the R&D places instead… Set that down, you two, let me and Poj give ya a hand…"
"No argument here!" Icky and Ron agreed at once, relieved smiles on their faces.
"Right, from the way it looks with you two, I think this weighs more like three-fifty…" He then called out to Poj, who was in the office conferring with Frugal about some of the Fannie's funding, "Wanna come over and catch Icky's side, dude?"
"Sure," Poj said, standing and stretching, before starting to amble over, Frugal speaking to him while pointing out information on a spreadsheet he'd brought up on a PDA.
"Oh, hey, I think this is probably why!" Neo said as she reached into the box and pulled out a somewhat sodden note, "It's the storage instructions and warnings for the Super Stunner mk. II: 'If storing in quantity, make sure that each weapon is individually wrapped, and that the entire allotment is wrapped before being boxe-...'"
"Uh, oh…" Amers interrupted as the Super Stunner she had in her hands seemed to leap of its own free will, luckily straight up from her hands, allowing her to catch it easily as it came back down, "Whew, almost dropped it, it's kinda… Greasy on the outside?"
"Careful, babe…" Kgs said as he looked over, taking position next to Ron. He was about to turn his attention back when he saw a series of blue arcs jump from the tip of the Super Stunner to the area Amers described as greasy. He was already moving away from the boxes and towards her as he saw her hands spasm and her arms swing wide, before she began to fall towards Neo. "Down!" he roared as he dove forward, drawing startled reactions from everyone present.
"What?" Poj said, his body diving for cover as Frugal jumped with him like a startled rabbit.
"Oh, no!" Ron and Icky said at the same time, their physical reactions mimicking each other as each grabbed the other's shoulder, and threw the other directly away from Amers, placing the box between themselves and the apparently malfunctioning Stunner, seemingly forgetting that it was full of hair color treatment, and thus full of chemicals.
Twin sounds of shock and protest came from Amers and Neo as the older woman fell into the younger, sending both of them into Kit, and all three of them into a tangle of cursing bodies.
Kgs, the only one still close enough to the Stunner, hastily crawled forwards. He tried to catch the wayward device as it flipped in a lazy end over end fashion, seeing that it would land on its activation stud while pointing at the three ladies currently tangled up together. He, for one, did not want to see what would happen if the malfunctioning Stunner activated during a harsh fall like that, especially pointing at his fiancée and two of his best friends. His headlong, hurried crawl ended successfully as his grasping fingers ended up under the device.
"No!" he growled in frustration as the slippery device slipped out of his hands like a bar of soap in a bath, once again flipping one hundred and eighty degrees while flying out of his reach and pointing at the box Icky and Ron were using as cover. Nonetheless, Kgs reached out again, but realized he would be too far away and turned over, covering his face back of his neck with his arms, hoping the device wouldn't explode.
With a sound that could only be described as a low pitched, burping whistle, the Super Stunner went off. The business end of the Stunner was perhaps three inches off of the floor when the activation stud hit, giving the device about a fifteen degree firing angle.
From the aforementioned business end, a purplish blue projectile of low temperature, highly charged plasma burst forth at high speed. It was perhaps a half inch wide as it left the barrel, and by the time it reached the box, some twenty eight feet away, it was about an inch and a half wide; just small enough to slip into the slats on the side of the box.
Although it was low temperature, the highly charged nature of the plasma ball was well received by the plastic holding MaceCo's Super Starlet Dye and ColorFast Treatment and Conditioner. The chemicals inside, separately, weren't nearly as harmful as they were together. Together, the chemicals combined to make an easily charged mixture. In less than a millisecond, all fifteen bottles of hair treatment had received a charge from the Stunner. The bottles expanded dangerously as the contents turned into a low temperature mist, but then stopped just before they would have exploded.
"We alive?" Poj called, peaking out from behind the office door.
"I feel immense fear, so I think we are!" Frugal answered, looking as if he wanted to visit the workshop's locker room and the urinals therein.
"Nothing exploded, yet?" Ron asked as he and Icky looked up and towards the box.
"Uh, byebye!" Rufus cried as he popped his head out of Ron's pocket, then scurried away from his human and the box of chemicals in the dangerously expanded plastic bottles.
"Um, apparently not?" Kgs deadpanned with a shocked sigh of relief as Rufus scurried up his arm to rest on his shoulder, using the older human's head as partial cover. Kgs almost unseated the poor naked mole rat as he shoved himself up hurriedly, rushing over to where Amers, Neo and Kit were untangling themselves. "Babe, you okay?"
"I'm fine!" Amers groused in mingled outrage, annoyance and embarrassment, "It just shocked me, and I couldn't keep ahold of it 'cause of all that grease on it!"
"Ow…" Kit muttered, rubbing his rump as he stood up from Neo, then rubbed just above his right eyebrow, "Neo's chin stabbed me in the eyebrow!"
"I didn't do it on purpose!" Neo said defensively, "Besides, I was just getting to the worst part of the warning. 'The dielectric in the batteries is viscous enough to squeeze out of the Mk. I stunner battery compartment; suggested course of action until a new battery compartment can be designed is to store the Stunners, individually wrapped in plastic. Any handling of an unwrapped and/or leaking Stunner may result in electric shock, or droppage of the unit, potentially resulting in discharge or explosion of the Stunner.'"
"Y'mean that could've exploded in my hands? Or in Kgs' face?" Amers half screamed in a fearful manner, glaring at Kgs as if his actions were the most foolish thing he'd ever done.
"Hey," Kgs announced in a surprisingly reassuring voice, the smirk dancing at the corners of his mouth ruining any reassurance his voice bore, "You were safe, and if it would have exploded, I'd have been able to get cybernetic hands, right?" Rufus, as if fearing what was next, jumped from Kgs' shoulder to Kit's, his action barely registering in the younger man's perceptions.
"Jerk!" Amers cried as she stared at him in brief anger, the palm of her hand hand reaching out towards his forehead.
"Meanie!" Neo blurted at Kgs' entirely too self deprecating comment, the palm of her hand reaching towards the right rear of his head.
"Jerkface!" Kit said as he reached out with an open palm towards the left rear of Kgs' head.
Kit, Amers and Neo's hands all connected as one, causing Kgs to laugh and let out a mock, "Owww!" for their efforts. "Hey, just as long as you three and everyone else is fine, we're good, right?"
"Right!" Poj said, glancing at the dangerously expanded bottles, "Should we maybe get something more substantial to put those in?"
"Wouldn't hurt!" Icky agreed as he eyed the same bottles, "And hurry!"
Poj opened his mouth to agree, when the Stunner gave off its low pitched, burping whistle again, twice in quick succession. The first bolt splattered harmlessly off of the floor. The second, however, flew up at almost the same angle of the first. Icky and Ron were too shocked to react this time, and were standing wide eyed as the charged ball of plasma ripped into the bottles again. The bottles exploded into a fine mist, the mist following the racing plasma ball as it tore between Icky and Ron, impacting harmlessly into the rear wall of the workshop.
The force of the mist exploding from the containers was loud, and knocked the two teens back onto their rear ends. The mist quickly and thoroughly soaking their clothing, bodies, hair and even their wide open eyes, before dissipating as quickly as it came.
There were cries of panic, worry, and anger as the mist erupted. This was followed by cursing from Ron and Icky, and from Kgs as he was shocked while removing the battery pack cover from the Stunner. "Wade!" he called out while dumping the battery into his palm and tossing it to the Wade Bot, who ran it over to the explosive hazardous disposal container.
"Ron, Icky!" Kit called, bounding past Kgs to check on the two teens.
"Oh, anyone got eyedrops?" Icky asked, rubbing at his eyes.
"Yeah, this stuff stings like Jalapeño juice in the eye!" Ron agreed.
"Right, coming!" Kgs said before Kit could even call him over. He bent down and helped Kit as he help Ron and Icky to their feet, "Eye wash station's over here guys!"
"Turning it on already!" Poj called out, having already dashed off towards the safety station. He quickly cranked the water shut off valve to the fully on position, then removed the plastic sanitary covers from the eyewash nozzles. "Ready on station one!" he called out, before moving to the second station and readying it as well, "Ready on two!"
KPFA KPFA KPFA KPFA
About ten minutes later, Ron and Icky, both soaked to the bone from their faces to their mid abdomen, sat in the breakroom drinking some surprisingly tasty instant hot cocoa that Amers had whipped up for them. Kim, who had heard about the incident, was on her way with her mother, just in case. This despite scans from the Wade Bot and Ron's Kimmunicator showing nothing wrong beyond the brief eye irritation, and the blatantly obvious external color modification that had happened within the last few minutes.
"I'm not sure I wanna go out there, Wade." Ron pouted at the young techie's bot, "KP wanted me to look my best…"
"Hey, you're not the only one with a coloration problem!" Icky groused beside him.
"Calm down, you two!" Kit grumped from the breakroom door, "They're here, by the way. Mrs. Dr. P. is checking on Kgs' left arm."
"Is he okay?" Icky asked softly, managing to look like an abused puppy as he looked up at Kit from his position at the table.
"Yeah," Kit answered, "He's still pretty mad at himself for not taking the battery pack out before he did, but…"
"Can't Mrs. Dr. P. and KP come in here?" Ron moaned plaintively.
"I'm about two seconds away from dragging Icky out by his ear, and suggesting Kim do the same for you, Ron!" Kit growled in frustration, taking two purposeful strides towards Icky.
"Okay, okay!" Icky said in wide eyed paranoia, grabbing Ron by the arm because he knew that Kit, his buddeh, wouldn't hesitate to do just what he had threatened.
Sitting at one of the work benches, Kgs moved his arm as Anne Possible directed. When she finished with his movement and reaction tests, he chuckled, drawing a raised eyebrow from both Anne and her daughter, Kim. "Yes, Kgs?" Anne queried in mock annoyance.
"Sorry," Kgs answered sincerely, "Just thinking, that if you'd have had any other daughter, being a neurosurgeon, you probably wouldn't be nearly as up on your trauma care as you are…"
"You're probably right!" Anne agreed, before screwing up her mouth in a frown, "I'd say, based on your reactions, that you'll get the use in your left hand back within the next two hours. Possibly within an hour if you move it enough, but…"
"Great!" Kgs groused ironically, "Hey, Oster, looks like you and Wade are on your own with the soldering for tonight!"
"Kinda figured," Oster answered from the other side of the workbench, "No worries, though."
"Um, hi, KP." Ron called out from behind them.
Anne and Kim turned and were faced with what could have been nearly identical, fraternal twins. One had paler skin, and eyes that were a hazel so pale they looked gray, and hair so platinum blond that it looked white in the harsh fluorescence of the workshop. The other looked more like the Ron they knew, except with pale gray, almost white eyes.
Kim immediately saw the differences. She opened her mouth to speak, when Anne turned to the darker toned of the two and asked, "Are your eyes doing okay, Ron," then turned to the paler of the two, "Icky?"
"Um," the darker toned one said with an embarrassed flush, "I'm Icky, he's Ron…"
"Oh." Anne blinked as a deep flush crossed her face, "I'm sorry, Ron, Icky, I…"
"No problemo, Mrs. Dr. P.!" Ron chirped, just glad to have his girlfriend close she enveloped in a hug and planted a quick kiss on his cheek.
"We don't look that much alike, do we?" Ron asked innocently, not knowing the embarrassment he was about to reap for himself and Icky with that simple question.
"I knew who was who the second they turned towards where Dr. Possible was working on Kgs." Amers said with a salacious smirk on her face.
"Uh, oh..." Kgs muttered, covering his mouth with his right hand.
"Here we go…" Kit agreed, sitting down beside the older man, resting his cheek on his hand.
"How could you tell them apart without looking at their faces?" Kim asked, her tone almost as innocent as Icky's.
"Easy!" Amers called as her, Neo and the Wade Bot cleaned up the last of the mess from the incident. She sported a devilish smirk that would've done Shego proud as she answered, "Icky's got the cuter butt!"
"Oh, my!" Anne said with an almost shockingly girly titter, covering her mouth with her hand.
"I do?" Icky asked with wide, shocked eyes.
"He does?" Ron asked in a confused tone.
"Not real-…" Kim started, only to turn and glare daggers at the older woman that was closing up a trash bag, "You were staring at my boyfriend's ass?"
"Not really," Amers admitted with a giggle, "I mean, it's nice and all, but not really stare worthy. Besides, he's not really my type…"
"Who is?" Anne asked, knowing she probably shouldn't have let curiosity get the better of her, but unable to resist.
"Well, to be honest," Amers all but cooed, casting a seemingly innocent gaze about, briefly pausing upon Kit, Neo, Anne and Kim, "Kgs always calls me the pendulum of lov-…"
"Quit flirting, babe," Kgs said with a barely restrained laugh. Kim and Ron turned a gaping expression on him, and then whipped back to stare at Amers, while Anne shook her head with a resigned expression on her face.
"But I wasn't!" Amers protested in a perfectly believable manner that her follow up completely ruined. She pointed up above her head vaguely, a cherubic smile on her face, "I'm an angel, see my halo?"
"No, but I see the horns!" Kit, Kgs, Oster, Poj and Neo said at once.
"Jinx!" Kit and Kgs called out, "You all owe me a shot!"
"Two for you, Kit!" Kgs crowed exultantly, sticking his tongue out at Kit in reply to the raspberry she gave him. Then he turned to Kim, an apologetic expression on his face, "Sorry, Kim, she was teasing…"
"How can you tell?" Ron asked for he and Kim, who was hiding her face as a particularly aggressive blush spread from the crown of her head about halfway down her body.
"She just made it so easy…" Amers said, which earned her a bop from Neo, "Well, she does!"
"Indeed she does," Mrs. Dr. P. agreed, as she looked over the information Wade was able to get about Icky and Ron's condition. "Besides, aren't Icky and Kit too young to buy you shots?"
"Nah," Kgs said with a chuckle, shrugging expansively, "Icky's our first drop off back in our world, and he's Canadian, and since both are over eighteen..."
"Right," Anne smiled, giving the two teens a once over before turning her attention fully to Icky and Ron, "Unfortunately, it looks like the two of them will be like this for at least a week, if not two or a few days more."
"Oh, no!" Ron pouted, "Hope you won't be dissappointed if I show up like this, KP?"
"No big, Ron!" Kim said, her deep blush finally coming under control, "And for what it's worth, I can tell who's who easier than Amers apparently can." She gave the older woman a mock glare for a moment, before a sheepish grin spread across her face.
"Same here," Kgs assured, "It's kinda easy, actually!"
"Yup," Kit agreed, ticking off points on his fingers, all of which Kim nodded in agreement with, "One: Icky's jawline's a bit softer, but he has a more prominent chin. Two: Ron's nose is a bit smaller, kinda pixy like. Three, Ron's eyes are darker."
"Four:" Kgs continued as Kit paused, "Ron's got the lighter hair without the bleaching, and still does after. Five: Ron's got larger pecs and legs, probably from all the football workouts, but Icky's got larger arms and shoulders. And all of those are only slight differences…"
Kgs had paused himself, and Kim was about to continue in his stead, but a loud victory cry from the other side of the workbench startled everyone into a stupor. "We've got it!" Oster cried out, high-fiving the Wade bot gently so as not to damage either himself or the expensive robot, "We just figured out how to get at least part of all this working as planned by tomorrow!"