Disclaimer: I do not own Kim Possible, any of the characters from that show, or those from any other media I may reference in my stories.
Sorry to be so long with an update, but see Author's Notes at end of chapter.
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"Want to bet you can find 'Hoo-sha' etched somewhere on this machine?" Sara asked Ron. He didn't answer, just ran his fingers over the etched words he'd been lead to. "Yeah, sucker bet, right? You know the whole point of my intervention here was to talk you out of making a mistake, not because I don't agree Kim Possible is worth an effort to save, but because you wouldn't be doing that. All you'd be doing...Ah! I believe Mister Load has arrived!" Ron straightened up, reaching in his pocket for the device monitoring the surveillance system.
Sara looked at it askance. "Why bother with that? I mean, who made it for you in the first place?" Ron frowned. "And besides, if Wade doesn't want to appear on his own surveillance system, he won't, will he?" At that moment the doors to the room slid open, and Wade himself entered.
If Wade and Ron had stood side by side, people could have been forgiven for believing that Wade was the older of the two. Whereas gray hairs were only just making a noticeable appearance on Ron's head, Wade's hair had gone completely gray, and was absent entirely from the top of his scalp. His fitness, and weight, had varied greatly over the years, depending on just how much he cared about his health and appearance from year to year. He was currently wearing two-thirds of a black three-piece suit, having left the jacket in his office, over a pale blue shirt. A Navy and silver tie hung loose around his neck.
The look on his face was one of curiosity as he looked at Sara, changing to guilt when he glanced at Ron. The one he received in turn was bordering on hostile. "Ron, I..." Those words were enough to set Ron off.
"Is it true!! Is it!! Did Jim and Tim use this machine, fifteen Damn years ago?! You let me hunt for them for three years! I was nearly killed a dozen times trying to find them! Did you tell their parents? Did you just let them suffer, not knowing? At least with Kim..." He choked on his words. Wade just stared at him, fear in his eyes. Somehow, this just made Ron lose it.
He lunged forwards and grabbed Wade by the collar, bodily picking him off the floor and shaking him, then dropping him and pulling one hand back...and then jumping back and dropping into a crouch when two metallic clicks sounded. Sara had her guns in hand, but they were pointed at the floor. She shook her head.
"No violence, Ron! You've become far too quick to resort to that!" Sara decocked her twin automatics and reholstered them. "Not even giving him a chance to explain? Last friend you have?"
"Friend! If he's such a friend, why didn't he tell me about this before!" Ron swept his arm towards the machine. "Why didn't they all tell me about this, fifteen years ago!"
"Because we didn't trust you, that's why!" Wade retorted, hotly.
Ron's eyes bulged. "Not trust me! Not trust me to save Kim?!"
"No! Not trust you not to go tell your bosses what we were planning to do! Not trust you not to ask their permission for you to go! We all agreed, we didn't know you anymore, Ron!"
Ron went from angry, to shocked, to incredulous. "Tell my bosses? I'd never tell...this is because of what happened to Zita and Felix? They were exonerated! Someone just overreacted to something I...said! If I hadn't been away, nothing would have happened!"
"Not something you said, something you reported! Something it wouldn't have taken you ten minutes to check out yourself! Yeah, they were exonerated, but the investigation cost them their security clearances, permanently! And since they couldn't explain how that happened, way too many people wouldn't trust them at all!"
"I didn't have ten minutes, I had to leave on a mission!"
"And couldn't trust your friends for the two days that it took to do that mission? Couldn't let it wait until you got back, to handle it yourself? No, you went by the rules, immediately report anything suspicious, right? No matter how innocent it seemed? AND IT WAS INNOCENT!" Wade's body shook violently from his own emotional outburst.
"I couldn't know that! I had to trust..." Ron's mouth kept working, but nothing came out.
"Yeah, you chose who to trust, and so did we! And you weren't on the list!"
Ron backed away and dropped into the swivel chair still draped with Sara's cloak, taking his head in his hands. Wade continued to glare at him for a moment, then his gaze shifted to Sara. "How much of what you're saying do you know to be true?"
"First, do you believe in the existence of parallel worlds?"
Wade scowled, but nodded. "Yes, I believe in them, and your story explains a few things."
"Like what?" Ron muttered.
"Like how twenty years ago, one of our unmanned probes photographing one of Saturn's moons also photographed another unmanned probe labeled 'United States of America' that couldn't be accounted for. And how that was the second of three such sightings, all proven not to be hoaxes, practical jokes, or Jim and Tim's old projects."
Sara nodded, "Didn't know if you were in on that secret."
Wade smirked, "Had to be, they checked my inventory, too! So, what is fact, and what is supposition?"
Sara took a deep breath and expelled it slowly, "Well, let's see. Fact, all the surviving stable worlds, those who have made it through known 'judgments', have all been radically different, historically, no two are even close to alike. Fact, they did prove that time travelers triggered duplication.."
"How? Did they prove it, I mean?" Wade interjected.
Sara's face soured. "It was an accident, actually! Scientist determined to change an event that had only happened two weeks before. He interviewed six people for the job, since doing it with an unproven device was unethical, and illegal! After the interviews, called one in, and sent them back. Nothing changed. So, only two hours later, he called another, told them they were first, and sent them back. Still nothing. Kept doing it until in all he had sent six people back in less than twelve hours!"
"Just so happens that next day, a manned spaceship was launched, intending to exit 'exclusive' space and contact the other humans from different earths properly. Except, seven different copies of this ship emerged into 'shared' space! Identical crews, everything the same! Took nearly a year to sort it all out, but eventually they had the story, and enough proof to convince a lot of people that parallel worlds with different histories could be created using well-prepared time travelers. And that's when things got really ugly! But, that's more then you need to know!"
She surveyed her audience, "Well, is that a convincing enough story?"
"If you aren't making it up!" Ron snapped.
"Okay! Jim and Tim Possible used this machine, and history didn't change, there's no sign of them in any records, and can you imagine that pair disappearing quietly?" Sara asked, with a touch of sarcasm.
"That's not proof! The machine itself may not have really worked!" was Ron's response.
"Well, then that's it for your plan, then, because the machine's set exactly the same! Wade didn't change any of it, though I'm sure he's taken it apart twice, and reassembled it, and checked every equation three or four times, but found nothing wrong, right, Wade?"
Wade scowled stubbornly, but relented after a moment. "No, it's exactly the same, I couldn't find anything wrong! But that doesn't mean anything, something could have happened to both of them, before they could change events!"
Sara sighed, shaking her head. "You sure make it hard to keep your secrets secret, Wade!" A touch of fear appeared in Wade's eyes. "What about your second attempt?" Wade recoiled as if slapped, and Ron gawked at him, before turning red. "Someone else? You trusted someone else more then me? Who? And When?"
"No! Not trusted! Um, nine years ago, I trusted you more...then, but I couldn't..." His voice trailed off.
"Couldn't WHAT!"
"Lose you." Wade replied in a small voice. "You were the only other one left, just me and you, all that were left that really remembered her, and all she did right. I couldn't lose you, too!" His voice strengthened as he continued, "But now, I couldn't stand not knowing, anymore! I couldn't just do nothing anymore!" then he began to get angry, "And you! You believed her..." pointing at Sara, "At first! 'If I could make another world where Kim's still alive and happy, that would be worth it', right? Except for one thing! You'd be in that world, and I'd still be here, stuck in this one! All by myself!"
"Except for your family, and the Possibles!" Ron shot back, but he didn't sound convinced of his own words.
"Three ex-wives, and two kids who ignore me, you mean?" Wade bitterly replied, but then the edge in his voice faded, "And the Possibles? I can't look the Doctors in the eye, anymore! And Jim's and Tim's families? God, I can't be around them for more then a few minutes, and the guilt almost makes me sick!"
"Nice of them to forget about their wives and kids, before they both climbed into that machine together!" Sara snapped, then looked away, blushing.
Ron looked surprised, while Wade got angry again, "They thought it would work! And there was no way one of them was going to do it, without the other! They should have gone, and been right back, with little or no time elapsed, here! We sent a remote probe back, and recovered it!" Ron's face became thoughtful at Wade's words, which Sara noticed, even as she replied, "Well, a machine wouldn't trigger duplication! A chimpanzee wouldn't, either! Only human beings do! And no, no scientist has a theory for that. And you don't want to hear all the theological theories that have popped up!"
"Theological?" Wade queried.
"Of course! God had to have been involved, didn't he?" Sara threw her hands up, "I Mean, I'm not dismissing the possibility, but these guys...they have almost as many different theories as the scientists, and argue over them as much! But some of them go farther, they think they've figured out 'God's Master Plan', and they try and 'help' it along! It never changes, and it's always someone else who has to 'adjust' or pay some price, to make it all work! Sometimes even 'pay' with their lives!"
Ron had ignored the last bit, lost in his own thoughts. "A machine wouldn't trigger duplication?"
Sara groaned inwardly. "Oops!"
Wade looked at Ron, "Now there's a thought! But, the machine would have to be programmed to operate with complete Autonomy! The degree of programming necessary to cover all possible contingencies would be enormous!"
"Not necessarily..." Ron remarked, absently.
Sara scowled, "Not if you just want to do it Ron's way!" She pointed at Ron's kit bag when Wade looked up. "Enough explosives and incendiaries in there to start a decent war, or end one!"
Wade's head snapped around to stare at Ron, face shocked. "What! Explosives! You wouldn't need explosives to save Kim!"
"I wasn't just going to stop those events, I wanted a more permanent solution!" Ron shouted, defensively.
Wade looked at him incredulously for a moment, then threw his arms in the air and stalked away, walking all the way to the control console before spinning back around and shouting, "You see? Why we couldn't trust you? 'Permanent Solution', as in what our Government taught you to do? Have you been their boy so long you can't remember how things were with Kim?"
"Kim was naive! Thwart the plan that got her, and that guy would have found another way!"
"Or, someone else would have, Ron." Sara said quietly. "Her weakness was her heart, and if one villain could figure how to exploit it, others would have, too. Permanent? The only way to make Kim 'permanently' safe would have been to get her out of the hero business altogether!"
"If that's what it takes!"
"Ron! No, that's not right!" Wade cried, "Kim was who she was, there's no way to change that!"
"Well, he could convince his younger self to pop the question, keep Kim 'barefoot and pregnant', though I wouldn't expect that to work, not then. Otherwise, you'd have to do something physical, wouldn't you? But would she then still be the Kim you're devoted to, Ron?" Sara stared Ron in the eyes as he stood, unresponsive. He finally looked away. "You just actually thought about it, didn't you? Hurting her, I mean." Wade just looked at Ron, appalled. "Well, that's how much you've changed, Ron! Not sure your judgment is all that good, any more!"
A long minute's silence followed. "You didn't say who else you sent back, who else you believed would do it the way you wanted!" Ron said, keeping his eyes downcast.
Wade's eyes narrowed, then he gave a sharp nod and replied, "Shego." Ron spun to face him, a mixture of emotions, shock, anger, incredulity all warring on his face. "Shego!? Shego was killed eleven years...Did you help her, did you hide her!?"
"No! I was responsible, or partly responsible, for that death warrant hanging over her head, I had an opportunity to prove she wasn't an accomplice to that assassin, just a dupe, and I let it pass, I don't know why!"
"I hunted her for nearly a year, trying to arrest her!" Ron yelled, "Anyone else I should know about, that you kept hidden from me?"
"You may have wanted to 'arrest' her, but did your teammates? Not likely! And I didn't hide her, I stumbled across her by accident, and helped her out of guilt. I didn't admit what I'd done, but I offered her the opportunity to go back, if she gave her word to help Kim, first and foremost!"
"And you trusted her word, but not mine?!" Ron snapped out.
"If you want to put it that way, yes."
"And she apparently failed, as well, and left no trace." Sara commented. "Ron, the question is still, can you risk that I'm telling the truth? Can you risk doing that much harm, for the possibility of saving Kim from her fate?"
Ron was silent for more than a minute. Even Wade seemed to be paralyzed, waiting for his reply. "I have to, it's the way I'm wired!" He turned to Wade. "Are you with me? Just the two of us? No waiting to build a robot, set the machine a couple more years back, and we go?"
"No explosives going with you, Ron, do without, or don't go!" Sara's voice gained an edge.
Ron glared at her momentarily, but then nodded. "Don't need them, I have a plan!"
Wade's face was a mix of fear and hope. "Really?" Ron nodded, but Sara's voice added a cutting bite of sarcasm, "Make it up as you go along, maybe? Lot of lives resting on that, Boys!"
"It's worked before!" Ron retorted. He then turned to Wade. "Well? We going, or not?" Wade hesitated, fear still undiminished, but then he nodded. "Let's go! I'll reset the target date!" He looked at Sara. "Can you give me an exact date for this so-called 'judgment'?"
Sara sighed, "Exact? No! But, within sixty days of Kim's nineteenth birthday is about right, before or after, somewhere inside that four month span."
Wade finished inputting the data, then turned to Ron, gesturing at the doors to the transmission chamber. "After you!" Ron nodded, and stepped inside. Wade flipped one last switch on the console, then hurriedly jumped inside, as the chamber doors closed.
"Dammit, Ron! That's strike Three!" Sara dropped back into the swivel chair. She looked up as the humm from the time machine began to build. "This isn't going to be pretty!" She spun her chair so her back was to it.
The humming continued to build, then there was a sharp crack. A steel sphere mounted above the machine shimmered and vanished, and a very naked Ron Stoppable and Wade Load appeared ten feet in front of the chamber doors. They both looked at each other in shock, then both spoke at once, "You forgot to switch the cables back!"
"I'd call Jinx!, but I'm not going to be around long enough to collect, anyway!" Sara thought. To Ron's cry of "Where are our clothes?", she replied, "In the chamber, disintergrated, or being tried on by a Cro-Magnon man for size, I'm not completely sure!" Sara suddenly spun in her chair, buttoning up her jacket. Moments later, the doors flew open, and in rushed two security guards, weapons drawn.
(Somewhere in time and space, several pink somebodies were having quite a laugh at this moment!)
"Mister...Load?" The lead guard managed to stammer out, while his partner stared in blank astonishment.
"Little accident with the test equipment, maybe a practical joke, we're not sure!" Sara said, addressing the guards. Regarding her, they both frowned suspiciously.
"Marty, do me a favor?" The senior guard looked at Wade, "Cancel the alarm, before more guards get here, this is embarrassing enough!" After a moment's hesitation, the guard nodded, and complied. When he was done, Wade relaxed slightly. "Thanks, Marty! Now, I need one of you to go to my office, and get that overnight bag I keep packed for sudden trips?" They both nodded their understanding. "And please bring it here!" The younger guard left, but Marty was more than curious.
"Mister Load, there isn't any testing scheduled, and your own rules..."
"Private Demonstration, Marty! And secret! You can say you saw Mister Stoppable here, but as far as anyone else is concerned, the lady was never here, okay?" Marty wasn't dumb, but he knew about these 'private demonstrations', too. Private as in Government agencies whose interest had to be confidential. And besides, if it was something kinky, Wade was the boss, and the paychecks were generous, so..."Got it, Mister Load!"
Conversation was on hold until the younger guard returned with Wade's bag. They both left as their boss began to dress. "I don't know if my stuff will fit you, Ron."
Ron glowered at Sara, who averted her eyes, as he replied, "I've got a change of clothes in my bag."
"Had to have, couldn't run around in that black outfit all the time, could you, Ron?" Sara commented.
"You did that on purpose!" he exploded back, "Got us so distracted, we forgot the sabotage! I'll even bet you did that, yourself!" Sara rolled her eyes, but Ron cut off her reply, "But it's not stopping me! Wade, reset again, I'll change the cables!"
"Right!" Wade started typing one handed on the keyboard, while buttoning his shirt with the other. Ron waded in among the cables again. "Blue 7, yellow 3, right?" When both Sara and Wade answered in the affirmative, he looked suspiciously at the woman, but switched the cables, anyway. He then picked his way out, and returned to the chamber doors. "Ready?" He asked Wade. Wade nodded.
"Um, Wade?" Sara called out, "Will it work without...whatever that sphere that used to be up there was?" She pointed where the item in question had vanished. Wade looked, and his jaw dropped. "Oh, No!"
"What! What happened, was this more sabotage?" Ron asked frantically.
"It doesn't matter, it's gone! And we can't replace it, Jim and Tim built that part!" Wade's head drooped, dejected.
"But, you can rebuild it, right?" Wade shook his head, and Ron grew more strident, "Why Not?!"
"Because the Tweebs built it, and they kept half the details for it in their heads! You don't know how hard it was to get them to write a proper Patent application, Ron! I didn't even dare disassemble it to test, because I may have not been able to reassemble it!" He walked over to another chair and slumped into it. "I'm sorry, but being a genius doesn't mean you understand other geniuses!"
Ron just stared at him for several minutes, occasionally glancing at the machine, and Sara. "Can you figure out a way to make it work, Wade?"
"Maybe, But it might take years, Ron!"
"Not how I wanted the decision to be made, but there it is!" Sara stood up. "Sorry, Ron, but you can't go back to save Kim, now!" She was reaching to take up her cloak when Ron spoke.
"I Can't, but you can!"
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Author's Note: I have the ending in mind, the fifth separate ending I've thought of for this, but I think it's decided. This has been a hard thing to do, I've rewritten it twice, and twice had a power failure in the middle of it, I kid you not. Recovered the chapter both times, but I was wondering if I was getting a message.
Again, this story will not involve an actual trip back in time, it was meant to examine Ron's dedication to Kim, and how far it went, how much he would risk. Sort of strayed from that idea, but we'll see.
Please, Read and Review
