11. …When You've Never Been There…
We pulled up to the gate of the Space Center. A guard came over and leaned into the window of the car. His eyes almost came up to mine.
"Name please?"
"Sasha Barkin, and this is Reneca Cramer. I'm sure you know Kim Possible."
"Hi, Tom." Kim leaned forward and gave a little wave.
"Hi, Kim, haven't seen you here for a while. Not since you ditched Rocket Boosters Day. Your Dad's waiting for you in the main building." He handed me a clipboard. I signed us in as he got another gander. Then he opened the gate for us.
"Nice guy. Easily distracted though."
"Maybe you should do up one more button." Reneca was shaking her head at me.
"Yes, Mother Superior. It's just that a little air feels good sometimes."
"Uh-huh. Any more 'air' and those girls would freeze."
Kim joined the Decency Commission. "All right, Sasha besides for stoking your vanity and maybe giving an old man some sweet dreams, did that serve any real purpose?"
"Absolutely. You saw his ring? The wife will ask him 'how was your day?' and all he'll dare remember is that you dropped by. That's half the population out of the gossip loop. As for the men; he won't remember my name or my face or maybe even you. But he will be able to perfectly describe a vision of powder blue satin, black lace and porcelain skin.
"We don't know what's up, or who's listening. That girl's life may depend on no one knowing that the three of us are together. I'll pull a dirty trick for that."
Three people stood at a door. Kim showed me where to park. Dr. D. and Amy stood behind a distinguished looking middle aged man. The brown hair had gray at the temples. It was a pleasant face. I know how to read faces; this one should have been smiling but had not had a reason for some time. By the stifled sob behind us I knew Kim thought the same.
He stepped forward as we approached. "Sergeant Barkin, I haven't seen you since the wedding. How's Steve?"
"Doing great. Hopes to get Eli Lilly Middle School in a couple more years. This is my partner, Reneca Cramer and I know you know who this is."
Kim was even more uncertain this time. She took a step toward him. He came up to her. This time the face was unreadable.
"Completely identical!" He breathed. "You're right, Drew. She has to be from another dimension. There's no other explanation." His hand came out very slowly, like he was afraid. When she smiled, he wrapped her up in a hug. It took her no time to hug back.
"Thank you for coming." He whispered as he stoked her hair. "Her Mom and I just don't know what to do. We've tried and tried to call the police but all we could get was Sergeant Barkin. Then Drew called us, talk about a miracle!"
Dr. D. gave a small smile. "Just luck there. Amy and I have been trying to come up with some way to scan for a genetic marker. Right now we don't have anything capable of using what we've developed, so Cousin Edward and Wade are helping with that. We can't fail, James, we have the five smartest people I know working on it."
"Let's get inside. I'm sure the Sergeant has some questions. Can't hurt to have boots on the ground." Mr. Dr. Possible (how do you handle it when you have two doctors in the house?) led the way.
We ended up in a computer room. By the look of it they had been going there all day and longer. One table was covered in food. Equations were all over the black boards. I could see one computer screen had the Possible genetic sequence on it.
"Our best bet so far." Amy was beside me. "One person is just too narrow a subject for anything we can do right now. Mitochondrial DNA is family specific; of course, it would be from her Mother's side. If we have the program right, every Joye will light up like a Christmas tree on our monitor once Eddie and Wade get the satellites on line."
Some of it made sense. Reneca had already started talking with James. I nodded my thanks to Amy and went over.
"It's starting to sound more and more like an episode of 'Bring Them In'." James looked at Reneca. "He has tried to make her into his, his creature. At first I liked the more modest look, but now I'd give anything to have my little three-quarter dressed Kim-Kim back."
"Sir, do you know where they tend to hang out?"
He didn't even try to hide the anger. "At first, all over town, but then they began to do less and less. For the past few weeks it's been dinner and Mount Middleton. Don't go up there if you have a latex allergy."
"According to your wife, Kim denies any sexual activity."
"Nice try. We all know the term 'technical virginity.' I think that's what's going on here. I'm sure that what he's up to! Making her do things that leave her feeling dirty, guilty, just that more easy to control. I don't know why I'm telling you this, but if he did anything to her, anything at all…I bought a gun last week."
I heard Kim gasp. She was close enough to hear. Reneca and I looked at him.
"Sir, I understand. I'd have to try and stop you, but I understand."
He looked up, and the eyes were full of tears. "You and Steve have a little girl. I see Steve's Mom from time to time and she always has a new picture. Believe me, you'll understand better and better as time goes by. God, it doesn't take long! It seems like just yesterday we were driving home from the hospital with Kim, wondering what the Hell we were going to do with a kid. The first thing was to stop cursing."
He sank his face into his hands. It was like he was afraid that little slip of the tongue would take his baby away. I saw Kim holding herself so I went over to her while Reneca waited for James to recover enough to talk some more.
"I've saved the world a dozen times over." She whispered. "Faced all sorts of dangers, madmen and super-freaks. And I always said the same thing: 'it's no big'. This is big, Sasha! I know on one level, they aren't Mom and Dad, but when I look at them. I've seen them when they hurt before…it's that look. I can't fail them, I can't!"
"Kid, you don't know how to fail."
She smiled as she wiped tears from her eyes. "I never thought I would say this to…that face. Thanks, I really needed that."
Dr. D. called over to me. "Sasha, we need Edward. He's in the second lab on the left. Could you go get him, please?"
"Sure thing. Kim, why don't you see if any of the places he's talking about ring any bells?"
"One bell I'm definitely going to ring while I'm in town." She walked over to James while I went to the door.
I could hear the music when I went out the door. One of Daddy's favorites, 'Life's Been Good' he played it all the time after the transplant. Edward was sitting at a desk. His eyes were fixed on a schematic of some type. The right forearm was resting against his leg, the left elbow was on the desk. I watched his hands as the music played. The fingers were moving, sometimes the hands. I've seen lots of air guitar; the twins did it all the time when Mike would sing. But that was just so much flailing. No guitar could have survived them. None ever did, Daddy ended up buying them drums. Edward's moves were exact.
He's fingering.
I knocked on the door. He started just a bit.
"They want you, Edward."
"Thanks, pretty lady." The giant came over. My smile stopped him.
"You aren't nearly as straight as Cousin Drew thinks, are you?"
The corner of his mouth lifted. He shook his head. "Too bad you're spoken for, pretty lady. I would have loved a dance."
We went back into the first lab. Wade was with them now. He had something in his pocket.
"I've come up with something, but first I want to give Kim this." He threw her phone back to her. She looked at me, a bit angry at first, but it faded.
"I guess cops will be nosy."
"Sorry. Trying to find out where you were really from. Didn't help."
"Maybe this will." Wade went over to a computer and typed something in. She almost dropped the phone.
"It works! How did you do that?"
"Works?" James frowned. "Did anybody else hear anything?"
We all shook our heads. Kim looked confused.
"No way you could." Wade replied. "It didn't take long to figure out the problem. It's the frequency! It's so high that we can't hear it at all."
Edward stared at a wall. Dr. D. hid his mouth while Amy glared at him. Reneca gave me a warning glance. James looked lost.
"Okay," Kim looked over the room "the first one to call me a dog gets it."
"Why would she set it like that?" Dr. D. asked.
"She didn't. That's why it took me so long to get back to you. I wanted to make sure who did it. Those are the factory settings. And you aren't a dog, Kim. No human, no dog, NOTHING in this world can hear that frequency. And since humans are so limited in their range…"
"She can't be from this dimension." James nodded. "I have to admit, Drew, this was the most far fetched thing you'd ever come up with. It makes the BeBes seem tame."
"Long story." Dr. D. shrugged. "Let's just say I wasn't meant for either robotics or match making."
"Can we get back to the phone?" Wade was impatient. "Once I isolated the frequency, I needed to find a transmitter capable of relaying a signal, or the thing's useless. Then I remembered the old 'allo, 'allo Program of the seventies and eighties. The British put up a satellite web to try to receive extraterrestrial signals. The North American net is still intact at this latitude. We can use this phone so long as we don't go any farther south than north Alabama. And Kim, no one else can hear it! I can contact you at any time with no chance of interception. It could be decisive."
"Spankin'!" Our expressions showed that was not a known teen slang in this dimension. "Maybe I'll start something."
"Since you have the phone working, maybe you can do something with this." She pulled out her palm pilot. "It's a Kimmunicator. Actually it's Ron's, mine was a wrist model lost in the explosion back home. Thank God for redundancy."
Wade looked like it was Christmas. "I'll need to see what it does and how closely it interfaces with our computers. It might not at all. But I suspect at least we can use it for communication. Is this a video screen?"
"It has video, audio, olfactory…"
"Wow! So that's what I'd have come up with if I hadn't have wasted all that time making money. I'll get on it and hopefully have it back to you before you leave tonight."
"Thanks, Wade, you rock!"
"You hear that?" Wade looked over at Edward.
The three huddled over by a computer. Dr. D. and Amy went back to their work. Reneca and I walked back over to James.
"Sir, I'll ask one more question before we go. Are you involved in any sensitive research? Anything that may make you or your family targets?"
"Nothing. We're currently working on the joint U.S.—Russian Moon Shot, but that's public knowledge. Edward's on the rover project, I'm with the navigation rockets."
"Thanks, sir. We'll be in touch. Let us know if either of you think of anything else."
"Kim, we're going." She walked back over to us while the scientists huddled over their computers. "Just talk with him, maybe he'll come up with something."
"I'll try. We haven't handled that many kidnappings, Sasha. The ones we have done have all been where the reason was obvious…genius in this field, rich beyond reason, simple revenge."
"We'll see you at school tomorrow. Maybe we'll hit onto something there."
"There are a couple of people I really want to talk to."
"Don't start anything with the Bobby Johnson. Not yet anyway."
"He's not who I'm thinking about right now. I'll explain later. Hopefully, this Kim's passwords are similar to mine. There's a diary entry that's begging to be read."
Great, more mystery. "Good night, kid. Good luck."
"See you two at school tomorrow."
We went back to the car. Reneca was working the same lines I was. I was hoping she had something cheerier.
"The attacks are linked, Sasha. Gotta be! Same night, hard and fast, I bet the girl ran into real pros here, too. Just didn't have what our girl has."
"Nobody does. That must be what they're after."
"But who's 'they'? I don't like to sound paranoid, but people don't do this sort of thing. You don't get nine jujitsu experts in a van and go after waitresses."
"Governments do." Her expression confirmed it. We're on the same depressing, scary page.
As we made the turn to the security gate, I could see there was a new guard. He had an expectant look on his face. The word's already out.
"Damn. I was hoping it would be the same old man."
"Sorry, Sasha. You just got a curtain call."
I reached for the button. "It is getting cold now."
Reneca smiled. "God is good. And She's so fast these days."
