KP – The Light at the End: Part 37
"Hey, Stoppable, long time no see."
Ron looked up, noticing for the first time that the perpetual assistant manager of the older Bueno Nacho in Middleton was actually working the counter. In all the years the skinny twenty-something had been working there, he couldn't remember actually seeing the restaurant's full manager, to the point he wondered if there really was one. Well, there was Lars that time, but he didn't actually count that since Drakken's henchman had taken over under false pretenses.
"Hi, Ned. KP doesn't like me eating this stuff all that much any more."
"Man, that tanks. So, what'll it be? A Grande Diablo Platter, Mucho Caliente Cheesidillas or your usual Naco, Grande sized of course?"
Ron thought about it for a moment, scanning the menu board. In reality, he did get over there a couple times a week, but that was primarily takeout. The "Naco Man" promotions had run their course and sometimes he felt a little self-conscious about people seeing him getting his food for free. "No, just give me a Slurpster cup."
To say Ned was shocked was to say that he had a slightly nasal voice. "Somebody, call nine one-one, we've got a national emergency here."
"Oh, come on, it's not like I've never been in here that I didn't eat something."
Ned's head tilted slightly sideways, as if he was trying to figure out if it really was Ron Stoppable on the other side of the counter.
"What's wrong? You on the outs with Possible?"
That shocked him out of his reverie for a moment. The thought that anyone could think that something was wrong between them was a little strange. Sure, they did have their spats, but nothing had happened so dramatic as the ring incident several years before, and that had remained mostly private. To the world at large, they were the textbook fairytale couple. "No…well, it is about Kim. She's majorly tweaked about one of our missions, so I figured I'd come over here and sooth my soul a little. It's just, I don't feel much like eating right now. Guess I'm not as over that cold as I thought."
Ned handed him a cup that was just shy of being called a bucket, then motioned for one of his employees to take over the register.
"I thought the two of you were taking it easy with the missions."
"We are, at least until summer, I guess. I sure helps with our school work…well, my school work. There's just this one mission we started before we stopped, and she won't let it go."
The bespectacled restaurateur pulled a chair up to the end of Kim's and Ron's usual booth, sitting down backwards in it. "I thought your missions only lasted a couple days. Possible and you roll in and take out the bad guys, hopefully without wrecking the place." For emphasis he looked up at the ceiling. Bueno Nacho number 582 had seen its fair share of damage over the years, including having the whole sombrero shaped roof ripped off. "Granted, we could stand a remodel. Maybe you should talk to the guys at corporate."
Ron shook his head, leaning on one hand, stirring his Slurpster with the other. "That's part of the problem. This one's got her stumped, and it vexes her so. I dunno, Ned, sometimes I think…Ned, what if you had to stop working here because somebody you loved needed something?" He winced as the words left his mouth, not knowing if there was somebody in the slightly older man's life.
Ned just shrugged. "I'm taking courses at Lowerton Community College so I can eventually get my degree and make manager. I've still got time for that, and to do my job." Sensing Ron might be getting in too big a funk about his own school predicament, he decided to change the subject slightly.
"So what's the trouble with this mission? It doesn't involve burrito wrapping or something, does it?"
Ron shot him a glance. In six years Ned hadn't been able to let that go, even though he was the one who approved hiring Kim in the first place. "No, it doesn't involve burrito wrapping." He shot back, mimicking Ned's voice slightly. "It isn't even about her cooking…and not a word about the nacho cheese machine either." He cringed just thinking about the mess the two of them had to clean up when Kim quit, leaving the heating element on full.
"It's gotta be something. The last time I remember you sulking in here like this was right before you two got together. Ah, the days when you actually paid for your food."
"Hey, I earned every one of those free Nacos. Don't be dissin the Naco Man."
"I know, you saved the company, blah-blah-blah. Big deal. Do you know how much business I have to get in here to make up for what you spent a week?"
"Anyway, Kim woke up this morning and thought she had the case all figured out…"
Earlier that morning…
"I'm afraid you're not giving me much to go on." Wade said, furiously typing at his keyboard.
"There has to be something. Have you tried the security tapes?" Kim sat at her home computer, her back rigid in the small chair as her friend tried desperately to follow up on her sudden realization.
"Take a look for yourself." A window popped up on her screen, playing the black and white footage of the medical center's internal security cameras. "This is the best shot I got, and it looks to me like she must have know exactly where all the cameras were." It was true. Every time the woman was in the comparatively narrow field of vision of the security system, she subtly turned her head or kept the visor of her cap in the way, preventing her face from showing on the recordings.
There weren't all that many shots of the waiting area. If it had been the corridors, or one of the desks, there might have been a better shot, but none existed. He freezed what was perhaps the best shot. Kim was clearly visible there, talking to a woman wearing a baseball cap. The visor partially obscured her face, making it impossible to run much of his facial recognition software. Not that Wade didn't try with what they had. He simply could not get a match.
"That doesn't make any sense. What about her name?" It took her a while to remember it, since her mind really was on something else that day. It actually took Ron to realize her last name was Corazon when Kim said she remembered it meant "Heart" in Spanish.
Wade just shook his head. "Got to be an alias. It's not a common name, so I've ruled out anybody who is really named Amy Corazon. What's worse is they have no record of her arriving, or of her leaving. It's almost like she's a ghost."
Kim sat back in her seat growling slightly, pulling her robe tighter around her. She had already been up for over an hour, but all that time had been spent online with her computer guru, trying to sort out what she thought she had learned. Just like Ron and CJ, she had dreamed of a woman 'healing' her of her cold, but unlike them, she had seen that face before, only, in her dream, she had been wearing the same outfit the thief had worn in the blurry photos they had.
Was it just the aftereffects of the illness causing her mind to mix details? She didn't think so. Her dreams didn't seem to come to her like that. The image in her mind was as clear as if she had actually seen the woman, making her wonder if she actually had been there and had done something to them, then made them sleep once more.
Wade was pretty much able to dispel that notion. Much like the home she had grown up in, he pretty much had their apartment wired with a rather advanced security system, to the point she wondered exactly what he could see of them and when. He assured her that the internal sensors would only come on line when he turned them on, but there was no record of anyone breaking in or leaving. He quickly reassured her that any 'private' time was still perfectly that.
"If somebody was in there, they didn't come through any of the doors, or through the windows, and before you even ask, the heating and air-conditioning vents are almost too small for Rufus to get through, so she didn't come in that way."
Kim was actually seething with anger. There she had been, worried out of her mind about Ron's father, and the thief had been brazen enough to spy on them right there in the Medical Center. It didn't take much digging on Wade's part to prove she wasn't really there to see a relative. It was a very quiet day for the center, with the only major procedure being Gene Stoppable's quadruple bypass. There was no other relative there, leaving the only conclusion that she was there simply to keep and eye on her adversary – or perhaps hoping they would eventually realize it was her and rub it in that she remained at large.
"Kim, much as I hate to admit it, we're still running up against a brick wall here."
"I know. It just seems like it should count for something that I've actually seen her face."
"If it even was her face. If she's sophisticated enough to pull off these robberies, there's no telling what else she has in her bag of tricks. You weren't paying attention to her when you met, so if she…"
"She wasn't wearing a mask. Maybe a wig, I don't know. Her hair seemed awfully long, so that might be a possibility. I just wish we had a picture."
Wade shrugged. "Maybe we do. Have you got Ron's immersion helmet around?"
Kim's nose crinkled up. Ron had talked her into playing one of his video games, but she felt like she was swimming through mud the whole time she had it on since the game character was limited to the moves the original programmers had included. She was way beyond the character in terms of skill, so it was just an exercise in frustration for her. Add to that the fact she really didn't like playing video games all that much, except when it meant spending time having fun with Ron. Unfortunately, they only had the one helmet, and since they looked like the game characters, she found it just slightly creepy when they deviated from the script. Wade was working on a more natural interactive environment for them to play in, but he had other things on his mind, such as reinforcing the pressurized cabin on the Blue Fox Flyer so it could fly at much greater altitudes.
"Just bear with me, Kim. I've got some facial recognition software, and I might be able to interface it with the helmet. It would be just like you were sitting there with her."
"O…kay." She didn't have to look far, since Ron pretty much had to use it with their more powerful desk top computer anyway. Kim really didn't want to admit it to Wade, but she was a little frightened of the technology. She saw what the original had done to a lab rat, and though that glitch had been identified and corrected, she still didn't completely trust it.
"Wade, can you give me a moment, I feel a little funny doing this in my robe."
"Don't worry about it, Kim, just slip it on."
Biting her lower lip, she plugged it into a USB port and put the half-circle headpiece on. There was a moment of disorientation and double-vision, but in seconds she was in the cyber-world.
Once again, she had to wonder exactly how much detail Wade had on their life in the apartment. The simulation was perfect, right down to the half drunk cup of black coffee sitting on its coaster. In fact, the only detail that was different was the fact she was no longer wearing the fuzzy robe, but her standard mission gear. Somehow the helmet fooled her five senses to the point she actually felt like she had them on.
"Wade, we're going to have a little face-to-face chat about what you've got recorded. I'd say this is ferociously cool, but it's also a bit creepy, too."
He smiled at her. "Actually, the only thing you're seeing that's not real so far is what you have on. The filter is still letting you see the real world around you, it just adds details. It's a great thing if you want to have a meeting and somebody else can't be there. Just like this."
Suddenly Wade was right there, sitting on his fancy leather office chair, grinning at her.
"Freaking me out here, Wade." She nervously commented.
"No problem." His simulation vanished, replaced with the blurry, monochrome image of "Amy Corazon."
"So, what do I do? Is this like a police sketch artist?" Kim brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes, not knowing if it was her own, unwashed hair, or part of the simulation. She tried putting it out of her mind that Wade apparently knew she usually wore a slightly snug sports-bra under her mission shirt. If he wasn't one of her dearest friends…
"Exactly like that. Just tell it what you saw, and the helmet will pick up on your responses and make adjustments."
"Okay. Don't care about her clothes." Even so, the image shifted and refined slightly, right down to the approximate level of fading on the woman's jeans. "Her hair is dark brown – darker than Dad's, but most def not black. Her eyes were blue…she didn't seem to have any makeup on, not that she's the type who needs any." Her teeth tightened just slightly. For years she had been covering up her very-faint freckles, which had darkened slightly a few years earlier after a couple sunburns.
"Her skin is a bit lighter. Not so much peach, more pinkish. No, whiter. That's it."
"You sure it wasn't the bad fluorescent lighting?" Wade prompted.
"No, she was really pale. Not sick looking, just very light, like a porcelain doll. She also had one lock of hair hanging over her nose, kinda like Shego's, but longer."
Wade was watching the image take shape on his own monitor. "If you ask me, she's starting to look a lot like Shego."
"We've been down this road before, Wade. She's definitely not Shego. Sherry's taller, but at least several inches. This woman was slightly shorter than me, and built a bit the same too, if I could tell anything from that sweatshirt she had on."
"That fits with the other shots we have of her. So, she looks a little like Shego, but more petite. I can see why we thought it was her to begin with…if that's her real face."
Kim nodded. "Like I said before, I think it is." She made a few more comments on the composite, finally giving Wade a thumbs up. "That's her, or at least as best I can remember."
"Hang on just a second." He touched a control, causing her clothing to morph into the skin-tight suit she was wearing in the older video.
"That looks about right, though in the dream it was brighter purple."
Wade furrowed his brow slightly. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that looks like one of Mego's outfits, that is, if Bonnie Rockwaller got a hold of it and a pair of scissors."
The thought of Bonnie in one of those purple body suits made Kim giggle slightly. "As if she would ever wear that. You know, that outfit does look a lot like a super suit, though I'd never be caught out showing cleavage like that. If that suit wasn't as tight as it was, all she'd have to do is lean over and she'd give everyone a show."
"I'm sure she'd appreciate the fashion critique. Okay, I'm going to run the facial recognition software again, but in the mean time, I'm going to get ready for work. Your Dad has me computing the launch vectors for a deep space probe today."
She giggled once more. "Like you can't do that in your sleep. What's that, five minute work?"
"It's a bit more complicated than that. We're using some of our 'borrowed' technology to actually send a probe to a real black hole."
That caused a bit of a smile. "Don't tell Ron that, or he'll think Daddy will want to send him just for old time's sake, especially after what we did last night."
"Uh, on that note, I think I'll hit the shower before we drift too far into TMI territory."
"Thanks Wade…you know what you do."
"Later, Kim." The screen winked off, just as the helmet powered down. She was once again sitting in her bath robe and fuzzy slippers. Wade certainly was funny. One moment it seemed like he must have recordings of every intimate moment that had ever occurred between her and Ron, then the next he would get embarrassed about know that they had gotten romantic over night. Maybe she was reading too much into all the data his sensors could pick up. His reactions were just too real, to the point that if he actually did watch them…like that.
A slight sound coming from the kitchen caught her attention. It was somewhat brighter than she expected, so she checked the chronometer on her K-braclet.
She'd been up way more than an hour. It was almost lunch time.
The sounds were pretty easy to identify once she got close enough to see over the counter. CJ was up, though she was till in her pajamas. She had a bag of Bueno Nacho Chips-on-the-go open and was positioning the triangular bits of cornmeal on the end of a fork. Once set up, she smashed her tiny fist down on the tines, sending the tortilla sailing up into the air. It wasn't making that much of a mess, as a pink shape would sail through the air, catching the chips in his mouth long before they could hit the floor.
"Looks like somebody is really feeling better."
"Uh huh. Watch this." She stacked three of the chips on the fork, sending them flying. Rufus took long enough to twitch his tiny eyebrows before scurrying under the flying snack food, catching the last bit with a flourish."
"Maybe I should be glad he's eating that and not you. How's your boo-boo?"
CJ held up her elbow with pride. She'd slipped on a small patch of ice the day before, scraping it, and, in normal three-year-old fashion, she cried her eyes out, especially when Kim tried cleaning it, only to recover minutes later to start running about once more in what she would describe as a 'spirited' fashion.
"S'all better. It don even hurt no more."
Kim sat down in the chair beside her, examining the wound, or, more precisely, the smooth, unblemished skin on the child's arm.
That confused her. Sure, kids her age could display amazing recuperative abilities sometimes, but it had barely had time to scab over. Even so, there should have been some light scarring, perhaps some pinkness in the spot. Instead, it was like she had never even gotten scraped. She even went so far as to check the other elbow, just in case she had somehow forgotten which one was injured.
"Did you take the Band-Aid off, Catherine?"
The little girl looked at her strangely. "No, you said nevah to take em off myself, though it hurts when you do it." She scowled slightly, remembering the last one Kim had tried removing from the rambunctious toddler.
Turning away from the child, Kim opened the lower part of her robe, looking carefully at the place she had nicked her knee shaving two days earlier. Just like with CJ, the wound was completely gone.
"Have you seen your brother?" She asked, craning her neck to see as much of their apartment as she could from her vantage point.
"He said he was going to Bono Naco." She replied, with her usual mangling of the name.
Kim sat back in her seat, wishing for a fresh cup of coffee. Ron had cut himself shaving as well, something he actually did quite often, though she suspected he was trying to lobby for a beard by doing so.
She had touched his face quite a lot early that morning. It wasn't until then that she realized the tiny cut on his chin wasn't there any more.
That line of thought was cut short as CJ hopped off her chair, running after Rufus. Yes, the child was feeling much better.
Good enough she could take a bath.
I'm so not ready for a child of my own, Kim thought as she steeled herself for the battle to come.
"You sure about this, Ned? KP's the one who says she can do anything."
"Positive. If you ask me, Stoppable, I say you owe it to her."
"Yeah, but the last time things didn't exactly turn out like she planned."
Ned simply shrugged. "I've seen the two of you come out of much worse. You should just go for it. Hang on." He leaned back, shouting toward the empty counter. They were still in the lull between late breakfast and the lunch rush. "Clarice, bring us a couple of Grande sized Nacos, with plenty of Diablo sauce."
He looked back at Ron, who was almost watering at the mouth, despite his profession that he wasn't hungry.
"Okay, Ned. I'll do it. Don't know how I'll catch up later, but I'll somehow manage. I'll do anything for Kim."
The assistant manager stood up, hiking his already high pants. "That's the Stoppable I know." He took the oozing tex-mex creations and handed one to Ron."
"To Team Possible."
"Hear-hear." Ron held his Naco up in a mock-toast, before downing more than half of it in one gulp.
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