"I want a girl who gets up early

I want a girl who stays up late

I want a girl with uninterrupted prosperity

Who uses a machete to cut through red tape

With fingernails that shine like justice

And a voice that is dark like tinted glass

She is fast, thorough, and sharp as a tack

She's touring the facilities and picking up slack

I want a girl with a short skirt and a long, long jacket"

The rumble drew Kim's attention, but the gravel cloud approaching up the driveway held it.

"They're here." She said, pulling away from the curtained window. Ripping down the curtain rod, she stripping the curtain and held the antique pole like a jousting rod.

"Lock the front and get out the back." She ordered Ron as she ran past him, pole flashing.

"What about Lurman?"

"Forget him, they'll be after us." She ran upstairs and Ron rushed first to the front, and then out the back.

On the top floor, Kim burst into an angle roofed bedroom, shattering the window with her rod and climbing out onto the roof. Two black Suburbans skidded to an angle, doors opening while still braking. Out poured a group of well-built androgynous people in dark full body suits and gas masks holding thin, sleek rifles. As they assembled in formation and aimed, Kim counted eight total and flipped over the peak of the roof right as a barrage of plasma flung shingles. The rifles sounded like battery operated toys, but the light splatter of asphalt on her scalp and neck made her scream and paw at herself. Catching her breath and sliding down the slope to the eaves, she saw Ron running out through the expanse behind the house, realizing a distraction would simply strand them in the field. This threat must be dealt with directly.

Hanging and falling, Kim hit the ground, meeting a suit at the corner and dispatching them with a kick and a curtain rod hooked in her elbow. Peeking around the corner drew fire, spraying liquid siding as she returned to cover. The joist cracked and the corner of the house buckled. Dropping the bent rod and grabbing the unconscious suit's rifle, she read the data stamp: Amerilli Tachyon.

"All roads lead to Rome," She mused. Another suit rounded the corner, meeting Kim swinging the rifle into their head. Escaping their predictable pincer movement, Kim rushed through the back door as a gang of suits broke down the front. Hurling her rifle at them, Kim leapt aside as plasma slathered the back wall. Glass drooled out of the pane and wallpaper ignited.

Crawling into the kitchen, Kim passed without noticing the moaning, injured Lurman, and found the knife block, clearing it of knives. Moving to the other entrance and leaning out the corner, she hurled a selection at an advancing squad. As they connected gruesomely, Kim rushed by them, ganking a rifle from one she missed and sending a series of shots towards the backdoor where more suits entered. One screamed when their arm blew clean off. The others hurled themselves to the ground, returning fire as Kim retreated out the open front door. The house shifted very quickly and never recovered, toppling towards the back like it was sinking into the arid shrubland around it.

"How's it feel?" She called into the plume of dust, not waiting for a response but dashing to a parked Suburban, still idling. Throwing the rifle in and jamming it into gear, she peeled out past the house and into the field as plasma weakly splattered its rear. Paint and metal smoldered and the glass lolled out of its frame until the left barn door peeled right off its hinges.

Far in the field, with the house barely in the mirror, Kim spotted Ron still running, bringing the bucking SUV to halt beside him and reaching over to open the passenger door.

"I don't normally pick up hitchhikers, but you look like you need a lift."

Ron fell into the seat with heaving breath.

"They're behind us." He said, truncated and wheezy.

Kim confirmed in her mirror, the second SUV on the horizon of the field, and spun off. Bounding into the more recently harrowed rows, triticale chaffs slapped the undercarriage. She pulled up her watch.

"Wade, we need some directions off this property."

"Adjust left, go through a fence and you'll hit the highway," Said Wade, shortly, "But Kim, I have an emergency,"

"A little busy, but I have time," She said, turning to Ron and pointing to the back, "Grab that rifle and fend them off."

"Me?" He said, retrieving and examining the unlabeled, slab-like rifle, "I don't know how to use this thing."

"Aim and shoot. Easy peasy. Remember what I said about improvising," She said, and he sent her a scathing look as he climbed between the seats, losing footing when the vehicle hit a plowed ridge, "Wade, what's the sitch?"

"It's a break-in at a high-security storage facility."

"Not really top-priority."

"Dimitris saw a heavy-lift helicopter hovering. No alarms triggered, but suspicious activity on the premises."

"So it's a helicopter above a aerospace compound?" Kim said, hitting the post and barbwire fence and bounding across the ditch to climb onto the highway, "How does that equal break-in?"

"Just look." Wade said, projecting a security feed through Kim's watch onto the ceiling of the SUV. Even Ron, glancing up from figuring out the rifle, could recognize the intruders.

"Is that Shego and Drakken?"

"Wade, how many times do I have to say: tell me the important information first." Kim said, eying their pursuers as they too hit pavement, closing in slowly but surely, "How far is this compound?"

"Just having some fun." He said, grinning and closing the feed, "Second left and then a five mile service road. I know it's not the school case, but you couldn't be closer."

"We're on it." Kim said, brushing her watch against her face and blanking the screen, "Ron, either shoot that rifle or get up here and drive, cause I sure can't do both."

"Hold on, just about figured it out," He said, brandishing it and crouching to open the undamaged back barn door.

"Eat plas-"

The door recoiled on his arm and the rifle clattered onto the pavement, laying inert as they kept driving. Ron shut the door and clutched his arm, catching Kim's eye in the rear view mirror.

"Ron, that was our only weapon."

"It's... not so bad."

"Not so bad? Now I have to lose them, without leading -"

Behind them, a chain of hemispheric explosion brightened the cab and lifted the back end of their SUV, until it dropped with a bouncing squelch. All the glass behind the rear doors shattered and both occupants screamed in surprise amidst the din. Kim slammed the brakes to a halt, hair storming around her vision from behind. Both stared back as detritus rained down from where the pursuers used to be in the quiet aftermath. A crater claimed that section of the highway and fire lapped at hay in the surrounding fields. Fence posts became burning stumps and eventually absent the closer they stood to the epicenter. Ron turned from the destruction to meet Kim's face, his body singed and his smug expression mouthing words. Once the tinnitus dimmed, Kim finally understood what he was saying.

"Right on targett."

"Oh, please," Kim said loudly, turning back around and bringing the battered Suburban up to speed again. "It was dumb luck they drove over the microfusion cell like idiots."

"Not dumb luck, Kim, dumbskills."

"Your sleeve's on fire Mr. Dumbskills," Kim mumbled, hunched over, clinging to ten and two.

"What did you say?" Ron said, bringing the offending sleeve's finger up to try clearing his ear, "Speak loud-AH."