Author's Note: This is the second part to Raging Hearts. Most can be read and understood without reading the first part, but reading this earlier work can clarify critical plot points.
Disclaimer: Kim Possible and all characters portrayed and/or implied inside that television animated program belong solely unto Walt Disney Productions.
Annabelle Speaks
All time stops, a good minute passes and nothing but a still, pulse-pounding silence. Dr. Director takes the initiative peeking over her desk's rim. The timer still flashes double zeros. And yet, it hadn't detonated killing them all. She sighs heavily over all the drama, resolving. It clearly wasn't a bomb, then what? And what purpose did it serve?
Curiosity overrides his common sense. Will Du asks without thinking, "What's the timer about?"
Dr. Director cuts her eyes viciously, "I don't know, Commander". She stands back up dusting off her G.J. pants suit. An albescent light scans her presence but the box still didn't do anything. She draws closer, slowly but steadily, ready for about anything.
Will, on the other hand, backs away surreptitiously.
Dr. Director gets within 2-inches (or 5.08-cm). The chest's lid pops open without warning. An eerie psycho-Annabelle doll jumps out brandishing a blood-soaked knife. Hair, crimson red. Eyes jet black, matching her Gothic lips and eye liner. Blood splashed against running down her cheeks and clothes. The doll wore Kim Possible's iconic white and blue battle suit.
Dr. Director was so startled by the doll springing from the box. She stumbles back, loses her own footing, and buts headfirst into the window behind her desk. G.J.'s senior director curses aloud rubbing her now throbbing head, and gets madder by the moment recalling where she'd heard that delivery girl's name, but asking for confirmation," Commander, what'd you say that delivery woman's name was?"
"Her name was Annabelle Form, Director," he lays the delivery receipt atop her desk.
"I'm surrounded by Idiots!" She snatches up waving the delivery receipt. "Annabelle Form is an allusion to the 2014 supernatural horror thriller, Annabelle,produced by Warner Brothers Pictures. A newlywed couple, John and Mia Form, expect their first child, a daughter. The father bought his unborn daughter, Leah, a doll and gave it unto his wife for safekeeping.
A couple nights later, Mia overhear her neighbor's daughter, Annabelle, and her boyfriend murder the girl's parents, the Higgins. Mia calls the police, and ends up being attack by Annabelle and her boyfriend. The cops arrive and end up saving Mia by killing the boyfriend. Annabelle Higgins slices her own throat so overcome with remorse. A drop of her blood lands on the doll. Her soul then gets transferred into the doll. That's how the doll acquires her menacing name, Annabelle. Possible's telling me something, but what?"
"I'm glad you asked, Director" Annabelle responds.
Dr. Director and Will Du backpedal several paces.
The eery doll's head spins all the way around then stops. Its eyes turn crimson red. Ron's blood pours out its ears, nose, eyes, and mouth.
Dr. Director backs away, unsure what this damn thing may do next. The animatronic doll slings its hands and feet dancing, but slinging Ron's blood all over the desk, walls, and floor, while thundering, 'Public Enemy No.1' (Megadeth, 2nd tract song on their 13th album Th1rt3en, released on Nov. 1, 2011 by Roadrunner Records). Not only was this psychotic doll creeping her out, it's grim message only fueled her growing animosity towards her ex-protegee.
Will waits several minutes with growing curiosity. He simply couldn't wait any longer shouting over the noise, some people call music, but not him, "What does this racket mean, Director?"
The dolls halts its chorus grinning forebodingly, as if giving the director a chance to respond.
Dr. Director didn't dare refrain from answering. The damn thing might explode just for pure spite. "Agent Possible's boasting through this song, she knows who orchestrated Darkwaters. She even brags about holding the smoking gun, but won't share, belying those brave men and women's deaths as mere fun. What worried me most, the damn doll promises our troubles have only begun.
Her neurosis has only progressed over the last 2-years. Possible declares herself Public Enemy #1 asserting she's invincible. The redhead actually believes she's so smart. We can't predict her next move. And she's so powerful. We couldn't stop if we did. And, to prove this, her crime wave's only starting. Soon the whole world will remember her name again.
Her M.O. will leave authorities' greatest minds scratching their heads. They'll debate her actions so fiercely. It'll leave whole department divided and barely speaking. We'll be so busy blaming each other. We won't care what she's doing. Even so, she knows that won't stop us trying. Herein, she issues us a direct challenge.
Come and try. She's bought plenty of roses to post at our graves. She's made countless enemies since being burned. She can't stay any place too long. Many enemies have tried to collect the price on her head. All who've tried earned a bullet in the head. And she doesn't regret a single action. Notice the song's closing".
The doll receives its cue finishing the song. Will listens with acute interest, but doesn't catch what his mentor's teaching.
Dr. Director reads his confusion like an open book, "She closes, clarifying, we may view her badly over her actions. Even so, she feels justified. We forced these actions upon her. Hence, her punishment should be ours. Crimes are repeatable once, but unrepeatable twice. Why? She envisions her crimes as for the greater good in bring us down. We view her as Public Enemy #1 now. We'll be soon".
Dr. Director snatches up her phone calling G.J.'s Hazard Material Unit (HMU), modeled after the FBI's impressive Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Sciences Unit (CBRNSU).
"Dr. Pomeroy here". He headed G.J.'s HMU division.
"Pomeroy, Dr. Director here," she screams over the rock music. "I require a Technical Hazards Response Unit (THRU) in my office immediately".
He detects the edge in her voice. Sure, she'd been touchy lately. He could discern, though, this odd request went beyond mere hormones. "What's wrong, Director?"
"Kim Possible sent me another care package. A jack-in-the-box bleeding real blood. I can't chance this being some kind of biological and/or explosive attack against G.J. or me personally".
"I understand, Director," he sympathizes with her concerns. "Everyone here remembers her last care package. That damn thing incorporated an explosive mechanism we'd never seen. We're ready this time. I'll have people there in under 5-minutes. Stay there, and don't let anyone else inside, til we clear your office. Be there in 5-minute".
"Initiating Red Level-3 EVAC for Section E2 of G.J. HQ now," she hangs up hitting the hazmat alarms. All agents immediately quit working heading towards the closest exit.
Double Crossed
"Mr. Hench, you have an urgent call on Line #6," Jemma Castallanta came over his com.
"Who's calling?" He queries his executive secretary.
"He wouldn't give his name, but said his call concerns Mr. Furley passing away".
Jack immediately knew the caller's identity, "Thank you, Mrs. Castallanta, I'll take his call".
He switches to Line #6, "Dr. Weizmann, what do you have for me?" Jack slipped the man an extra $10,000 to divulge his findings regarding the I-10 incident, before notifying Dr. Director. That way, he could potentially suppress anything damaging over Brannigan's stupidity while in his employment.
"Over 20 forensic specialists combed the I-10 crash site. We didn't recover a single body intact inside the CR-V. My staff relied heavily on orthopedics and DNA to piece these victims back together. We've made two positive identifications: (1) the driver was Sergeant Major Harmony Mandela, G.J. Security Specialist working under Special Division, and (2) the shooter's name was our boy, Captain Charles Brannigan".
"Why would Brannigan recruit her? I thought he abhorred Global Justice. His former boss canned him to save her own career?"
"It could've been the greatest cover-up in G.J. history".
Jack Hench didn't catch the man's deadpan sarcasm, but interprets him quite literally. "Sunva..." He hangs up without warning dialing the lair over HenchCo's Dark Net.
"Yea," Jacob Stillwater answers the vid-phone gruffly.
Jack Hench initially recoils, not over the man's tone, but recalling he was formerly G.J. He couldn't ignore the possibility, the man's arrest, time in Darkwaters, everything could've been an elaborate set-up. He'd haft to worry about that later plastering his best smile advising them, "We've been betrayed, Gentlemen. You'd best get ready to move immediately".
"How?" Drakken couldn't image this possible.
"Who'd dare betray us?" Stillwater shares the blue scientists surprise.
"Brannigan did," Hench repugns the deceased man's reputation.
"Brannigan?" Drakken scrunches his nose. "That's impossible. He..."
Drakken was a brilliant electrical engineer and knowledgeable in genetics. He couldn't imagine how. The man had a one track mind. "G.J. faked Brannigan getting fired, even the so-called charges against Betty Director, I'd bet".
Gemini and Stillwater weren't the least bit surprised. Both knew, if they wanted to infiltrate an enemy organization, Brannigan would've been his first choice.
"How can you be so sure, Hench?" Gemini seeks clarity before deciding.
"It seems," Hench sympathizes with their doubts, "Global Justice, more specifically Dr. Director, wants our redhead tormentor dead worse than we do. Brannigan must've shared this desperation. So, he risked his cover with us recruiting an ally, Sergeant Major Harmony Mandela, a security specialist in Global Justice's Special Division. He probably felt their job would be over before anyone could truly identify Dr. Possible's assailants or connect it by to him. Possible, though, upset his plans by killing both mere minutes after shooting her mom. Plus, she sent Dr. Director another care package..." The connection abruptly goes dead without warning.
"Drakken..."
"Stillwater..."
"Gemini..."
No one responded.
HenchCo ran two IT Departments: (1) Legal and (2) Dark Net. Jack calls his Dark Net division.
"Iverson here".
"What's going on down there?"
"Nothing, Sir".
"Nothing, hey?" Hench didn't mind lying to others, but took exception when being scammed. "I lost connection with one of my secret labs. Something's wrong".
"It must be on their end. We're not showing any break downs in network communications, Sir".
Hench hangs up, knowing that could only mean one thing. His lair's already under siege. "Hayes, get in here," he calls in personal bodyguard.
"Yes, Sir," he bursts into the room with gun drawn.
"Organize six teams immediately. My new lab's under attack. I'll be leading this excursion. That redhead bitch isn't sending me running this time," Jack grabs his TEC-9 slapping in his 50-round clip, and heads outside behind his bodyguard.
More Questions Than Answers
Drakken, Stillwater, and Gemini were near freaking out. Hench no sooner mentions a traitor at work amidst them. Lair communications ominously go dead without warning.
Drakken starts to toy with the machine.
Gemini wasn't really the technical type. He gave an order. And it was obeyed immediately, or the offender got fed unto the sharks. Drakken though, he knew the man would rather fix his own lab tech that spend a dollar. Sheldon loses his patience screaming, "What's wrong with the damn thing?"
"There's nothing wrong with the machine per se. Communications are being jammed. I don't..."
"Don't bother, Dr. D".
His eyes light up, as her voice registers in his mind. He jumps back onto his feet and turns with great expectation. And there she stood, alive and well. "Shego?" Tears swell up in the man's baleful eyes. He always loved Shego. Not that he'd ever tell her that. He'd made little advances numerous times. He wasn't sure if she grasped what he was doing, but would always respond by sending him running and barbecuing his backside. She'd accept his fatherly affections, but never as a lover.
Shego always knew he desired her sexually. She was bi and didn't have a problem dating men, but preferred women. She cared about Drakken. How could she not? Hego betrayed a sister's trust in the worst possible way. Everyone else shunned the disgraced hero. Drakken took a chance bringing her into his lair.
She didn't know why, but she could never view him as anything more than a father figure. Even that was stretch sometime. Maybe it was over him being such a mama's boy. She discerns what he thought even now quipping, "Who else would I be, Dr. D?" She cocks her head smirking and standing aloof.
Drakken loses control over his emotions. It'd been so long. He rushes over hugging her tightly, damn the consequences, if only to hold her one last time, "Shego, you're alive?"
"Yea, but you won't be much longer," she grumbles igniting her plasma, "if you don't release me, You, Blue Loon".
"How'd you escape from Possible?" Gemini and Stillwater crowd around the ex-mercenary.
"Who said I did?" She tosses exploding pellets into their faces. Each spews concentrated doses of carfentanyl, an incapacitating agent 10,000 more potent than pure morphine. All three men inhale in deep shock hitting the floor seconds later.
Jack Henches and three security detail arrive 30-minutes later. They discover all perimeter guards laying unresponsive on the ground. Their bodies covered in plasma burns. Broken limbs and bruises.
"What happened here?"
His medic checks every downed man and woman. A certain stench lingered all around them. "Sir, it'd seem, they've been dosed..."
"Oh, really, I wouldn't have known that if you hadn't told me," Jack starts to regret coming here.
"I cannot say definitely.." His medics hesitates but holds up a smoke canister, "I'd say, whoever attacked this place utilized an incapacitating agent, like used in Russia some years back".
"Little help you are, Simpson. You give me an answer raising more unanswered questions," Jack gripes over his medic's incompetency.
Dreams Come True
Alpha Guards spread out checking the perimeter leading inside the lair. Not finding any immediate threats, they give their boss the 'All's Clear' signal.
Hench eases his way into the entrance, while Betas guard his rear and Zeta flank both sides. He gets just inside the control center, where he lost communication with his team, but stops cold. Every single computer had been wrecked, literally whole chassis ripped off their wall brackets, snapped in half, the internal components scattered roundabout, and remains discarded into the lair's lower levels.
His eyes rake deep wall gouges, as if carved by an acetylene torch, but done with mere claws. His three partners hung upside down, suspended from the ceiling by their ankles. All stripped naked as jaybirds. Hands bound behind their backs. Eye blindfolded. Bottoms paddled rosy red. He only knew two women capable of such cruelty, and only one wielded fire.
"Shego," he murmurs under his breath grasping his firearm tighter.
"Did someone mention my name?" The green mercenary steps from the shadows behind him.
Hench dropped his guard. Rear guards watching his periphery, or should be. She'd gotten this close. His guards should've stopped her but didn't. In fact, none got off a single shot. Startled and mind racing with possibilities. He jumps high twirling around midair. He cuts his eyes left and right. His guards, there one minute, and gone, the next. They'd vanished without a trace. And he didn't hear anything.
His imagination kicks into overdrive. Each new scenarios become more grueling. Hench clutches his TEC-9 like a lifeline turning every which way. A green plasma bolt impact his firearm. Its metallic frame absorbs the heat so quickly. Hench couldn't release the gun fast enough, before searing heat fuses his skin with the handle. Gravity rips away his weapon along with his skin leaving both hands burnt raw and festering.
"Guards," Hench screams in deep pain.
"Don't bother. They can't help you or anyone else, ever again," Shego taunts the injured man.
Her grim words confirms his worst nightmare. Jack Hench derives, his guards are dead or crippled for life. He'd heard what these lunatic women did unto Jackson, bodyguard of Charles Weatherly, former director of G.J. OPM. He couldn't quite accept this reality. His conviction, however, wavers upon recollecting. Shego may not kill but had no qualms about crippling a dangerous opponent.
Shego smirks, having his undivided attention, summoning, "Girls!"
An army of BeeBees vibrate into open view.
"What are these abominations doing here?"
"These," she strokes the robot's metallic body. "They're dreams..."
"Dreams? You mean nightmares, don't you? Those things are bent on conquering humanity and replacing us with cybernetic doubles".
"Not anymore," Shego sticks with the script. "A few survived our last encounter building a small cybernetic community within the Brazilian Amazon. Princess located their village and challenged their queen. BeeBee Prime never imagined a human could defeat such perfection.
Princess quite literally pounded her into powder becoming their new BeeBee Prime. You want to know the really juicy part. Princess isn't cybernetic. Hence, the BeeBees readapted their internal logical programming to submit unto their new queen. Now they follow her orders, and only hers, or whoever she puts in charge, like me. She has over 10,000 BeeBees and growing stronger, a virtual army".
"So do I," he meets her challenge.
"2D7Gs, kill them all," Hench shouts in excruciating pain.
A separate BeeBee company—nearly 100 more—shimmer into open view dumping his 2D7G robot army at his feet. Their Colonel BeeBee steps forward grabbing the man's neck.
Shego knew, these robots processed his actions as treason. He plotted against BeeBee Prime's loyal servant. Regulations mandated his neck be broken and body put on display for all to see. "No, don't," Shego countermand their prime directives.
"But, BeeBee Prime..."
"I know," Shego cuts off BeeBee General. "BeeBee Prime needs him alive. For now. Break his right wrist instead. BeeBee Prime approves this decision".
"As BeeBee Prime wishes," BeeBee General doesn't question their queen's loyal servant's orders. The BeeBee Colonel grasps hold and snaps the man's right wrist, unfazed by the his hellish cries.
Shego teeters several times, unsteady of her feet. She collapses on her knees, grasps and shakes her head, as if trying to clear the cobwebs.
The BeeBee 'General' touches her right ear, "BeeBee Prime, implant malfunctioning. Our internal directives dictate the green one be terminated immediately".
"Negative," BeeBee Prime responds. "Amp up your cerebralx joint command signal".
The BeeBees interface together doubling their alleged command signal. Shego immediately stands up straight. Back erect and shoulders squared. All composed, back under BeeBee Prime's control, and the gloss in her eyes return.
"Hench, our war was with Cyclops. Not you. In fact, Princess netted billion off your company. You simply had to side with them...against us. Let that broken wrist be a warning. Standing with them can be hazardous for you and your company's continued good health".
"You three, cut them down and lay them out on the floor," she directs less ranking BeeBees.
"Do it," she signals BeeBee General.
The crash decapitated Brannigan's corpse. BeeBee General casts his severed head at Hench's feet.
Shego and her BeeBee army vanishes in a blink. Every smashed computer comes to life blasting the same song, "Let Me Hear Your Scream" (Ozzy Osbourne, 11th Album Scream, Released: June 11, 2010 by The Bunker, studio in Los Angeles, CA).
Brannigan's head rolls against his ankle. Hench notices the HenchCo logo branded into the dead man's naked flash. Jack grasps his own neck. Shego was gone, true. What if those damn robots stayed behind? What if that's what they had planned for him? His heart beats faster and breathing spikes with this song's screaming guitars and pulsating drums. All promising a painful end, possibly by a traitor's hands. He now knew they had one working amidst his partners.
Haven't gotten the respond I'd hoped, but appreciate all those who've reviewed my story. Your input was invaluable in making this story better. Please review or PM, and let me know what you think. I enjoy hearing from my readers.
