The cold November rain hung over Northern Virginia like a shroud. No one had seen the sun in more than a week, unless they had left the area. On days like these, Dr. Drakken was thankful that his work environment for the remainder of the semester was in a windowless building, a cross between a laboratory, a workshop and a warehouse. He quite enjoyed the lack of interaction with others; it was just him and the machines. All he was obligated to do was provide occasional (two or three times a week) reports to one Doctor Elizabeth Director or one of her hand-picked subordinates. Today, the subordinate was someone who looked a few years older than Kim and Ron, but he said that he was a first-year student.

"So, um, what did this do?" he asked the blue-skinned scientist. Drakken looked at the metallic Rube Goldberg-like device and recognized it immediately from around three years ago.

"This one was supposed to be foolproof! And I would have been the supreme ruler of the world if not for a couple of meddling kids and a hairless rodent."

"Okay, whatever dude. What was it supposed to do?"

"This was designed to send out a radio signal that would allow me to commandeer the world's aircraft. Of course, Kim Possible saw to it that I would not have that opportunity."

"Yeah, I've seen her around," said the cadet, "but I've never really had a reason to deal with her."

"I hope you don't mind me asking about this, but you seem a bit older than the other first-year students I've seen here."

"Well, I didn't come here straight out of high school, I was working...hang on, there's someone at one of the entrances. Do you want me to take care of it?"

"If you wouldn't mind," said Drakken. The cadet walked to the entrance. There was a delivery truck there."

"Hi, we're here to replace the snack machine in one of the buildings here."

"Um, there isn't a snack machine in this building. If you go back towards the entrance...hang on." The cadet paused for a minute. He had never seen an outside vehicle on campus, so the presence of one raised suspicions. "Hang on, let me call someone with more authority here than I." He soon realized he was talking to nobody. The truck had already left the snack machine behind.

"What was all that then?" Drew stepped outside. "I didn't order a vending machine."

"I don't think anyone here did. Maybe you should call Dr. Director about this."

"Let's go ahead and move it inside. It at least probably has some good parts I can use, and besides, it won't be doing anyone any good if it gets too wet. Go get a hand truck and some straps."

"Yes, sir."

"You don't work for me yet, there's no need to call me sir."

"Sorry, force of habit."

Neither Kim nor Ron had any more classes for the afternoon. It seemed that even their professors weren't fans of going anywhere in this weather. Ron wasn't due at Smarty Mart for a couple of hours, so they figured it was a perfect day to spend indoors and celebrate the fact that Ron's housemates had finally decided to clean up the place.

"I don't want to go to work today," said Ron. "I've been stuck working with snakes pretty much since fall break, so I haven't had as much assistance as I usually get from a certain naked mole rat. I mean, it's good that my manager is letting Rufus work with me, but still..."

"Is that really why you don't want to work today?" Kim asked, her hands wandering slowly across assorted parts of Ron.

"You certainly are giving me reason to find something else to do from 4 until midnight tonight. Perhaps you could be that something else I..." Ron found it hard to talk when he was pinned to his couch, Kim's lips entangled with his. After a good thirty seconds, Kim finally gave Ron a chance to breathe.

"Lately I've been growing less and less a fan of clothing," said Kim, her hands reaching downward. Ron held her up for a second.

"My housemates could be home any minute now..." Ron sensed the possibility of a certain particularly persuasive facial expression, so he added, "...so why don't I take us up to more, um, intimate quarters?"

"Yes," Kim breathed. She allowed Ron to sweep her up and carry her upstairs. They stumbled through the door to the bedroom at the end of the short hallway, practically falling into bed.

"You know, maybe we should do this in my bedroom." They stumbled back out the door and into the room across from the bathroom. This one actually was Ron's.

"I don't want any disruptions today," said Kim, taking her Kimmunicator and removing the battery. She is about to do the same with Ron's when it goes off.

"Kim!" said Wade, a siren blaring in the background. "Your Kimmunicator went off-line."

"I know. I pulled the battery. We're, um, doing a stealth exercise. We need to be off grid for a few hours."

"Stealth exercise? From Ron's bedroom?" Wade asked, smirking.

"Look, we haven't had any us time in the past month. Just let Dr. Director know that we'll be back available for whatever...soon." Kim nearly barked these orders at Wade.

"Understood. I will inform her of your needs."

"Please and thank you." said Kim. As soon as Wade was cut off, Kim pulled the battery from Ron's device.

"No distractions. No disruptions." Kim and Ron resumed their previous activities.

"Dr. Lipsky, this had better be important."

"It could be."

"A delivery truck left a vending machine outside my laboratory. I couldn't find a record of such an order."

"Hold on one second. I can tell you that a delivery truck was authorized to be on campus property. But you're right, no record of any vending machine requisitions. Should I send a team over?"

"Nothing too noticeable, Betty."

"I'm not sure we're on a first-name basis yet, Drew...yeah, I'm not quite feeling it."

"Give it time. Actually, is Kim Possible available? Or her sidekick, he's good at pointing out obvious things I miss."

"No, she and Ron are doing a stealth exercise," Betty fibbed. "I already have a team of actual agents en route." This sentence was true. The agents arrived barely a minute after Drakken got off the phone with Dr. Director. They took out some instruments which began beeping and clicking as soon as they were activated. Then they ran the instruments over Drakken, with similar results.

"Mr. Lipsky, how are you feeling?" said one of the agents.

"I was fine most of the day, but ever since the machine arrived, I've been feeling a little queasy." When Drakken said this, the oldest-looking of the agents pressed a big red button on his communication device.

"Agent Weiss, what is your emergency?"

"We have a code R1, code R3 and a code X. Prepare a decontamination unit." Weiss then grabbed Drakken's Global Justice-provided watch and opened a small panel.

"What's going on here?"

"We detected explosive residue on the machine..."

"What, is this a bomb or something?"

"That, or it's supposed to dispense fertilizer and fuel oil...and something radioactive. We need to get you out of here, we need the bomb defused, and we need everyone we can get." The seasoned agent was loathe to panic, but if anything merited such actions, now was the time.

"Where is, um, I don't even remember his name, my Director-appointed assistant? Forgive me, I've always been terrible with names."

"You would have been the last to see him."

"He got a call just after that thing was dropped off here...actually, I haven't seen him since then."

"Are you still there?" Patrick Seay, the beneficiary of Don Shelby's largesse and recommendation to the admission board of the Global Justice Academy, was on the phone with his benefactor. His revelations to the cadet had left him speechless. Gemini couldn't even hear his agent on the inside breathing.

"Yeah, I mean this is all just so...I can't believe what you're telling me."

"What do you mean by that?" The one-eyed head of the Worldwide Evil Empire wondered whether this was too much, too soon.

"Well, for starters, you say you are not Don Shelby, but Sheldon Director, the twin brother of the director of Global Justice."

"She will tell you the same. I'm the older one and I never let an opportunity to remind her of that go to waste." Both parties chuckled at this little anecdote. "If I don't get a chance to see Betty, do tell her I said hello if she is involved in your debriefing."

"And I'm also supposed to believe you're the one who sent a radiological bomb onto the campus of the Global Justice Academy as part of your own plan to demonstrate holes in their security plan, completely without her knowledge and permission?"

"That's not exactly true about why I did this. It would probably be better that I explain in person."

"Well, seeing as I am probably going to be a person of interest in this debacle, that might be a while."

"As my plan unfolds, you will see that it is not a debacle."

"I hope to see some sign of that soon."

"You will. In fact, when everything falls into place, you will be working alongside me and Kim Possible herself."

"Really?" Patrick's interest perked up a bit, drowning out some of his initial skepticism. "I mean, I've seen her around, but I don't have any classes with her. I do have a Monday morning lab with Stoppable, but neither of us is awake enough to actually interact with each other."

"Yes, really. Kim and Ron will be with us or against us. And when they know the truth about Global Justice, they will be with us. I have work to do. I look forward to seeing you soon." Gemini turned off his phone. He did feel a little bad about making promises to Patrick he could not guarantee he could keep. Such was the cost of being the leader of the Worldwide Evil Empire. He staked his life's work to this plan; he had everything to gain and everything to lose.

Patrick saw someone in a radiation suit coming towards him. "I was already checked out. They said I was clean. I just needed to keep away from the machine."

"That's true, but we will need to get you down to interrogation to get your statement. The sooner you start talking, the sooner we can get to the bottom of this. Your agency-appointed counsel will be arriving shortly, you don't have to say anything until he or she arrives."

"I...needed...that." Kim was still short of breath. "I had an itch..."

"Did I scratch it?" Ron asked, just as winded.

"Yes," breathed Kim. "Well, we'd better tell Wade we're finished with our, um, stealth exercise." Kim plugged the battery back into her Kimmunicator. Immediately the device lit up, indicating at least one missed call.

"That better not have been that important," said Ron as he stepped out of the room for a moment to give Kim some privacy. Kim checked the message. It was from Will Du. "Miss Possible, as soon as you receive this message, Dr. Director would like to see you and Mr. Stoppable. It's not anything urgent, but do contact her or myself as soon as possible." Kim first called Global Justice's one-time self-proclaimed Number One agent.

"Miss Possible, I hope your stealth exercise went well," Will said slyly. He then adopted his usual business-like tone. "During your down time, we had a situation develop."

"What's the sitch?"

"We received what appears to be a radiological bomb of some kind. Don't worry, we have defused the bomb and are in the process of decontaminating everyone and everything that came into contact with. We are preparing to interrogate everyone involved, and Dr. Director has requested your presence." Kim was suddenly stricken with guilt, saying nothing for a few seconds.

"Are you still there?"

"Y-Yes. I'll be there in a few minutes." Kim nearly lost her composure. What if there had been an actual emergency during her and Ron's activities? Just based on Will's description of the day's events, things could have been far worse than they were. Part of her didn't want to even want to be there, but she knew she would have to face Dr. Director sooner or later.

"Hey, Kim. What was...is everything OK?"

"Dr. Director wanted to see me." Even Ron could tell something was seriously wrong.

"There's something more to this you're not telling me."

"Yes, there is, but I really don't have time to talk about it right now." Kim retreated to the bathroom, trying to make herself presentable to the director of Global Justice. Time was not on her side; she jumped in the shower for not even five minutes and yet she thought she was just stalling for time. She threw on the first clothes she saw and burst out the door, downstairs and out of the house. Ron followed closely behind.

"Ron, I probably need to do this alone. Also, you need a shower before you do anything. I can smell what we were doing. I'll call you if I need you, or Dr. Director or Will get in touch with you. I love you."

"Love you, too, KP." yelled Ron as he ran back upstairs.

"Are you ready to begin?" Dr. Director would be the only one taking a statement. Kim and Agent Du were just outside the room, acting as observers.

"This isn't going to take long, is it?" Patrick was across the table from Dr. Director. He seemed a little nervous, his agency-appointed attorney sitting beside him in silence.

"That all depends on what you have to say. I would like for you to start by telling us about what happened today from the time the 'vending machine' arrived to the time you were brought here."

"Mr. Lipsky sent me inside to get some equipment to help him move the vending machine. When I went inside, my mentor called me."

"Your...mentor?" asked Betty hesitantly. "What is his name?"

"Well, until today, he had told me it was Donald Shelby." For the next part, the freshman was trying hard not to laugh. "But, and you're not going to believe this, it turns out it's your twin brother!" He couldn't see Kim's shocked expression through the one-way glass, but he could see the look on Dr. Director's face. It was unchanged upon the revelation.

"Was this the first time that he mentioned such a thing?"

"Yes. He's not lying, is he?"

"He is telling the truth. Now, what more has he told you? We have quite a file on him and I can tell you whether he has been honest with you. Knowing him, I imagine that he has, but he does have a tendency to leave things out."

"He said there was some sibling rivalry going on, and that he was the older of the two of you."

"So far, so true."

"He also said that it was his life's dream to have someone inside the Global Justice Academy."

"Again, that's true. But let me hurry things up and show you what we have on him. Will, upload everything we have on the Worldwide Evil Empire." Patrick froze when he heard this. His lawyer whispered something in his ear.

"My lawyer has told me not to say anything more at this time."

"All right, now please watch this video. This is the real Sheldon Director." Will started the playback, which consisted primarily of surveillance taken inside one of Gemini's lairs. Patrick tried to cringe, averting his eyes from shot after shot of henchmen being disposed of in increasingly elaborate and painful-looking ways.

"So, um, what will happen to him?" asked Kim.

"That all depends on what he is willing to do for us," said Will. "If he..."

"Kim, I need to see you and Ron in my office." Kim could have sworn that Dr. Director emerged from the interrogation room using a far harsher tone of voice than she had used on the potential traitor. Betty hadn't, but Kim began to wonder whether her allies would do more damage to her relationship with Ron than her enemies.

Note from ye Author: It took me a month and a half to have enough time to write this, but this month looks better. A few things from the outline for the next chapter, which may or may not make the final product:

Shego reacts to Drakken

Relationship vs. Global Justice

Ammo against Gemini?

Review and I shall respond.