Chapter One

Kim Possible was surrounded by paper and books as she sat at her computer desk in the apartment she shared with Ron Stoppable. She leaned back in the desk chair, her legs stretched out and perched on the back of the couch. Her new Psychology Professor still pushed hard for assignments, but at least Mrs. Newman didn't seem to want to single her out as a spoiled celebrity, or use her and Ron as batteries in an alien robot army.

As the thought of her old Psych professor came back to her, Kim couldn't help but be reminded of the weeks between then and now. A lot had happened in a month since Professor Justin Credible had separated her consciousness from her body. He had tried to bait Ron into powering an army of Lorwardian warbots for a ghostly Warhok and Warmonga.

She bit down on the end of her pen in thought, looking over at a set of pictures on her desk. One was of herself in her graduation gown with her parents and little brothers. The next was of her Nana and herself from the last Christmas shortly after her family had discovered that her and Ron had been living together.

Kim smiled fondly at her Nana's memory. She missed her terribly since the senior Kimberly J. Possible had passed away, but frowned as the circumstances around her death came flooding back to her. She had so desperately wanted to save her own grandmother that she had run blindly into danger. She wound up becoming an evil creature of hate that had come within a hairs breadth of destroying Ron, her cousin Joss, and the Director of Global Justice, as well as nearly plunging the world into darkness.

Kim parted her feet to watch Ron as he feverishly played his Z-Boy game, the scars from her bite that fateful day still lingering on his neck. When Kate Pederson, a descendant of Kim's great, great Aunt Miriam Possible, and a member of the Canadian Spy Agency, had offered Ron a free trip on a houseboat on a gorgeous lake, Kim thought they might actually get some time alone to talk about some of the things that had been said. Little did she know, Ron had invited many of their friends from High School along as well.

For the most parts, the group had made the best of the trip, despite various setbacks such as weather and technical difficulties that had left all nine of them stuck in the confines of the boat. Kim turned her attention back to the third picture on her desk of the entire group of friends on the last day of the trip. Despite her best attempts at calming Ron, the picture still seemed to creep him out, making him uncomfortable.

She stared at the picture for a long moment, though primarily her friend, Monique. Kim couldn't help worrying about her best friend from High School. They had a fight halfway through the trip and from then on, Monique had been different, yet familiar. Kim narrowed her eyes at the image of Monique Watson. The way one hand was placed on her hip, the way she stood with her weight positioned more on one leg than the other. The cruel smirk she seemed to be wearing...

"Aw man!"

Ron's outcry distracted Kim from her thoughts. "Time for a break?" she asked, a hopeful smile on her face.

Ron frowned at the television before him and looked down at his gaming partner. Rufus crossed his arms and shook his head, refusing to go on in the game. "Sure, KP. You want a movie or something?" he asked, looking at her from the corner of his eye.

"Actually, I was kinda hoping we could talk." Kim said, moving her paper and research material from her lap to her desk. "About the last few..."

Beep Beep Beepbeep

Kim sighed, brushing pages away to reveal her strap on Kimmunicator that she had placed on the desk to give her wrist a chance to relax. There was a relieved smile tugging at Ron's lips; a tell tale sign that he had just been saved by the beeper. "Go, Wade."

"Kim, you're not going to believe this!" Wade exclaimed.

"Walter?" she asked, dryly.

"Nope."

"Bonnie?"

"Nope."

"A crazed professor bent on destroying all life as we know it?"

"Now you're not even trying..."

"Well, Ron, Rufus, and I are all here, so it must be something new." Kim surmised with a smile.

"Better!" Wade grinned. "There's a secret lab that needs your help!"

Whereas most people would cringe at the concept of going into danger of facing an unknown super villain bent on world conquest, the thought of some action immediately released some tension and brought a grin to Kim's face. "Spankin', Wade. Got coordinates?"

"Even better! I've got you a free ride." Wade smiled.

"Ah..." Ron said with a whimsical smile. "Nostalgia..."

"Thanks again for bringing us to the Mainframe Corporation, Malcolm." Kim said. She had seen Malcolm Nevius only once or twice since he had tried taking over the online world of Everlot and trapping Ron and Zita Flores in the game with him.

"Don't mention it, Kim. After you and Ron showed me that there's more to life than playing online video games, I went to college, got a degree, and went to work with my dad."

"Doesn't your dad..." Ron began.

"Make video games? Yeah!" Malcolm replied. "Our new system is going to blow the Z-Boy out of the water when we perfect it."

"So did someone steal your system?" Kim asked, thinking back to Drakken's plot to build a robot warrior out of Nakasumi-san's automated toy factory.

"Not quite." Malcolm said cryptically. The Lear-Jet that they were riding in landed perfectly at a private airstrip and stopped on a pad that slowly began to descend into the Earth. "We think that someone has installed a virus in our system."

Kim and Ron looked at each other and shrugged. "So what do you need us for?" Kim asked. "This really sounds more like a Wade thing."

Malcolm led the couple and the Naked Mole Rat through a series of high security blast doors before they entered a small room full of comfortable looking chairs. Each one had an arm that reached up from the back of the chair, ending in a grey, crescent shaped band with yellow indicator lights. "Hey! Those are those things that you used to suck Zita and I into Everlot!"

"Immersion Caps?" Kim asked, looking at the devices curiously.

"Exactly!" Malcolm grinned. "Our system's code is too complex to manipulate with primitive input methods like a keyboard and mouse once it's running. We want to send you in and see what you can find out."

"In?" Kim asked, suddenly uncertain. "To the computer game?"

Malcolm laughed. "No... into the source code of Mainframe itself." he smiled. "Theoretically, the Immersion Caps should translate the code into something your brain can understand."

"Coolio!" Ron grinned.

Kim turned to him in annoyance. "He said, theoretically, Ron!"

"The Immersion Caps will scan you, creating a digital avatar that will represent you and all your gear. You'll be going in with everything you have on you." Malcolm smiled. Ron grinned, patting down his new red jacket that he had attained after the top half that was left of his Canadian Spy uniform had been disintegrated in his battle against Kim.

"Yeah, but..." Kim began. "I'm still curious... why us?"

"I'll be honest, Kim." Malcolm stated. His smiled faded and he took his glasses off, folding them up. "It could be dangerous. We honestly don't know what the Immersion Caps will translate the code into, or what this virus may be capable of. We have Wade trying to quarantine it in the system, but whoever programmed it is good. The fact is, we can't exactly market a Full Immersion system if it's viral."

"Well, Ron..." Kim said, looking behind herself. "Ron?"

"Boot us up, Malcolm! I'm pumped!" Ron grinned, already in a seat. Rufus sat in a chair beside him, waiting for the cap to descend.

"I guess that's a yay." Kim said, taking a seat beside Ron.

"One more thing." Malcolm added, opening a secure, vapor sealed container that hissed when he opened it. He took out two small disks. Each one had a diamond shape that was split from one corner to the other, contrasted against the two colors of the disk itself. He handed a black and yellow one to Kim, and a black and white one to Ron. "These will identify you as standard computer code to the virus protection program we have running. That way, it won't attempt to... uh, delete you." Malcolm said, smiling nervously.

"Delete us?" Kim asked, taking the disk and pinning it to the front of her mission shirt.

"Don't worry. Our Guardian program is top of the line. So long as you have this on you, you'll be safe." Malcolm explained.

"What about Rufus?" Ron asked, pinning his disk onto his black mission hoodie. "Doesn't he need one?"

"It's doubtful that he'll have enough digital mass to attract attention from the Guardian program. He'll probably show up as nothing more than nullified code." Malcolm assured him.

Ron frowned, looking down at Rufus and giving a shrug. "Okay... I guess."

"Now, we won't be able to communicate in real time because of the processor speed of our system. It's no super computer, but it'll run any game we've run through it."

"Do that often?" Ron asked.

"We actually launch test games every few minutes. You'll have to try one sometime, Ron." Malcolm grinned.

Kim placed her gloved hand on Ron's and smiled into his eyes. One corner of Ron's mouth turned up in the same fashion before their first real kiss at their junior prom. But still her remained quiet. She hoped that they would have the chance to talk at some point soon. "Okay, Malcolm..." Kim said, taking a deep breath. "Plug us in."

Malcolm had positioned himself behind the control console. "Hold on, then. Rebooting..." he said, holding his finger over the launch button. "Now!"