Chapter Ten: The Red Queen
Betty Director couldn't believe what she was seeing. Moments ago, Agent Du came running into her office. The head of Global Justice raised an eyebrow at her most "by the book" agent ignoring a simple bit of protocol. It must be utterly important if Agent Du is bending protocols for himself with undignified running. The woman thought to herself as she watched the man stand ramrod straight after he entered the doorway with color gone from his face.
"Agent Du, what is it?" The woman asked as she eyed him with a suspicious air.
Instead of speaking, the agent handed her a tablet. The tablet was linked to the Go Tower surveillance system by a complex spyware program, and for a moment, the one-eyed woman who could have passed for a female version of early Nick Fury from the 1960s looked at the pad in confusion. She was about to ask Will if he had been replaced by a bumbling clone when Betty saw it, or them to be more precise.
"When was this footage taken?" The woman asked, her tone leaving no room for nonsense.
The agent looked at her and spoke in a voice almost as flat as an automaton's, "A few moments ago, ma'am."
Betty closed her eyes and sighed heavily before she put the tablet down on the desk and looked at Will. "Get me a strike team to Possible's house, NOW!"
Agent Will Du paled as he put a hand to his ear to activate the comm in his ear and got nothing but static from the device. "TEAMCOM is down, ma'am."
The woman cursed under her breath and tried to issue orders through her computer, but outgoing bandwidth from the network was clogged with close to two terabytes worth of code fragments. In frustration, Betty slammed her fist against the desk and stared hard at the screen which only showed hundreds of streams of code payed across the monitor.
"Wade Load, I cannot WAIT until you are eighteen!"
Unknown to anyone because of the massive amount of data streaming around the network, the monitoring subroutines did not halt a meager ten gigabytes leaving the system under the blanket of confusion.
Wade examined the snagged files with interest. At first, it seemed to be average medical records of one Diana Go and one Kim Possible, but upon reading further, Wade's eyes grew wide in shock. I have to tell Kim. The boy resolved in his mind. However, he continued reading. Betty definitely had plans for Shego and this explains the global pardon. Wade continued to roll on with the details of Betties Omega Black Project. He was convinced that Kim was somehow part of this "Project: Shruikan". With further reading, Wade found his gut to be dead on, but Wade felt sick knowing he was right. The project had multiple phases with one simple goal: Encourage Kim and Shego's relationship to the point where Kim's unique genetics allow the plasma woman to impregnate the teen hero, and harvest the stable child's genome for eventual replication in her agents.
While GJ was in disarray and Kim was coming back from retrieving Diana's chamber, Megan sat on the bed of her lover in the apartment above the bar. Beatrice turned her blind gaze to her lover in relief but also worry as emotion showed itself in the woman's milky eyes. Beatrice put a hand on Megan's back and sighed.
"What brings you here?" Beatrice asked the woman as she shivered at the uncomfortable feeling of the rough Global Justice uniform fabric under her fingers.
Megan sighed and spoke as she put a hand on Beatrice's face. "Mother was unusually cryptic about details on this mission." Megan looked at a holographic readout of the orders again. "Mom just said I needed to secure assets and keep them out of the hands of someone codenamed 'The Red Queen'. The way Mom addressed this phantom; she seemed unnerved or maybe even fearful of this person."
Beatrice nodded. "Your legendary gut says that Kim Possible is at the core of this?"
Megan only looked at her rifle and checked the bolt on the weapon before she spoke carefully. "Yes and no…" Megan said as played a tone stored in her suit's memory core.
"The frequency of the black hole?" Beatrice mumbled as she shivered at the sound.
Though it meant nothing to the blind woman, Megan nodded. "The frequency is like a name tag for the destination at the exit of the wormhole." Megan then played a second tone. This one was slightly shorter wavelength than the previous translating to a slightly higher tone. "That's the CMBR (Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation) of our universe."
Beatrice groaned, "So we have to protect an alternate version of the bitch that killed our daughter?"
Megan only grimly nodded and quietly said, "Yes," even as emotions threatened her composed exterior.
En route to the Possible house with their prize, Kim and Diana were enjoying the feeling of the closeness and calmness as they cut through the sky in her car. The peace was shattered when Kim heard a familiar tone in her ear.
"Go, Wade."
The boy sighed and began. "Kim, Betty has been rigging things together for a long time behind the scenes." The slight pause from Wade's end of the microphone made Kim's stomach drop because she knew Wade was about to drop something big on her that would make Betty orchestrating things seem tiny by comparison. "She pushed you and Diana toward each other and rigged Diana's pardon."
When Kim and Diana returned with the pod, the pair quickly set it up in the corner of the guest room. It didn't escape Kim that Hego didn't pursue them for the pod, and she wasn't willing to take the risk. After the pod was altered to be able to feed the house's electric grid with Diana's excess plasma, Kim pulled out her Kimmunicator.
"Wade," Kim said as the young genius appeared on screen. "Has Victor reported the theft?"
Wade looked at Kim with worry as Diana snickered behind her girlfriend. "Kimmie, Relax." Diana said as she put her arms around the redhead. Then, Diana looked at Kim. "Don't worry your little Goodie-Two-Shoes head." Diana kissed Kim's cheek. "Even Victor isn't stupid enough to try and chase me."
Kim shivered and looked down at her lap. "I'm not worried about your brothers." Kim said quietly as she continued to look at her lap. "I'm worried that Hego will give Betty a reason to hunt me down." Kim said as she looked at Diana in worry.
"What do you mean, Kimmie?" Diana asked as her anger flickered into existence for a moment at the hint of fear in Kim's tone. "What aren't you telling me?""
In response, Kim looked at Kimmunicator and spoke, "Wade, decrypt GJ File: Project Jabberwock."
Wade looked at Kim in stunned silence. When he finally spoke, the boy's voice shook in fear. "A-Are you sure?" He asked her.
Diana glared at Wade. "Just do as she says, Nerdlinger!"
Wade started typing. "Just remember: I did warn you." He said as he shivered yet again before a text report came on-screen.
As Diana read, Kim noted steam start to rise from Diana's left hand. As she continued to read, the steam incensed from thin wisps to an actual cloud of mist around Diana's hand thick enough to hide it from Kim's view.
"So, The Cyclops isn't so clean anymore." Diana growled.
Wade looked at Diana. "I doubt she ever was."
Kim shivered and looked at Diana. She turned to Kim. "When did you get this file?" Kim looked at her and could only hug the green woman in response.
Wade spoke for Kim somewhere beyond the report on-screen. "I found it in Deep Six Storage under mounds of deconstructed files…last week."
Kim gasped and looked down at her lap. "I don't like this." Kim said as she stood. "First, Megan comes in calling me a thief and not hesitating to lump you in with me. Now, Betty is getting set to bury her claws in our baby."
Kim sighed and put her hand on Diana's cheek. "We need to talk to Hego before he reports the theft."
Diana looked at Kim in the eyes. "My brother is too dense to be reasoned with at this point," Shego admitted with an annoyed expression. "I hate to say it, Princess, but I think we have only a few options here."
Kim looked at Diana in momentary confusion. "I am not running to the people who want to cut me open and use our baby for some DNAmy level bullshit!"
Diana sighed softly and put her hands on Kim's shoulders. "We need to find Megan and Beatrice."
"Are you nuts?!" Wade and Kim yelled in unison.
Diana chuckled. "If you want to know the mind of the enemy, talk to those closest to her."
Wade looked at them and had a thought. He quickly turned to a range of sensors behind his computer bank and backtracked data to when Megan entered their Timestream. Readings of various data points: gravity, light, and temperature at the point where Megan entered their world mirrored what theoretical physics suggested would happen at the exit of a White Hole, supposedly the other end of a black hole, completing a warp in Space-Time commonly known as a wormhole. After quickly comparing readings, Wade came to a startling conclusion.
"Uh…guys?" He said as he tried to politely interrupt their discussion. They continued to bicker about the current situation. Finally, the boy-genius had enough and yelled, "GUYS!"
At his yell, both Kim and Diana turned to the screen. "Sorry, Wade. What's the sitch?"
Wade looked at them and sighed. "We're probably dealing with a phenomenon in Quantum Mechanics known as Crosstime."
Kim nodded. "So Megan isn't from the future of our reality but from a parallel universe that is on a slightly different time structure than our own?"
Wade nodded. "Bingo, to be honest; I think we can trust Megan and Beatrice."
Kim nodded. "We should meet with them and discuss the sitch."
Diana shook her head. "You are far too trusting."
Kim nodded at her lover. "I know, but if we don't trust them, things are going to be a real shit storm."
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