KP-TZ - The Middleton Files: Voice in the Dark
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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KP-TZ - The Middleton Files: Voice in the Dark
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Chapter 1
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"That's strange…" Wade said with a furrowed brow, which worried Kim. Her tech guru rarely said those words. "For 21.3 seconds there isn't any telemetry data coming from your Kimmunicator. It's as if… it were just… dead."
"Can you maybe find out what might have happened? I mean, I would swear that I heard someone."
"Tell you what (yawn), Kim… I'll start a level 2 diagnostics on your Kimmunicator, and also on my end. If anything at all is wrong, that should find it. The only thing is…" He started to say.
"It's going to take some time." Kim said, finishing his sentence while breathing out.
"You know me too well Kim. I'll get started on it right away. I'll send you a back-up Kimmunicator, as the one you're talking on now won't work since the diagnostic routine takes up almost all of the systems' memory to run. Your backup will be at school in the morning."
"As always Wade… you rock. Talk to you tomorrow." After Wade said goodnight, Kim signed off, and saw the screen go black except for the words "Temporarily Off-Line" in white lettering,
"Huh… guess Wade wanted to get started right away." She set her unit back on the nightstand, lay back down, and fell asleep right away.
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The next morning, Ron arrived at the front door: just like clockwork. After a quick knock, he opened the door and walked in, making a bee-line towards the kitchen where everyone was sitting around the table getting ready to have breakfast. "Hola Possible Clan… How are things this Bon-Diggity day?"
His nose sniffed the air. "Mmmmm… is that eggs and hash I smell?"
"Why, yes it is, Ron." Anne Possible said, smiling behind her cup of coffee while standing against the counter. "It's even made with turkey so it has less fat and cholesterol." She eyed her husband, who harrumphed and brought his paper back up in front of his face.
"Cool… My mom started to cook more things with turkey now, too. She said we needed to stop eating so much pork. Since… well… you know… we're Jewish and all. She said it was something about getting back to our roots."
Ron sat down next to Kim, and Mrs. Dr. P. set a plate of three over-easy eggs, a large portion of turkey hash, and hash browns in front of him. He immediately chopped up the eggs, and mixed everything on his plate together into a big pile of mush. "Got any ketchup?" He asked, and Kim's mom set a bottle down next to his plate. Ron grabbed it and almost drowned the entire mixture on his plate. Everyone just sat and stared at what Ron was doing.
Feeling himself being watched, he stopped squirting the ketchup and looked up at everyone. "What? It's good this way. You should try it."
"Yuck…" The tweebs said in unison, pushed themselves away form the table, and grabbed their backpacks. "We're off to school. Bye…" They chorused and took off without another word.
Ron looked back at the remaining Possibles, and they all just gently shook their heads with knowing smiles. Silently Ron offered Kim a bite from his plate, but she just shook her head, and said "No Thanks".
By now Rufus had woke up and popped out of Ron's pocket, jumping onto the table. He eyed what was on his master's plate, and made a face. He also did not like what he was looking at. "Bleah…"
"You guys don't know what you're missing." Ron said with a mouthful, and swallowed, following it with a generous gulp of orange juice.
"Would you like a blueberry muffin, Rufus?" Anne asked, and the little naked mole rat nodded his head in approval.
Kim looked at the clock on the wall. "Oh my gosh! We're going to be late! C'mon Ron, let's go!" She grabbed Ron by a wrist, and with his other hand, he grabbed the plate and dumped the rest of his food into his mouth. Rufus quickly jumped into his pocket while hanging on to the muffin he was given earlier.
Kim and Ron made it into their first class, but just barely. They entered Mr. Barkin's Social Studies class just as the second bell started to ring.
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Their first class was pretty much uneventful, and now the two friends were standing in front of Kim's locker with the door open waiting for the next bell when Monique walked up. "Hey Kim… Hey Ron." She said politely in greeting.
"Hey Monique…" Kim and Ron said together almost at the same time.
Before they could say anything else to each other, a voice came across the intercom. It was the school's secretary, Mrs. Crabapple. "Kimberly Possible… Please come to the main office."
"Oh… I bet they have the back-up Kimmunicator that Wade sent me."
"Why did you have to get another one, Kim?" Ron asked. "The other one break? If it did… it wasn't me." Kim was silent, looking at Ron. "This time…"
Kim explained while the three of them walked to the school's main office. "Last night I got a strange call, and Wade couldn't figure out what it was. He said there might be something wrong, so he's running a diagnostic on it to try and find out what the problem might be. As a result, he had to send me a second one while the other is temporarily out of commission." She didn't want to give too much detail yet, as she herself was starting to have a few doubts as to what she heard.
They walked into the office, and there behind a large counter stood Mrs. Crabapple. "This arrived for you early this morning, Miss Possible." She said gruffly, handing the small box that contained Kim's Kimmunicator to her. "This isn't your personal Post Office, you know."
"Sorry Ma'am." Kim meekly replied while taking the unit out of its box, and stuffing it into her pocket "It won't happen again, I swear."
"See that is doesn't." She said with a huff, and the three teens walked out of the office, hearing Mrs. Crabapple muttering something about "teenagers these days…"
"So you going to tell me about this call you had last night, Kim?" Ron asked, and was answered by the first bell for their next class. Monique started to separate from Kim and Ron since she had a different class.
"I'll tell you about it later Ron. How about Friday evening when we go do something? But, for now, we better get to class. Being the last week as juniors, I don't want any more class tardies. I want to end this year on a high note." She turned and called out to her GF. "I'll talk to you at lunch, Monique. OK?"
"See you then, GF." Monique said as she backed away from them waving.
The rest of the day was uneventful, and cheerleading practice was almost pleasant for Kim. Bonnie wasn't in her usual snarky mood, and actually was doing whatever Kim asked her to. She even called practice a bit early since everyone had hit all their cues, and had performed a new routine flawlessly.
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That evening after supper, Kim put the finishing touches on her paper comparing Al Gore and Captain Ahab, and printed out the final copy she was going to hand in. Once again Kim couldn't help but shake her head at the topic she had chosen, knowing that Mr. Barkin would make his own comments after reading it. For some reason Mr. Barkin idolized Mr. Gore, and would voice his own opinion whenever he could about the dangers of global warming.
When Kim looked at the time, she couldn't believe it was almost 11 o'clock. It was earlier than the previous night, but she hadn't realized that it had taken her that long to finish up. At least this time she wasn't as tired, and was able to actually get ready for bed. With light sweat pants and an old crop top, Kim slipped between her sheets about a quarter after.
"Oops… almost forgot." She said and quickly got out of bed, grabbed the replacement Kimmunicator from her pants and set it by the other one on her nightstand which was still running its diagnostic.
"Guess it's taking longer than Wade originally thought." She said to herself as she snuggled in once more. She reached over and shut off the small lamp, and closed her eyes.
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Bweeep Bweeep beep Dweeep"Huh…?" Kim said groggily as her eyes struggled to open.
Bweeep Bweeep beep DweeepIt was happening again! Kim's eyes snapped open, and her hand landed on the Kimmunicator. She immediately smashed down on the button, but nothing happened. The drawn out sound of her Kimmunicator was heard once more.
Bweeep Bweeep beep Dweeep
Kim looked down at the unit in her hand, and the screen was black, save for the words "Temporarily Off-Line". She had the wrong unit.
Quickly she grabbed the other Kimmunicator, and hit the 'Receive' button a bit lighter than before. Again there was static like the previous night, but not quite as bad.
"Hello…? Is anyone there?" It was the same voice Kim had heard the previous night.
The teen hero immediately answered back. "Yes! I can hear you! Can you hear me?"
The voice started to fade a bit, but then came back. It sounded almost… excited. "Yes… I can hear you just fine. C… (static) you help me?"
"Yes I would like to help! Can you tell me your name?" By now Kim realized that she was almost yelling, and quickly lowered her voice since she didn't want to wake anyone else in the house. She was also able to turn the volume down a bit on the unit and was still able to hear.
"It's Ginny… Ginny L… (static)"
"I'm sorry Ginny… I didn't catch your last name. Can you repeat it?"
"Larsen… Ginny Larsen…" The voice replied, sounding a bit clearer, but then a another burst of static sounded. "I… think I might be losing you again! I'm so scared! I need help!"
"Hold on Ginny!" Kim said urgently. "My name is Kim… Kim Possible. Please, tell me where you are so I can get to you."
"Did you say your name is Kim Possible? (static) I don't know who you are, (static) I hope you can help…"
The next burst of static was constant, and Kim frantically pressed the 'Receive' button, but to no avail. "Ginny?" She said urgently with her mouth close to the mike. "Ginny… I wish to help… Please… please respond…!" By now she was shaking the Kimmunicator, trying with all her energy to will it to work.
Kim didn't realize that she also had an almost death grip on the unit, and her knuckles were white. She could hear the plastic creaking under the pressure, and immediately lessened her grip. After a few seconds of thinking, she mashed her thumb down on the call button, knowing what Wade's response was going to be.
Wades disheveled face appeared on the small screen. "Kim? It's the same time as last night. Why are you calling me again?"
"I had the call again Wade. But this time I was able to get a name. It's Ginny… Ginny Larsen."
"Hold on Kim… Hold on…" Her tech guru said wiping sleep from his eyes. He typed a few commands onto his keyboard, and gave a small gasp. "It's the same thing as last night Kim. The telemetry data stream stopped at the exact same time, and the dead-time was for the exact same length of time. This is just too bizarre. I don't see how you could have received any kind of transmission either. Are you sure you didn't dream this?"
The look on Kim's face told him that was bad thing to say. "I was not dreaming Wade! It was a little girl's voice, I know it… She sounded… no more than twelve, maybe thirteen years of age. She sounded so scared Wade, and she was asking for help… My help! So if you can do anything at all to get me reconnected with her, I would greatly appreciate it!"
"I'm… Sorry, Kim." Wade said, taken aback by her forcefulness. "I'll see what I can do, and get back to you in the morning… probably at school. OK? I'll also see if I can find anything on the name Ginny Larsen."
"OK Wade…" Kim said, calming down a bit. "Sorry for harshing on you like that. This is just so frustrating not being able to help someone who obviously needs it. I appreciate anything you can do. Goodnight." She disconnected, and lay back down with a huff.
She then heard a small shuffle on her steps, and Kim saw her mother's head pop up. "Is everything OK, Kimmie? Who were you talking to? Wade?"
"Sorry Mom… I didn't mean to wake anybody up. There's something strange going on with the Kimmunicator, and I guess it's just got me frazzled. Did I wake anyone else up?"
"I don't think so, dear. Think you can go back to sleep? You know you have school tomorrow." Worry was etched on her mother's face.
"Yeah… I should be able to. 'Night… Sorry again for waking you."
Her Mom disappeared down the steps, and Kim laid back down thinking about the call from Ginny. She just couldn't get it out of her mind. After a few minutes, Kim fell back into a troubled sleep.
When morning arrived and her alarm went off, Kim's hand shot out to her Kimmunicator. "Ginny? Is that you?" Then she realized that it was only her alarm and reached over, shutting it off.
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To be continued…
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