OK, Kim and Shego are © Disney, and used here without permission, for non-profit purposes.

HIDDEN AGENDA

"He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,

And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere."

Ali ibn-Abi-Talib (602 AD - 661 AD).

Chapter three, which is taken up mainly with conversation leading up to a minor cliff-hanger.

Kim Possible was instantly ready for action.

If she were an athlete, she would be coiled in the starting blocks for the 100 metre dash. If she were the fire service, all the firemen would be sliding down the pole to man the ladders and pumps. If she had been a naval vessel, she'd have had all hands on deck at battle stations.

"SHEGO," she almost hissed between clenched teeth. She switched her wary approach to the rush of a football player, tackling Shego high on the body.

The coffee mug and the packet of biscuits the pale green woman had been holding went flying wide as they both crashed back into the rocks behind the camp site. For once, Shego had been taken completely by surprise.

Kim's attack had, however, not been all that well conceived. They both went down, Shego hitting the back of her head against a large boulder and Kim planting her face in the rocky scree at its base.

"Ow, Kimmie, ow! What the hell are you doing? When have I ever done anything to you? eh...recently, that is?"

Kim staggered to her feet, a feral grin on her face. The blood dripping from a bad cut on her forehead added to her somewhat crazed appearance.

"What have you done? Is that a trick question? Whatever have you NOT done? Every time I see something underhand and villainous, there you are, smack bang in the middle of it, aiding that idiot looser in whatever his current obsession is. Well, once again, you're going down!"

"Stop right there, now, will you?" Shego said, backing up. "Wouldn't it be good to know what's happening before you rush in?"

"Not really! I'm fine if I just get to hurt you, a lot! Starting now!"

Shego sighed. "OK, I can understand that, but it would still be a good idea if I could explain a few things before you loose it again. Just sit down and have a cup of coffee and let me talk, all right? And wipe the blood out of your face, it's distracting!"

"Figures you would be a vampire, too, excited by the sight of blood," Kim muttered, thinking of Ron sucking her good mood away the previous evening.

"Huh? Was that supposed to make sense?"

But Kim just waved Shego away and sat down on the log, wiping her face with a handkerchief.

When Kim was more or less clean again, Shego handed her a blue mug of black coffee.

"Here, you can have Dr. D.'s mug. I only have black coffee, though, and the biscuits are off. There are an amazing number of ants hereabouts that all seem to love their Digestives..."

Shego took her own mug of coffee, green of course, and sat down on the log. Kim made herself comfortable as far away from her as possible.

"Ok, go ahead! You have the time it takes me to finish my coffee, and then I'm gonna bust your ass!"

Shego held back her reply in the interest of time and started collecting her thoughts, a concentrated scowl on her face.

"Ok, Possible," she finally started. "You know we got our amnesties after the Lowardian mess, right?"

Kim nodded.

"Pretty neat, huh? Well, I've gotta start by telling you it wasn't that simple." Shego looked out over the clearing and settled down to telling her story.

"To start with, we had to surrender all funds, equipment and real estate we had accumulated during our criminal career. Clean slate, right? So there went all that lovely money."

"Oh, boo-hoo, Shego! Don't tell me you didn't hang on to a secret stash!"

"Well, yeah, you're right, sneaky is my middle name, but really, most of it we had to give up. Your little nerdy friend had a surprisingly good map of most of our secret accounts and resources. And he was happy to oblige in stripping us of our assets."

Kim hadn't thought about that. Made sense, though. You couldn't really turn around your life, while still living the high life thanks to stuff you had already stolen.

"Yeah, anyway, he didn't know of some of the stuff we had hidden in other forms. A stash of British gold sovereigns here, some industrial diamonds there.... Problem was, while we still had that, we couldn't really use much of it. That would just have alerted GJ and everyone else to the fact that we hadn't confessed to all of our sins and had broken the terms for the amnesty. So, most of the money, we didn't have anymore, and the rest we couldn't really use."

"Tough! You would just have to get a job like everyone else!"

"Yeah, like you have spent so much time earning your own way! I only remember that disaster at that Bueno Nacho place your buffoon is so in love with!" Shego glared at Kim from the corner of her eyes, and Kim had the good grace to back down from that particular confrontation.

"Anyway, that just brings me to the next problem: There aren't really that many job opportunities out there for your average former super-villain. Dr. D. had thought he might get back to research, but there was no university that would give him a faculty position. No institute that would hire him. And no government agency that would give him even the smallest grant. His resumed academic career was dead in the water before it even began!"

"And you?"

"Don't even ask, Princess. You would not want to know how I've made my living the past year!"

Kim couldn't really imagine what could be so bad that she wouldn't even want to know, but she let that slide, also.

"So," she said eventually, "now you're back to helping Drakken take over the world, is that it? Holding the power system to ransom, I bet?"

"Nope! Well, I'm back to helping the stupid old smurf with his dreams, but not the take over the world part. You see … he's actually trying to make a big research breakthrough to finally make his reputation. This," she waved at the installation under the power lines, "feeds power to a large particle accelerator he's built in the access tunnel of one of his abandoned lairs. He figures the results will be so sensational that the scientific world cannot fail to give him his rightful place in its pantheon! I dunno, it's just mumbo-jumbo geek-speak to me, but I figured I owed him some help, for old time's sake. And here I am; just watching the machine, and pushing the buttons as required."

Kim finished the last of her coffee, but instead of putting a stop to the conversation, she just held out her mug for a refill. Shego obliged without comment.

"But Shego, that's not the whole of it, is it? For one thing, using all the power in the state of Colorado for a secret experiment isn't really legal, is it now? You must have caused millions of dollars of damage with just that little stunt! And I bet it's just because Drakken wants to build some really crazy laser or robot or something!"

Shego topped up her own mug of coffee before replying. "Now there's where you're wrong. He is actually doing basic research, wanting to prove some theory or other. He claims it would help explain whatever happened a few milliseconds before the big bang that created the universe! And OK, we are using some power off the grid, but it really isn't that much that it should be a problem. And the grid is down in spite of our efforts, not because of them!"

"Explain!"

"Well, Dr. D. needed some power, here, to run his experiment and he thought it would be easiest just to use the existing power line. He has, however, already deposited money at the Corporal Electric Company to cover the expense. No, the problem is that there are other people who really do not want Drakken to succeed. They don't give a damn about his experiment or his career. They want him because he can be a useful little idiot with all his gadgets and inventions. So they want him not to succeed, they want him with nowhere else to turn, and they want him, period."

"Are you telling me someone shut down the power in the state of Colorado just to stop Drakken from making a successful experiment? And just because they want him to work for them?"

"In a nutshell, yes!"

"Sorry, Shego, do you really expect me to believe that? It doesn't sound very plausible, now, does it?"

"Guess not, but it's still the truth!" Shego said, draining her coffee.

"Aw, come on! And I guess they want you, too, huh? To be sidekick for these mysterious other persons and their plans? Really, Shego, I thought you would at least have the guts to take responsibility for your own decision to go back to being villains!"

"Believe me, Pumpkin, we would take credit for it, if indeed we had made such a choice! And yes, they do want me – dead!"

Kim just looked at Shego, waiting for her to elaborate. This was overtime, since her second cup of coffee was now finished, but she wanted to hear what Shego had to say.

"Well, yeah, Drakken is a possible asset, crazy as he is. I'm a liability and a bad risk. They want Drakken vulnerable and totally dependent on them, and I suppose they think I might support him and give him some backbone. So, yeah, they want me, all right, six feet under."

Shego sounded unusually bitter, even for her. Kim just looked at her, not really knowing what to think.

"Anyway, Cup-cake, I think I'll be getting some help in convincing you shortly. Hear that?"

What Shego was referring to was the sound of jet fighters rapidly approaching at low altitude.

"The Air Force is gonna make me believe you?"

"Trust me, that's not the Air Force," Shego said, jumping up and snatching a walkie-talkie from her rucksack. "Hey, Drakken?" she yelled into it. "They are here! Move your ass and get out while you can!"

They didn't have time to hear an answer, though, because a formation of jets, painted entirely in black, just burst upon them, and a trail of explosions started creeping up towards the installation under the power lines.

The noise was deafening, especially after the fighters passed overhead, and they were exposed to the roar of the full thrust of the engines as the pilots pulled steeply up, having released their payload of Air-to-Ground missiles. The last of these scored a direct hit on Drakken's machinery, and both it and the nearby power line pylon disappeared in a cloud of dust and smoke. Dirt and metal fragments started raining down over the entire clearing.

"Don't just stand there!" Shego shouted. "We've got to get out of here, or we are done for!"

She grabbed Kim roughly by the arm, and started dragging her up the valley.

"Come on, damn you! I have a hoverpod up there in the ravine, and we have to get to it before they turn around for a second pass!"

Kim was used to keeping her cool in the most impossible situations. She had, however, never been in a military type combat situation before, and the missile fire had momentarily frozen her. Shego's shout prodded her out of her inaction, however, and she started running after her long-time adversary.

They did not make it to the hoverpod, or even to any kind of cover, before the jet fighters had completed their turn and came in for a second pass. This time, cannon and machine gun fire showered the ground behind and around them.

Perhaps they were incredibly lucky, or perhaps it is really difficult to shoot someone on the ground from a fast-moving airplane. Either way, both Shego and Kim made it to a narrow gulch leading up from the main valley towards higher ground with nothing more than cuts from the stones and shards of rock flying about. They pressed their backs up to the rock face, and looked back over the valley.

The power lines were down for as far as they could see, and at least two of the pylons had been reduced to twisted metal skeletons. Drakken's installation was totally gone, only a large hole in the ground showing where it had been.

The jets seemed to be departing. However, that didn't really make the situation much better. There were now three large helicopter gun-ships over the clearing, and two of them started dropping paratroopers. Black seemed to be the colour of choice both for equipment and uniforms for whatever organisation had put in an appearance.

The third helicopter was what worried them most, though. It flew lower than the other two, and began approaching the cliff face under which they were trying to catch their breaths. It came so close that they could actually see the faces of the pilots and the forward gunner under the glass canopies. They could even see the sudden cruel smile on the face of the gunner as he waved his right hand before pressing some control.

His action fired two missiles mounted on either side of the helicopter's body. Almost instantly they smashed into the rock face above Kim and Shego, the resulting explosion bringing the entire cliff down over them.

Kim Possible was about to be taken out of action. For good.

==##0##==

Well, that was chapter three. Talk, talk, talk, but at least some explosions at the end.

Please review, or I'll try to discover how to make a textual Puppy Dog Pout.