Mission: Possible

by Gary D. Snyder

Chapter 3:

As the four were waiting for Wade to get back to Kim with his findings Cindy suddenly screamed and leapt backwards. Her shriek of terror made everyone else jump and look about cautiously for the source of her alarm, but when they found nothing they all looked at Cindy in bewilderment. "What is it?" asked Jimmy.

Cindy pointed with a trembling hand at Ron. "There's a snake in his pocket!" she said.

Ron looked puzzled and then offended. "That's not a snake. It's just my pet naked mole rat, Rufus." He reached into the pocket from which Rufus had poked his head and brought the odd creature forth. "He's totally harmless." He held Rufus out to Cindy who stared suspiciously at the small animal. Rufus returned her scrutiny with a curious inspection of his own before waving at her.

"Hi," he squeaked.

Cindy was taken aback by this. "He talks?"

"Well, not exactly," Ron answered, "but he's pretty smart. If you pay attention and listen carefully you can generally understand what he's trying to tell you. Did you want to hold him?"

"Umm…no, thanks," she said uncomfortably. "No offense," she added quickly, when Rufus folded his forlegs and sulked.

Jimmy in the meantime had been making small talk with Kim. "So, that was pretty impressive fighting," he said.

"Thanks," Kim replied.

"Ninja training?"

"No. Cheerleading practice, mostly."

Jimmy sounded impressed. "Really? You must be awfully talented."

Kim shrugged easily. "Dad's a rocket scientist, Mom's a brain surgeon…I guess I came from the deep end of the gene pool. You?"

"Well, Mom's pretty good with mechanics and physics, and Dad's…" Jimmy paused to think about it. "…married to Mom," he finished lamely.

At that moment four musical tones sounded from the Kim-municator at Kim's waist. She activated it. "What up, Wade?"

"I did some digging, and you're not going to believe some of the stuff I found," Wade told her. "First off, this Neutron kid is smart."

"Really? How smart?" Kim asked. "Are we talking the Tweebs smart, Mom and Dad smart…"

"You remember Justine?"

"Justine? You mean Justine Flanner?" This actually stunned Kim. "You mean this kid might be in Justine's smarts league?"

"I mean," Wade said, "that Justine might be in this kid's league."

Kim found that hard to accept. "Hold on, now, Wade. Justine built a transdimensional vortex inducer for a science project that actually made a tear in the space-time continuum."

"And this kid built something called a Goddard that has a nuclear reactor the size of a softball," Wade countered.

"Baseball, actually," interjected Jimmy, who had been listening. "I made some improvements."

Kim stared at Jimmy for a second before turning back to Wade. "A nuclear reactor? Are we talking fission or fusion?"

"Hard to say, really. It looks like it's optimized for aluminum."

Kim was sure that Wade had finally lost his mind. "Wade, you can't run a nuclear reactor on aluminum. Even Ron knows that."

"Hey!" objected Ron, who wasn't sure if he'd been complimented or insulted.

"It goes against the laws of physics," Kim continued, ignoring Ron's outburst.

Wade shrugged his shoulders. "Tell me about it. But that's what it does. It's like this kid actually makes up his own rules. It would take me a while to even start understanding how it all works."

"Okay," Kim said, deciding to accept Wade's word on the subject. "What else?"

Wade sounded embarrassed. "Well, that's all I could get before his system detected my hack and shut me down."

Good old Vox, thought Jimmy proudly.

"Then let's just agree that he's a genius. Did you find out anything from the security agencies?"

Wade looked happier about that question. "Quite a bit actually. Jimmy's name shows up in the system of virtually every government agency you can think of. It seems that he caused some difficulties with his inventions when he was younger. Since he's grown up, relatively speaking, he's been credited with a number of commendable actions. Seems he saved his home town from a meteor, a giant mutated woman, some pants gone wild –"

"Okay, okay, he's got a rep," Kim interrupted. "But you said 'virtually every government agency'. Which ones don't have him on file?"

"Global Justice is one, but they generally only keep files on people who work for them or the bad guys they've gone or expect to go up against. The other is an organization called the Big Top Secret Organization, or B.T.S.O. for short."

Kim looked thoughtful. "I've heard of them."

"Apparently everyone has," Wade agreed. For a top secret organization they don't maintain much of a low profile."

"We know he doesn't work for Global Justice," Kim said. "So what does this tell us?"

"It tells us that either B.T.S.O. is pretty oblivious to not know who he is when everyone else does, or –"

"- or they've omitted him from their files because he's one of their operatives," Kim concluded.

Wade shrugged. "That's the way I read it."

Kim smiled a smile that Jimmy thought enhanced her already exceptionally attractive features. "Great work, Wade. You totally rock."

"Out loud?" Wade added.

"The loudest. Thanks." Kim shut off the device and looked thoughtfully at Jimmy and Cindy. This is totally insane, she thought. What does it mean when the safety of the world comes down to two teenagers and two pre-teens? Aloud she said, "Okay, we're pretty sure we know who you are. I suppose we should level with you as to who we are."

"You're agents for Global Justice," Jimmy stated in a matter-of-fact voice.

Ron glared at him suspiciously. "How do you know that?"

"Simple deduction," Jimmy answered. "Kim said she knew that we didn't work for Global Justice. It made sense that she knew that because she was already working on the case for them."

This kid really is sharp, Kim admitted to herself. "Well, you're right. A couple weeks ago the head of Global Justice, Doctor Director, learned that some pretty high-tech stuff was being boosted. Their top scientists analyzed the equipment that had been taken and determined that some sort of high-powered magnetic device was being put together and that the next logical item would be some beryllium alloy."

"That's pretty much what B.T.S.O. decided," Jimmy agreed. "The beryllium alloy would be used to construct the extremely strong frame need to hold the super-conducting magnetic coils in place. Based on the one eyewitness description we thought that it was probably Professor Calamitous and his daughter Beautiful Gorgeous behind the thefts."

"Interesting," Kim replied, raising her voice a little to be heard over a faint but growing humming. "We assumed that it was Dr. Drakken and his assistant Shego."

"Who are they?" Cindy asked, nearly shouting to be heard over the growing noise.

"Hey, guys," Ron yelled. "Is that the air conditioning or a ventilation system or what?"

"Not sure," Cindy hollered back. "I'm new in town."

Kim assumed an aggressive stance. "I think I can guess what it is," she shouted. "Get ready!"

As the four looked about them a noise of tortured metal came from somewhere above them. Suddenly the roof of the room above them peeled back to reveal an ominous black shape silhouetted against the starry sky directly above them. The humming abruptly ceased as the cutting beams that had sliced the roof free from the walls were shut off.

"Showtime," said Kim. "The mystery guest has just entered the building."

"But is it Calamitous or Drakken?" Jimmy wondered out loud.

In answer to Jimmy's question an unmistakable voice boomed out from a public address system on the hovering craft. "Ah, Neutron…for a supposed boy genius you disappoint me. The answer should be obvious."

"Calamitous," Cindy muttered fiercely. She remembered her previous experience with him clearly and detested the precise voice.

"You're not the only ones who can join forces, you know," another voice, unfamiliar to Jimmy and Cindy but well known to Kim, Ron, and Rufus, announced.

"Drakken…" Ron blurted out in surprise.

"…and Calamitous," Cindy concluded.

"Together?" Jimmy wondered aloud. He and the other young people looked at each other as they absorbed this unexpected turn of events.

"Uh-oh," squeaked Rufus.

"It looks like things just got a whole lot more interesting," Kim observed wryly.

End of Chapter 3

Author's Notes:

About the only thing better than having the good guys team up is having the bad guys team up as well. As Kim observed, things get a whole lot more interesting.