Chapter 25: Dementor's Lair
Bonnie Rockwaller slowly came awake to find herself lying on an uncomfortable cot in a dimly lit room. Unbidden, the memories of how she came to find herself amongst the sparse furnishings filtered through her head. She recalled the party on Senior's Island, the triumphant feeling of knowing she and Will were about to accomplish their mission…then the shock and terror of Ellie incapacitating her. She remembered Trudy and Ellie gloating over her and Will, and Hendle hauling her off like a sack of potatoes. She remembered locking gazes with Will as he lay, unable to help her.
The following journey had been a nightmare, Trudy and Hendle treated her as freight, tossing her into a plane's cargo hold with the rest of the payload and taking off. She had sprawled on the cold metal for hours, helpless as the airplane's buffeting bruised her immobile body until a final series of painful jolts announced that they had landed somewhere. Moments later, the hatch flew open and Hendle stalked inside. Again, the big man simply picked her up like any other load and dropped her in the back of a truck.
The following journey had been warmer and shorter, but much rougher. Every time the truck turned, slowed or accelerated she rolled, helplessly, across the floor. She had picked up even more bruises by the time the vehicle stopped for the last time and Hendle approached her once again. She had a moment of hope when he threw a blanket over her, thinking that her captors were beginning to consider her comfort. However, the big man simply rolled her up in the fabric, clearly disguising her, before throwing her over his shoulder again.
Dim light and city noises had filtered through the blanket for a few moments before a door swung shut, muffling the sounds. She remembered her captor carrying her through several doorways and down several flights of stairs before he set her on a metal surface and roughly yanked the blanked away. She had blinked several times at a harsh light but eventually her eyes adjusted and she was able to glance around a little bit.
The room had looked similar to a doctor's office. She had found herself lying on some sort of examination table, surrounded by bizarre, painful-looking instruments. Hendle first tied her wrists and ankles to restraints on the table, then produced a knife and cut away her clothing.
Bonnie recalled how terrified she had been…in part because the man hadn't reacted to her nudity in any way. He simply acted like a craftsman doing his job. Once she was completely naked on the table, he stuffed her ruined clothing in a bag and left, leaving her naked on the cold, metal surface. Minutes later, Bonnie heard some sort of pump and soon noticed a mist in the air. A pleasant, floral scent filled her nostrils for several minutes. After that, a powerful fan turned on and an antiseptic, hospital smell replaced the floral scent.
A large figure in a hazard suit, she assumed it was Hendle again, entered the room. Whoever it was scrubbed her quickly down with a harsh-smelling sponge before untying her and transferring her, roughly, to a gurney. He had then covered her with a thin, paper sheet before wheeling her out of the examination room, through several corridors and doors to…here?
Bonnie couldn't be sure. She recalled the figure wheeling her into a small room then lifting her off of the gurney and onto a cot. He had replaced the paper sheet with a coarse, woolen blanket before wheeling the gurney out of the room and closing the door behind him. With the door closed, the room had gone pitch black and Bonnie, despite her terror and confusion, had been overcome with exhaustion and fell asleep.
How long had she been asleep? Had her captors moved her again, while she was unaware? Bonnie decided that that was unimportant. Since she had no idea where she was the last time she was awake, not knowing if she was still there was no real loss. What was important was that she now had control of her limbs. Moving slowly, stiffly and painfully, she hauled her protesting body to a sitting position and looked around. There wasn't much to see.
The tiny cell was perhaps eight feet long and six feet wide. Other than her cot, the only furnishing was a sink/toilet combination on the wall opposite the door. In front of the door, highlighted by the light seeping in underneath it, Bonnie spotted a small pile of clothing. Gratefully, she slipped on the undergarments and jumpsuit before returning to her cot to sit and think.
While bruised and sore, she didn't feel injured. Instead, she felt…empty. Stirring up a bit of hope, she got up and tried the door…locked. Shrugging, she went to the sink and drank some water, but the empty feeling didn't go away.
"Bonnie Rockwaller," a harsh voice made her nearly choke on the water. "We're about to come in." She spun and noticed a small hatch had opened in the door, revealing a grate.
"If you cooperate with us, you will experience some pain," the voice announced, through the grate. "If you resist us, you'll experience a great deal more pain. The choice is yours."
Without further ado, the door swung open and two burly men entered, pushing a wheelchair.
"Sit." One of them commanded, pointing to the chair.
For a moment, Bonnie thought about fighting but quickly reconsidered. It was hopeless; even if by some miracle she could overpower the two goons in front of her, she'd be lost. She not only didn't know how to get out of the building; she had no idea where the building was located. Would she find herself in a desert or a miserable swamp? Scowling at the two men, she flopped gracelessly into the chair. Showing no emotion, the two men shackled her wrists and ankles to the device before placing a hood over her head. She didn't know where they wheeled her to, only that it took them several minutes to get there.
"Sit still," one of the men demanded, before they released her restraints. "Stand."
At least they had the consideration to guide her to her feet. They then directed her to turn and sit once again. The seat she found herself sitting upon also had restraints, which they used to secure her limbs, once again. When one of them yanked off the hood, she could see that she was back in a laboratory.
After a moment, Bonnie decided that this was a different room than she had been in earlier. It was larger than the previous room and a wide mirror dominated one wall. The seat, which one of the men leaned back to turn into a table, was actually comfortable. The room also had better lighting, which allowed Bonnie to study her surroundings as the men pushed the wheelchair outside. Trudy came inside, closing the door behind her.
While the blonde girl glared at her captive, she didn't say anything. Bonnie decided to hold her tongue until Trudy broke the silence. Rather than doing so right away, she produced a small syringe and drew a sample of Bonnie's blood. The blood sample went into one of several machines along one wall. Trudy hummed softly to herself as the machine made quiet whirring noises. After a few minutes, it made a loud ping. Trudy looked at a display on the machine, then smiled and punched a button on an intercom station.
"We're ready," she declared to her unseen audience. "Get the receivers in here and set up."
"I wasn't about to start gloating until I was sure my plan was ready to execute," she told the restrained brunette. "But now that all my pieces are in place, I realize that my father was right; it feels good to prove my genius to a captive audience."
Trudy pulled a stool up so that she could sit in Bonnie's field of vision and continued. "You see Bonnie, while I am a physics genius, I have also dedicated a great deal of time studying history. I didn't study the subjects the typical historian studied. No I studied the techniques, motivations and successes of the greatest criminals in the past. Do you know what I discovered?"
"No," Bonnie answered, hoping that Trudy would keep talking and delay doing anything.
"I discovered that the truly great criminals realized subtle, yet important truths," Trudy explained, as several men entered the room and began to set up odd equipment around Bonnie's seat. "The first was that you don't need to worry about what's important to you, you should worry about what's important to others. Once you manage to control something, whether it's important to you or not, you can get what you want from somebody else. Sure, this sounds like trade but when combined with the second truth, it becomes most profound."
"The second truth is that violently seizing whatever you want should be saved as the last resort," she continued. "If you are truly smart, rather than simply strong, you can make your victim give you what you want. Now, I don't know if a bubble-headed cheerleader paid attention to European History but picture a couple of examples: The ancient Romans actually paid off the Celts to prevent their city from being sacked. The Mongols forced the Russians to pay tribute, as well."
Trudy stood up, making room for the men setting up the equipment, and continued her monologue, "think of that, Bonnie! The Celts didn't care one whit about the Romans' buildings but they understood that the Romans would pay gold and grain to keep them. Once the Celts demonstrated that they could destroy Rome and the Romans realized that it would be easier to pay off the aggressor than rebuild the city, the tribute became logical for both sides. The Romans had something akin to peace and the Celts had a regular income, rather than having to pay a price in blood to extract a single payoff."
"Now, as our civilization has progressed, some things have become more valuable than gold; even more valuable than any material possessions. Guess what one of these immaterial things is, Bonnie."
"Patents?" Bonnie guessed, looking nervously at the metallic objects the henchmen were assembling around her. They looked vaguely like satellite dishes and they were all pointed at her.
"Surprisingly close! Patents are actually applied knowledge and knowledge is no good unless you can exchange it. Tell me Bonnie, what is the transfer of knowledge between people?"
"C-communication?"
"Excellent! Yes, communication has become one of the most valuable commodities in the world! It is so incredibly valuable that our civilization spends millions of dollars in effort to improve and safeguard it! That was my first scheme, to develop a way of eavesdropping upon communications and using the knowledge for my own purpose. However, I realized that it had been done so many times before that the very organizations I wished to victimize were very good at preventing it. Did I despair?"
Bonnie never figured Trudy for the drama type, but the blonde physicist stared at the floor for several seconds, letting the tension build, before snapping her head up again.
"No!" Trudy exulted. "I reviewed my history and realized that I was making things too complicated. Picture the Celts outside of Rome, did they understand how to build Roman buildings and aqueducts? No, they simply knew that the Romans would pay to keep them. That's when I realized that I didn't have to decipher the communications; I only needed to destroy the communications! Of course, that brought up a new set of problems."
"I quickly discarded the idea of disrupting landline based communication," Trudy explained, while Bonnie noticed that the men had finished their jobs and were exiting the room."
"To do so, I would have to destroy or seize a number of wires, fiber-optic cables or switching stations. Then I thought of communications satellites, which carry so much intercontinental communications data. However, I realized that the world's combined corporations and governments could easily replace satellites as fast as I could destroy them. That's when I had another stroke of genius, I realized that I was distracted by the communication infrastructure, rather than concentrating upon the communication itself."
Trudy's face took on a gloating expression. Clearly, she was getting close to her conclusion. "We are now in the twenty-first century, Bonnie Rockwaller, vast amounts of data are carried via wireless means and electromagnetic fields are my specialty. Imagine it, being able to cut off all wireless communication! Your cell phone won't work, your wireless network will not function, GPS fails and airliners' homing beacons suddenly go off line. Imagine the potential for extortion!"
Trudy spun around, facing away from the captive brunette and raising her hands as if lecturing a vast crowd.
"How much would you pay to make sure your loved ones' medical records can be transferred to where they are needed? How much would you pay to make sure that the airliner your loved ones' are riding upon could land safely? How much would you pay to transfer financial and legal records, when needed? Now, imagine millions of people faced with questions just like this and you'll begin to comprehend the grandeur of my concept!"
"Of course, for someone with my genius, developing a method to disrupt wireless communications on a global scale is child's play. However, one hurdle remained; I needed more power than the local power grid could deliver. Of course, even if I used the grid I ran the risk that my scheme would disrupt the very energy source I was utilizing…a self-defeating scheme."
Trudy now spun around, waggling her index finger at her captive as if correcting her. " No, I recognized the need to produce power of the sort that your small mind simply can't comprehend. However, simple physics came to my rescue. Any matter can be converted to vast quantities of energy. Of course, scientists and industrialists have spent years trying to find convenient, efficient methods to do so. However, those very intelligent men and women were constrained by certain humanitarian ethics that have never constrained me."
"That was why my father and I abducted Camille Senior," Trudy continued, now in a rant mode that would have made her father proud. "We realized what everyone else did not; that she was capable of changing her body's mass! Nobody else seemed to question what happened to that mass, so we investigated the phenomena."
Trudy's hand and expression dropped in remembered frustration. "Unfortunately, her mass modifications were random. We brought in Dr. Bofox to help us fully understand the process and while we never figured out exactly where her excess mass came from or went to, we determined that the mass was converting to energy before crossing a dimensional barrier. Unfortunately for me, such energy is only available for nanoseconds, which is clearly not stable enough to provide a usable power source. Once I realized this, I expelled the quack and reviewed some of my father's rival's work in the field."
"The missing Doctor Drakken once developed a way to send a limited amount of mass across a dimensional barrier. He attempted to use it to rid himself of Kim Possible. However, his process requires a spark of energy in order to begin the transfer. Do you realize what that spark happens to be?"
"N-n-no," Bonnie stammered certain that she didn't want to know and also certain that Trudy was going to tell her.
"Blushing," Trudy chuckled. "Simple, embarrassed blushing causes the matter transfer to start, much like a simple match can ignite an inferno. Unfortunately for Drakken, Kim somehow avoided embarrassing herself into oblivion. Each embarrassing episode removed a little of her mass to a border zone. As long as she had a little mass in this dimension, she could pull back completely, with no catastrophic effects. Had she slipped completely away, she would have been unrecoverable. However, I've improved upon Drakken's process."
"Once we embarrass you," Trudy informed her captive, as she spun and strode towards the door. "The machinery around you will stabilize this conversion. Your body will be slowly converted to energy and consumed by my transmitters." Trudy closed the hatch behind her and continued to speak via an intercom speaker. "Even miniscule amounts of your matter will produce vast amounts of energy. Who knows? If the world's businesses and governments accede to my demands in time, I will shut down the machinery and halt the process. You might even be able to recover…eventually. Of course, the international community has never been an organization to move quickly. Now, let's have a little blush and get started."
"I think you've missed something," Bonnie gloated right back. "I don't embarrass easily. Give it your best shot!"
"Very well," Trudy's voice answered. "You might want to look up. You'll see several cameras focused upon you. With the touch of a button, your image will be broadcast throughout the internet. Imagine, millions of people staring at you, right now."
"Hello, I'm a model," Bonnie countered. "I like people staring at me."
"Ah, but what if we were to strip you bare? How would you react."
"You can try, but I know I have a hot body. Do you think I'll get embarrassed when millions of young women start to wish they were me, and millions of young men start to want me? Please."
"Very clever, how about your…shall we say…social indiscretions of the past? I can broadcast them over the internet and expose you!"
"Not embarrassing me, I've already admitted to it to a scandal reporter. Let's face it Trudy, I've come to grips with the fact that I'm flawed. No amount of exposing that is going to bother me a bit."
"Ah, you force me to play my trump card! When you awoke, you were so eager to cover your nudity that you didn't even think about the clothing you put on!"
"What do you mean?" Bonnie demanded, looking down at herself and developing a very uneasy feeling.
"Just this, Bonnie Rockwaller! Right now, my cameras are recording the fact that you are wearing Smartymart polyester!"
Bonnie's jaw dropped to her chest as she realized the horrid truth. Humiliation overcame her and the shamed blood rushed to her face while she emitted a howl of fruitless denial. A few moments later, when the pain started, she screamed again.
"What happened?" Ron demanded.
"I don't know," Kim answered. "Wade was about to tell us where to go when his transmission cut off."
"Is the Kimmunicator damaged?"
"I don't think so. I can still call up the floor plans that he sent me and the receiver is still picking up a signal. It's like he just stopped transmitting."
"Hello to the entire planet," Trudy's voice suddenly announced over the Kimmunicator, causing Kim and Ron to jump. "As the more studious of you have probably determined, your wireless communications have just failed. For the proper price, I will graciously restore your communication systems. Should I receive a sum of two hundred million Euros in account number…"
"Can she do that?" Ron asked, as Trudy told the world how to pay her off. "I mean, how much of the world's communications has she blocked?"
"I'm guessing she's as good as her word," Kim replied. "That must be why we can't talk to Wade."
"In thirty minutes, I will allow communications to resume for ten minutes," Trudy continued. "If I have not received my payment by the end of that ten minutes, I will block communications for another hour. Since there are at least fifty passenger airliners airborne right now, without sufficient fuel to stay aloft for the next hour and depending on instructions from various control towers, I suggest you make the payment during this grace period. Until then, I'll leave you with some entertaining music."
Kim and Ron stared at each other, slack-jawed, as polka music poured out of the Kimmunicator's speaker.
"What's our status?" Trudy demanded to her laboratory assistant, once she activated her pre-recorded music.
"The power source appears to be stable," he reported. "Although the subject appears to be in…considerable discomfort."
"Never mind her! How does the power transmission and matter draw compare to our theoretical models?"
We are expending roughly eighty gigawatts of energy, which is fifteen percent above what we predicted we would need. Our mass-to-power efficiency is greater than we predicted, at point five percent."
"So, we'll be consuming roughly 640 grams of Bonnie's mass every hour," Trudy quickly calculated. "How long will she survive this?"
"My best estimate is that she can survive about forty-five minutes before the damage to her body becomes irreparable. Once that happens, she has about another six hours before she expires, off the machine or on."
"If we receive our first hour's rent, where does that leave her?"
"I'm not a doctor, but she's young and healthy…at least for the moment," the assistant reported. "I estimate that fifty hours of proper rest and diet will allow her body to recover from a half-hour on the machine."
"So for her sake, let's hope that we receive prompt payments," Trudy concluded, with a wide grin.
Suddenly an alarm sounded, wiping the smile from her face.
"This is guard post three-beta!" An excited voice reported over the intercom's emergency channel. "Hostile intruder presen… Ooof! Urk!"
"That's on this level!" Hendle snapped, punching buttons on his security console to activate the proper cameras.
"It's Bill!" Trudy gasped, seeing the image on her screen. "How did he get here?"
"It doesn't matter how he got here," the burly guard told his employer. "What's important is that he's here, right now and threatening the operation. Do you want me to take care of him?"
"Yes," Trudy smirked, thinking quickly. "But I want him alive."
Hendle shot her a confused look but turned to leave and do her bidding.
"Hendle!" She informed him. "I said alive, I didn't say unhurt. Besides, if we use Bonnie up, we'll need another fuel source."
The big man's responding smile was absolutely predatory.
"Report," Dr. Director ordered her watch commander, as she stormed into Global Justice's headquarters facility. One of the perks, and curses, of her position was a personal transport tube from her private residence. As such, she was back in the facility shortly after leaving for the evening.
"We have a worldwide emergency," the watch officer reported. "An unknown operative claims to have disrupted all wireless communications on the planet. While we cannot confirm that this is a worldwide event, we have lost all wireless communications on a local level."
"How long to get my technical team in here?"
"A half-hour," the watch officer cringed at her boss's scowl. "The communications disruption is inhibiting our network. Agent Blue is standing in the technical team's stead."
"Excellent," Betty offered her subordinate a tight nod. "Get the team in here, pronto. I don't care if you have to send messengers out to track them down personally; I need my experts! In the meantime, I'll be meeting with Agent Blue."
"Yes, Dr. Director."
Global Justice's head made her quick way to the laboratory she had set aside for Dr. Drakken's use, silently thanking whatever powers existed that she had been unable to send the brilliant, if inconsistent genius back to his Henchco headquarters. A blast of music and singing emerged from the door when she opened it.
"Roll out the barrel, we'll have a barrel of fun.
Roll out the barrel, we have the blues on the run…"
"Drew!" She snapped at the man. "Quit singing and focus on the problem! This is a worldwide crises, not a worldwide karaoke event!"
"Sorry," the mollified scientist apologized. "But I've always loved that song." He turned the volume down and faced his superior.
"What have you discovered?" Betty demanded.
"I have determined that something is overriding unshielded, wireless communications with polka music. It seems to be on a worldwide scale."
"Unshielded wireless communications? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?"
"Not exactly. Our local, underground location is shielded from this jamming source, so we can use radios and our wireless networks down here. However, all wireless communications on the surface seem to be overwhelmed. I have been unable to triangulate the source, since I cannot communicate with remote stations."
"What have you managed to find out?"
"First of all, I've started our voice recognition software working on the single, voice communication we received. Secondly, I've made some preliminary calculations about how much power this jamming is consuming. It's a vast amount."
"How vast?"
"Somewhere between thirty and one hundred gigawatts. Numerous generating stations or highly experimental fission reactors are the only way to produce this sort of power. I'm running our data bases, trying to find evidence of hardware sales, or thefts, needed to construct such reactors. So far, I've found no records. I'm also trying to get information from various power grids to see if any of them are experiencing drains that could power this jamming transmission. I only have access to North American data so I'm certain that the source isn't on this continent."
"Do you have any suggestions?"
"Whoever is doing this promised a short reprieve in about fifteen more minutes. I suggest that you influence the world's governments to pay off the initial bribe and hope we can track down whoever is causing the damage. In the meantime, I'll keep trying to determine the power source."
Betty Director nodded before rushing to her office and picking up a special phone.
When Will Du heard Bonnie's shriek, he burst out of his hiding place with no clear idea of what he was going to do. He only had a vague idea of following the screams until he located her. When he plowed into a couple of shocked guards, he didn't think but simply pounded the two men senseless. By the time he was finished with the two, Bonnie's screams had gone silent. Du hoped that the silence didn't mean what he feared it could and rushed down another corridor. Near the end, another guard punched a button on a wall and started to shout into an intercom station before Du could close upon him. By now, the former agent had gotten some control over his emotions so he smacked the man's head into the station, hopefully disabling it, before unleashing a series of knees and elbows into his midsection. The man went down and Du took a few moments to riffle through his pockets, coming up with a key-card.
Deciding that going any direction was better than standing still, he tried the card on the security doors behind the comatose guard. The card opened the door and Du dragged the unconscious man into the doorway, so the doors wouldn't lock behind him. With that, he was off again, trying to keep his original course.
A small group of guards swarmed into an intersection ahead of him and Du couldn't turn in time. The would-be rescuer plowed into the surprised men in a flurry of elbows and knees. Three men went down before they fully comprehended that they were under attack. The fourth man threw a massive haymaker, which grazed Du's chin. Will used the blow to spin around and throw a spinning kick, which sent the man sprawling down the corridor.
"Shoot him!" Another man shouted, while lashing out with a massive fist. Du ducked the punch and drove his shoulder into the man's stomach, tackling him into the last man, who was trying to line up a shot with a taser. In the confused scrum that followed, Du took a couple of hard shots but he managed to incapacitate his opponents.
"Well, well, well. It looks like Billy just doesn't give up."
Will lurched to his feet, wincing at his injuries, to see Hendle approaching. A small swarm of guards burst into the corridor behind Will, cutting off escape. One of the guards aimed a taser but Will was quicker with his watch, dropping the man to the floor.
"Stand down!" Hendle ordered his fellow guards. "You've earned something, agent. You've earned the honor of having me take you down personally."
The remainder of the guards backed off while Hendle stalked towards the battered rescuer.
"I gotta give you credit," he rumbled. "I thought you'd just stay safe and sound down south. Well boy, you're about to learn that there's a price to pay for being the hero."
The big man punctuated this statement by lashing out with a fist, which Du barely managed to both deflect and dodge. Feeling a sharp pain in his side, Will dove towards his opponent. Hendle dodged him, proving surprisingly agile for his size. Du tucked, rolled, then sprang to his feet to face Hendle again. He hadn't actually intended his attack to strike home; he had maneuvered himself around his adversary, putting all of Dementor's henchmen on one side of him. Now that he didn't have to worry about getting jumped from behind, he took stock of his situation. It wasn't good.
His side told him that he had a serious rib injury and the flesh around his right eye was swelling. While he would have normally welcomed a sparring session with Hendle, he was injured, exhausted and in serious trouble. Even if he managed to overcome the burly bodyguard, the remainder of the guards would overwhelm him, leaving Bonnie still in Trudy's clutches. Try as he might, Du couldn't think of a way to overcome the situation and rescue Bonnie…
Until he spotted Kim and Ron behind the swarm of guards.
"Okay, what do we do now?" Ron asked, as Kim quickly turned down the volume on her Kimmunicator. "We've just lost our technical support."
"I know that!" Kim snapped back, her concern over Bonnie making her irritable. "Not only are we cut off from Wade, Will probably has the whole lair swarming onto him by now."
"Swarming on to him," Ron pointed out, with a snap of his fingers. "As in maybe abandoning everything else to stop the rescuer?"
"Can we say distraction?" Kim smiled back. "Okay, we might have a free hand, where should we go?"
"Here!" A tiny voice announced, as Rufus leapt from Ron's pocket and started to manipulate the Kimmunicator's controls. Kim couldn't understand the rest of what Rufus was saying, but Ron paid close attention to his smallest friend.
"Rufus makes a good point," Ron told Kim. "We don't know how accurate the floor plans are but the utilities probably haven't changed. The water, sewer and electricity probably still feed into the building at the same place."
"I'm not seeing how this is an advantage."
"I'm getting to that! Dementor's schemes usually involved machines that needed lots of power. If his daughter works the same way, she probably located her machine fairly close to this room, to avoid running lots of high-power wiring throughout the lair."
"There's a lot of 'probablies' and 'ifs' in that reasoning, but I don't have a better idea," Kim admitted. "But how does that help us rescue Bonnie?"
"If the same machine that's messing up the world's communications is also hurting Bonnie, she'll be close to the machine," Ron answered. "If she isn't nearby, Trudy probably will be near the machine. Once we get Trudy, we can force her to release Bonnie."
"You really thought this out, didn't you?" Kim complimented the beaming mole rat. "Which way do we go?"
"Thataway!" Rufus squeaked, scampering up Ron's shoulder and pointing to the door.
Once Team Possible left the furnace room, Rufus became their guide, pointing the directions they should take to reach the utility room. They occasionally heard the sounds of conflict, telling them that Will Du was still unknowingly providing a distraction. It soon became clear that the sub-basement level was much larger than the first floor, probably extending beneath the surrounding buildings. Yet, the naked mole rat's sense of direction proved certain, guiding his friends along the corridors until they reached yet another intersection and heard Hendle's bellow from around the corner. The teens peeked around the corner to see Du and the burly bodyguard squaring off, with a large audience of henchmen.
"No!" Kim hissed, catching Ron when he reflexively started forward to jump into the scrum.
"But Will…" Ron protested.
"Is distracting the guards," Kim interrupted him. "And freeing us up to stop Trudy and rescue Bonnie!"
"But he's hurt!"
"I bet Bonnie's hurting even more! We can either jump into the fight and help Will or save her! What do you think Will would want us to do?"
Ron offered a single, tight nod, clearly not happy with making the right decision. The two teens scampered across the hallway, unnoticed by the guards, who were engrossed with the brawl. Halfway down the next hallway, Rufus motioned to the teens' left.
"Through here," Ron translated. "The utility room's on the other side of the fight so we're going to have to circle a bit."
"Okay," Kim nodded, trying the nearest door. It proved to be unlocked and led into a locker room.
Kim led the way through the locker room to a door on the far side. She opened the door a crack and peeked outside. Seeing nobody in the corridor, she motioned for Ron to follow her out. Since the fight was still going on to their left, Kim led the way to the right along the corridor, looking for another door. Instead, she found another hallway.
"We need to take another left, as soon as we can," Ron whispered. Kim nodded her agreement, spotting a secure door ahead on the left wall. Luck was with the teens again, as the door opened just as they approached.
"Fraulein Dementor, I think you should see this."
Trudy turned away from the window, where she was watching Bonnie writhe in agony and scowled at her technician. Still, she knew better than to ignore the man so she stalked over and looked at his screen.
"Well, well, well," she murmured. "It seems that Hendle is having a little sport."
"Shall I summon additional guards from the cover factory, up above?"
"Nein," she shook her head. "Even if Billy somehow overcomes Hendle, there are plenty of armed guards all over him. Continue to maintain the global jamming and page me if I'm not back before the scheduled break."
"Where are you going?"
"Some sporting events are more enjoyable to watch in person," she informed the technician. "To the best of my knowledge, Billy was out to seduce either me or Ellie, so I want to see, hear and smell every moment of him getting his."
The technician actually favored Trudy with a cruel grin as she keyed the secure door to leave the laboratory. Trudy's smile quickly changed to a shocked gawk when she found Kim Possible in her face.
Kim reacted first to the surprise meeting, landing a right jab that staggered the blonde girl back into the room. Before Trudy could regain her balance, Kim hit her in the stomach with a front snap kick, driving her further into the lab. Kim followed her in, making room for Ron to dive in behind her and tackle a man in a lab coat, who was sitting at a workstation. A final, hard elbow to Trudy's jaw dropped the physicist to the ground. Kim and Ron looked through a window to see an immobilized Bonnie, in obvious pain.
"What are you doing to her?" Kim demanded of the physicist. She received no answer from the stunned blonde.
"You!" Ron snarled to the thin man he had subdued. "You speak English?"
"Ja…yes!"
"Good! What are you doing to Bonnie?"
The man clamped his jaw shut, clearly not intending to talk. Ron wasn't a very skilled torturer, having been on the end of too many beatings to enjoy inflicting pain or humiliation on anyone else. However, he could guess that this man had something to do with what Bonnie was going through so he swallowed his reluctance. He grabbed the man's left hand, seized his little finger and broke it.
"What are you doing to Bonnie?" He repeated, more forcefully.
"We…we are converting her body's mass to energy, using it to power our jamming," the man gasped.
"How do we stop it?" Ron demanded.
Again, the man clamped his jaw shut. Ron seized his ring finger.
"No! You can't just throw a switch! We are making use of harmonics within the conversion to stabilize the process. In order to stop the transfer, we must damp the reaction over several minutes."
"Start doing it!"
"No!"
Ron responded by breaking his ring finger. "I've got eight more to go before I start on toes," he snarled at the man.
"Ja…yes! I'll damp out the reaction!"
Ron helped the man to the workstation where he went to work, under Rufus's sharp glare. Ron didn't know if his little friend understood the technology but hopefully he would be able to spot obvious treachery.
"Talk to me," Ron growled to the man. "Explain what you're doing."
"Yes! The subject's mass is being collapsed into a vortex, releasing energy, which we are collecting. I am allowing the energy to back up around her. Since there is now more energy around her, it inhibits the reaction's rate."
"Let's pretend I don't understand that!"
"It's a sequential reaction! The matter is converting to energy and energy flows from an area with high energy to an area with low energy. By halting the energy flow I back up the energy. Since the energy has nowhere to go, it inhibits the matter from converting to energy and creating even more."
"Sort of like a clogged pipe not letting a bathtub drain?"
"Fairly close."
Ron looked to Rufus, who nodded.
"Okay, that works for me but it doesn't explain why you just can't shut down the reaction."
"We are dealing with gigawatts of energy!" Seeing Ron's uncomprehending scowl, he hastily added, "this is more energy than Western Europe's electrical grid distributes! If that sort of energy flow were to be suddenly interrupted, the feedback could be…catastrophic. I have to gradually lessen the rate until our systems can handle the resulting surge!"
"With her in agony the entire time?"
"Well…yes…losing body mass is going to be painful."
"So keep shutting down this machine!"
"Tell me," Kim interrupted. "How did you manage to start the reaction? I'm no physicist but I understand that converting mass to energy is a very complicated process. Did you use Dr. Bofox's work?"
"That quack?" The technician snorted in obvious disgust. "He doesn't know a neutron from his own elbow! Nein, we made use of a real genius's work…a man who called himself Drakken."
"You used one of Dr. Drakken's inventions?" Kim gasped, too preoccupied to notice that Trudy was beginning to stir. "Which one?"
"Some kind of concoction that reacts with embarrassment hormones," the technician shrugged. "I don't know how the chemistry worked, but it did. Apparently, Drakken didn't think of routing the resultant energy away from the subject, otherwise he would have eliminated Kim…Poss…i…ble."
The tech's last phrase was accompanied with a stunned stare at Kim.
"Yes, I was the first subject," she growled back. "And while it wasn't painful, it was far from pleasant. How long before you stop the reaction?"
"NEVER!" Trudy roared, snatching a pistol from her belt. The blonde villain quickly pointed it at Kim and fired a blast at the heroine.
Although Kim had been caught unaware, years of facing the bad guys had honed her reflexes to an almost inhuman state. She didn't bother looking to see what Trudy was up to, she simply dove, tucked and rolled the moment she heard her adversary speak and saw her move. Trudy wasn't a good marksman and hadn't even bothered to aim her weapon. The beam of yellow light that burst from the weapon missed the moving redhead, bounced off the ceiling and struck the back of the technician's chair.
Kim grabbed Trudy's weapon-hand before the villain could bring her weapon to bear once again. Trudy tried to break free but Kim was far too strong, twisting the weapon to point at the blonde as the two young women struggled. It was almost inevitable that the weapon discharged again, sending Trudy flying against a wall to slump, limp, to the floor again.
"Uh-oh."
Kim spun around, having learned that when Ron made that particular statement, trouble usually followed. She saw the technician working frantically at his console.
"I didn't know he was left handed!" Ron protested. "I broke fingers on his left hand so that he could work on the machine! When that beam hit his chair he flinched and because he was using his right hand…his off hand, he hit the wrong button!"
"What happened?" Kim knew she wouldn't want to hear the answer.
"The reaction shut down too quickly!" The technician told her. "I can't control the feedback!"
"Bonnie!" Kim and Ron gasped at the same time.
"She won't be harmed," the technician snapped. "But the machinery's going to…"
The strange machinery surrounding Bonnie suddenly burst into a shower of sparks, adding fear to her apparent pain. Moment's later, the brunette gasped in obvious relief, apparently no longer subject to the reaction's torture.
"That wasn't so bad," Ron murmured. "I mean, we've been through a lot worse…"
"That was only the first stage!" The technician protested. "If the feedback affected the capacitors and coils it could…"
"Overload imminent," a calm, automated voice sounded from the workstation. Ron had a moment to wonder why the announcement was in English before the message continued. "Critical overload in three minutes, evacuate immediately."
"Overload," the technician finished.
"Can I assume that this critical overload will be noisier than what just happened?" Kim asked.
"Much," the man replied.
"Okay, unlock that chamber," Kim ordered, gesturing towards Bonnie's prison. "We have to get out of here! Is it safe to move Trudy?"
"Yes," he nodded. "The weapon overloads the voluntary nervous system. She'll be out for a couple of hours, but that's it." He hit another button on his console and a hatch leading to Bonnie's chamber opened.
"Ron, get Bonnie," Kim ordered. "You," she pointed at the technician, "you'll carry your employer out of here."
"But my hand…"
"You don't need it to carry her…"
Ron didn't bother to listen to the rest of the argument. He ran through the open hatch and started to undo the restraints holding Bonnie to the chair.
"Ron!" She gasped, finally realizing that someone was releasing her and it was someone she knew. "What are you doing here?"
"Rescuing you," he told her. Fortunately for both of them, her restraints weren't complicated and Ron had a lot of experience releasing people. "What happened to you?"
"It would take to long to explain," she gasped, wincing with pain. "How did you find me?"
"We came with Agent Du."
"Bill! Bill's here? Where?"
"He's out in the corridor distracting…the…guards. Oh snap! We've got to get him out, as well!"
"What do you mean, is he hurt?"
"By now…probably. We have to move."
Bonnie could barely stagger so Ron scooped her into his arms and rushed back to the control room, where Kim had loaded the comatose Trudy over the technician's shoulders."
"How's Bonnie?" Kim asked.
"I'm hurting worse than the morning after one of your 'welcome back to school after the summer' workouts," the brunette interrupted. "But I can still talk, so you don't have to ask Ron."
"We've got a problem," Ron added. "We've forgotten about Will. If he's still fighting the guards…"
"He might not realize that the place is about to blow," Kim concluded. "We'll collect him on the way out."
"Wait! This place is going to blow up?" Bonnie demanded.
"It's standard procedure," Kim snapped back. "You!" She addressed the technician, "was that warning from the workstation local, or did it announce the emergency to the whole lair?"
"Local," he replied. "In case of an emergency, Trudy wanted to be able to escape without having to climb over a panicked mob, that was also trying to escape."
"Charming," Bonnie commented.
"Is there any way to sound an alarm to make everyone leave?"
"At each stairway. Trudy isn't a complete scoundrel, she just wanted a head start if she had to flee."
"Get moving! Go out the door, take a right, take the next right then head for the nearest exit. We'll be right behind you."
"But we can get out more quickly by going…"
"Not the issue," Kim interrupted. "We have someone to pick up on the way, now move!"
The technician, carrying Trudy, led the way with Kim right behind him. Ron, still carrying Bonnie, brought up the rear. It only took a few seconds to reach the clustered guards.
At first, Will felt abandoned when Kim and Ron sneaked across the hallway and left him to his fate. Then he realized that the two were going to rescue Bonnie while he provided the distraction. Long accustomed to being the star, Du swallowed his pride and assumed his new role.
"Let's see how you do one on one," he snarled at Hendle, darting forward and lashing a quick right at his opponent's jaw.
Hendle pulled his head back so the blow merely grazed his jaw and responded with a right of his own. Although Du blocked the punch, his ribs screamed in agony from the strain. Will ducked the following left and landed a glancing kick to Hendle's leading knee, throwing the big man off balance. Both fighters recovered and squared off again, with Hendle limping slightly.
This time, the bodyguard didn't wait for his opponent to make the first move but came forward with a front kick, then a left-right punch combination. Du managed to dance back from the kick and block the left but the right came in low and hit his injured ribs. Despite his pain, the rogue agent managed to spin with the punch, lift his left arm and drive the elbow into the side of Hendle's head.
Both fighters staggered back, one gasping and clutching his ribs while the other shook his head, trying to regain his balance. Although he was struggling to breathe, Du realized that he had to keep his opponent busy. He staggered forward and attempted to kick his opponent in the groin. Hendle was dazed, but not that dazed. He twisted his hips, took the shot on his butt and lashed out with a massive fist. Du staggered away from the blow and the two squared off again.
This time, Hendle took the fist move; keeping his arms up to protect himself, he bull-rushed his smaller opponent. Du immediately realized that the larger man was trying to either pin him up against a wall or tackle him, so he darted to his left and kicked Hendle's lead leg, causing the big man to smash into the wall. Unfortunately for him, Hendle quickly bounced back, spitting out pieces of dry wall, and charged again. This time, the burly bodyguard was ready for Du's dodge to the left and connected cleanly, driving the smaller fighter into the wall.
Du groaned as his ribs protested the constriction, but he gamely landed two hard elbows to Hendle's head, forcing the big man to back away. Du had to brace himself on the wall to stay upright and there was no way he was going to be able to maneuver. Hendle seemed to realize this, as well. Despite the fact that he had blood pouring out of a cut over his left eye, he came on again.
Hendle was far from foolish. He knew that his opponent was expecting him to simply shoulder-slam him into the wall so at the last moment he dropped low. Du's knee, which would have connected with Hendle's chin, flew harmlessly high as Hendle swept Du's foot out from under him. Will landed flat on his back. Before the agent could recover, Hendle sprang to his feet and drove the toe of his boot into the man's injured ribs.
Will couldn't contain the howl of agony, but he gamely drove his left hand's extended fingers into the back of Hendle's knee. This time, Hendle dropped with a grunt of pain. Du tried to regain his own feet but he felt tearing in his side whenever he moved. He had at least one broken rib and it was starting to inflict internal damage. Hendle struggled to a kneeling position, swept Du's defending hand away with one meaty paw and drove his other fist into the downed agent's injured ribcage. This time, Du couldn't even manage to scream in agony as everything went dark.
"You're pretty good," Hendle grudgingly admitted, heaving himself to his feet. "If you hadn't tried to mess with my employer, I might have even tried to get you to change sides. Instead, I'm gonna give you one last lesson before we haul you off."
The big man drew his foot back to deliver a final kick to Du's head but was distracted by a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to confront a very angry-looking Kim Possible. A moment later, a slender knee crashed into his groin and an elbow blasted his temple. He saw a momentary burst of bright light, followed by darkness.
Kim stared at the assembled guards, who stared back, not knowing exactly what to do. Ron gently set Bonnie on the ground before stepping forward to back up his fiancé. Like a herd without a leader, the henchmen simply stared at the two.
"This place is about to explode," Kim told them. "We've got to get out of here."
"I don't think so," one of the guards snarled back. "We all run and you get away, is that your game? Let's get 'em!"
This remark jolted the remainder of the guards into action. They surged forward, intent upon overwhelming the duo. Kim and Ron rushed forward to meet their opponents. Ron took the lead, crouching low and driving his shoulder into the first man's belly. The picture-perfect football tackle sent both Ron and his victim tumbling on top of the next guard, where the three thrashed and fought in a blizzard of flailing arms and legs.
More guards rushed towards the scrum, not daring to fire tazers or other devices into the confused melee. The first to reach the brawl caught Kim's foot on his jaw, dropping him like a cut tree. The redhead greeted the next guard with a fist to his solar plexus, followed by an elbow to the side of his head. This man fell on top of her first victim as Kim dodged a couple of yellow beams, which looked similar to the one Trudy's weapon had fired.
Another man tried to jump over the low barrier formed by Kim's first two opponents, only to have the redhead seize his foot, spin completely around and hurl the man into the remainder of the oncoming guards. While the men were struggling to their feet and one of Ron's opponents was making a high, quavering squeal (Kim didn't want to know the cause) the light fixtures all exploded in a shower of sparks. The hallway was pitch black for only a moment before emergency lights came on, illuminating the battlefield with dim light.
"Bill!" Bonnie gasped, weakly. A stream of sparks from an overloaded light fixture cascaded down upon the immobile agent. Despite her agony, the brunette managed to crawl to her companion, cover his body with her own and smother his smoldering clothing.
"Wait a minute," one of Ron's opponents gasped, barely getting the words past the blonde's chokehold. "Do you mean this place really is going to blow up?"
"Doy!" Kim snapped at the man. "Hasn't it ever happened to you before?"
"Not at this lair," he replied. He spoke much easier now that Ron relaxed his hold. "Since we can either fight and get caught in the explosion or run for it, I suggest we quit fighting and run."
"Sounds good to me," Ron answered, releasing the man.
"Not so fast!" Kim snapped at the guards, who were preparing to flee. "Grab your fellow guards! You two, grab Hendle! Where's the technician?"
"Right here," the thin man replied.
"Good, get Trudy out of here! Where's Will?"
"Here," Bonnie moaned. "He's still breathing, but he's hurt!"
"I know," Kim told her. "I've got you. Ron, carry Will."
"Got it." The blonde was sporting a black eye but didn't appear to have any other injuries as he hoisted Du across his shoulders. Even unconscious, Du moaned as the motion jostled his injured ribs.
"Okay, we're all getting out of here!" Kim declared, once all of the immobiles were loaded up. Dementor's henchmen led the way to a stairway. Muffled explosions started to sound shortly after they closed he heavy doors behind them and started up the stairs.
"How much time to we have before the really big explosion?" Kim asked the technician.
"What makes you think there's going to be a big one?"
"There's always a big one."
"I'm not sure," he admitted. "We've never experienced a feedback with this much wattage. We should be safe; the Dementors have been through lair explosions before, so they reinforced the walls around this stairway."
"What about anyone in the factory above us?"
"There should only be a few up there at this time of night and the explosions' rattling should scare them off, but we'll activate the fire alarm system when we reach the ground floor, just to make sure."
The technician proved to be knowledgeable. Although the band fleeing the basement laboratory heard additional, stronger explosions, the stairwell remained both safe and stationary. Despite the fact that they were lugging numerous injured and/or unconscious people, they made good progress up the three levels of stairs to the surface. Once out of the protected stairwell, the damaged building told them just how severe the explosions were. Fortunately, the stairwell's exit was close to a building exit, so they didn't have to dodge falling debris. The technician pulled a fire alarm pull station and led the way outside.
"Keep going!" He yelled, startling the people who had trotted a short distance away from the building before setting down comrades. "We're still over the sub-basement. If it caves in, we'll be caught in the collapse!"
The ground beneath them trembled, giving his statement legitimacy. Everyone followed the man across the parking lot and two blocks down a street.
"We should be safe here," he declared, as he eased Trudy to the ground. "We're about fifty meters beyond the sub-basement."
"Just what are the odds of the sub-basement collapsing?" Kim complained, setting Bonnie next to where Ron was placing Du. While Kim was a remarkably fit young woman, Bonnie had an athletic, rather than an emaciated, build. Carrying someone who outweighed her that far, that fast was very strenuous.
The parking lot and factory trembled before the man could answer. The remaining guards stared at the spectacle even as they set their own comrades down. After several minutes of trembling, the factory started to collapse and the entire parking lot dropped roughly twenty feet into the earth.
"I'd say pretty good," the technician answered, belatedly. "Although the entire complex didn't cave in, it's a good thing we didn't dally." Kim could only nod in agreement.
"That was a pretty sweet job," one of the guards grumbled. "It would have made us all rich before you two jumped in."
"Hey!" Rufus protested, popping his head out of Ron's pocket.
"Do you really think you could have shook down the whole world for very long?" Kim countered, getting ready for another confrontation. The remaining guards seemed to be in 'revenge' mode. Ron took a position at her side.
"Long enough to grab some cash and hide," the guard told her, as most of his companions gathered near him. "Now it's all gone but maybe, if we can bring in Kim Possible, someone else will hire us."
Before another melee could break out, piercing sirens shattered the pre-dawn silence. Police cars and fire trucks swarmed the area, discouraging any further violence. Kim and Ron suddenly found themselves staring at the drawn pistols of several nervous-looking policemen.
A/N:
Yet another chapter down and yet another reason for me to thank everyone for their continued support and interest in this tale. I must also express my gratitude to everyone for not getting after me for my slow posting rate. Thanks again everyone.
As always, my fondest thanks go to Joe Stoppinghem for his conintinued beta work.
Until my next posting, best wishes;
daccu65