Kim Possible and all related characters and indicia are owned by the Disney Corporation. Supergirl and all related characters and indicia are owned by DC Comics/Warner Bros. This work of fan fiction is written for pleasure, not profit.
Bruno Mannheim was enjoying an early breakfast with his latest squeeze, a willowy brunette named Samantha, whose most endearing quality was a distinct lack of mental acuity. He grunted absently. She wasn't anything more than a receptacle for his physical needs anyway, and was pleasantly stupid and oblivious. True, Mannheim usually found such people annoying, and weeded them out of Intergang's ranks with relish, but he was willing to make exceptions in some cases. Not that he hadn't been careful when he'd selected her, of course. If he had a weakness, it was his preference for unintelligent women. Or more accurately, that his preference for them was well known. The police had tried at least once to get an undercover agent into his inner circle, using a female officer who had played the role of a brainless bimbo almost perfectly. Mannheim smiled thinly. Almost perfectly. It was too bad, in a way. She'd actually been extremely intelligent. Mannheim had been impressed, both by her acting talents, and by her nerve and integrity. She'd have made a fine lieutenant. Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, she'd refused his offer to join the organization. Someday, he resolved, he would have to let her relatives know where they could find her body. Someday.
Samantha, on the other hand, was just as stupid as she seemed to be. Her background had been carefully checked, and Mannheim had had her watched around the clock for the slightest sign that she was feigning her simple-mindedness. Even now, six months into her stint as concubine, he kept an eye on her, but he was fairly certain she was safe. At the moment, she was prattling on about shoes, having apparently forgotten that the breakfast she'd been so impatient for was getting cold in front of her.
"Eat your breakfast," he commanded.
"Ok," Samantha said brightly and started shoveling food into her mouth. Mannheim rolled his eyes. She'd forgotten her table manners again, too.
Hurried footsteps brought his head around. Gillespie was approaching the table. He was ashen, and his hands were trembling. Something was obviously wrong.
"Samantha, go take a shower," Mannheim ordered brusquely.
"Ok," she answered in that same bright voice, pushing away from the table and heading upstairs. Mannheim turned to Gillespie.
"What is it?"
"Disaster, sir," Gillespie declared. "The police just raided our marijuana farms."
"How many?" Mannheim demanded.
"All of them," Gillespie said.
"All of them!" Mannheim repeated incredulously. Gillespie nodded.
"Why didn't we get word of this in advance? The cops couldn't stage an operation that large without our people on the inside letting us know it was coming."
"They got our moles, too," Gillespie stammered. "I can't reach any of them, anywhere. That can only mean one thing."
Mannheim sat back, a shocked look on his face. "How in the hell..." he mumbled, while his mind tried to reason out how such a thing could possibly have happened.
"Do we know anything at all?" he demanded suddenly. Gillespie flinched, and Mannheim guessed more bad news was coming. He also guessed that Gillespie thought himself at fault to some degree.
"How bad is it?" he asked his deputy, trying to make himself sound reassuring.
Gillespie seemed to relax a bit, and began his tale.
"Someone broke into our computer network last night. Whoever it was must have gotten the locations of the farms and the names of our informants from our own files."
"And how did this 'intruder' get past our security?"
"The computer people couldn't figure that out at first. There weren't any of the usual signs of attack. The only odd thing was some activity at the computer terminal at the Lexington Height farm."
"One of the night crew messing around?" A peculiar feeling of dread was creeping into Mannheim's gut.
Gillespie shook his head. "Kim Possible and her partner turned up there around ten o'clock."
"Looking for Killigan, no doubt," Mannheim commented.
"Yes, sir. She then forced entry to the forty-first floor and -"
"How?" Mannheim interrupted. "The physical security should have been enough to keep her out, at least long enough for our people to have taken proper measures." That was standing Intergang policy. If you knew the cops were on their way, you got out, destroying as much evidence as you could in the process.
Gillespie swallowed and pulled at the collar of his shirt. "Yes, but, ah, well...Supergirl was with her."
Mannheim nodded. The people who tended the farms were chosen for skills other than martial ones, and the crew at the Lafferty Building was no exception. They might have been able to handle Possible and her cohort, but there was no way in hell they could handle Supergirl. Even if they'd had the training and the intestinal fortitude, they lacked the right equipment for that task. They'd likely been taken by surprise and overwhelmed before they could do anything. That didn't explain how the network had been compromised, though. Mannheim certain of that. How had the head of their data department put it again?
'Every password has ten slots, if you will, and each slot can be filled with letters or the digits 0 through 9, the letters being case sensitive. That means, Mr. Mannheim, that an upper case L would be correct, but a lower case l would not. That in turn means that for each slot there are sixty-two possible characters, giving you a total number of combination equal to ten to the sixty-fourth power.'
'That's a big number,' Mannheim had said. 's big it doesn't mean anything to me.'
'Let me put it this way. If you were able to try a billion, and that's billion with a b, passwords a second, and you started right now, by the time the universe collapsed in on itself forty billion years from now, you would have tried less than one percent of the total possible passwords. A lot less.' That had been impressive. Given the fact that there had been no successful unauthorized entries into Intergang's network since they'd gone to the new system, he was willing to bet the man hadn't been exaggerating.
"So how did they do it?" Mannheim asked.
"According to the logs, at 10:17 p.m. Duff Killigan logged onto the network from that location," Gillespie said, and Mannheim felt the beginnings of realization. "Since Killigan was definitely at his quarters at the time," Gillespie went on, stammering, "that can only mean that -"
"The idiot wrote down his password!" Mannheim snarled. Mannheim was a powerful man, physically as well as figuratively. His right hand balled into a massive fist, which crashed down on the table with such force that the top cracked, sending china and silverware cascading to the floor. Mannheim didn't give the expensive mess a first glance, let alone a second. Instead he took a deep breath, held it in, then exhaled slowly. When he was done, he was in control again. Still angry, to be sure, but in control. He clasped is hands behind his back and looked a Gillespie.
"Omega the entire drug division. All of it." Time to cut their losses. There was enough overlap of personnel in the various units of the drug division that the police would find out about the other units from the people they had already captured. Hopefully it would be enough to save them, but if not...
"And tell the necessary people to get ready in case we have to go to the Armageddon Contingency."
Gillespie nodded and started to turn away when Mannheim spoke again.
"Have Duff Killigan killed. Immediately. Nobody costs me half a billion dollars and gets away with it. Nobody."
Duff Killigan was at breakfast as well, on the back porch of the house Mannheim had given him. He was reading the paper and enjoying the morning air. That was one of the best things about the place, he had decided. The house was on a large estate in one of Metropolis' ritzier suburbs. It was so thinly populated that it seemed more like country than city, all the more so because it was backed by one of the city's larger rivers.
One of the men detailed to keep him under wraps, a fellow named Stephens, was standing nearby, watchful as always. His cell phone rang. Killigan noticed Stephens stiffen, and heard him ask for a repetition of what he had just been told. Stephens switched his cell phone from his right hand to his left. Killigan felt a surge of apprehension that got stronger when Stephens reached into his jacket. That was what saved Killigan. By the time Stephens had drawn his pistol and started turning toward Killigan, the latter had brought his arm up and triggered the wrist mounted dart launcher he had taken to wearing. The dart caught Stephens in the throat, and its fast acting paralytic agent put Stephens down in seconds. Two more darts did for the other bodyguards on the porch before they could try their hands at being assassins.
Killigan sprinted toward the horse barn near the river. Reaching it he ducked inside and bolted the door behind him. Obviously Bruno Mannheim had changed his mind, and decided Killigan was a liability that needed to be disposed of. As if in confirmation, Gillespie's voice crackled over the intercom, part of the system that served all Intergang facilities.
"Duff Killigan is to be terminated immediately," Gillespie intoned. "The standard reward will be paid to whoever bags him."
"Great," Killigan swore. A million dollar price on his head was going to complicate things. Every two-bit thug in town would be coming after him. He'd have to take severe measures to discourage pursuit.
"Ah well, t'was fun while it lasted." Fortunately he was prepared for this contingency, and took a moment to savor the irony that he had Mannheim to thank for that. Killigan crossed to a control panel with four red buttons on it and pressed one. Panels opened in the barn's walls on the second story. Turbine engines howled to life, and fifty armed drones roared off their launch rails to speed toward the downtown area. They'd wreak enough havoc to keep five Supermen busy, let alone one Supergirl. Long enough for him to get clear at least. He hoped. He pushed a second button. The house exploded. Killigan felt a twinge of regret about the staff. He'd genuinely liked most of them, but this was war, and sacrifices had to be made. The third button set the roof of the barn to sliding open. Killigan pressed the fourth button, and moved to make his final escape.
The men who had been guarding the perimeter of the estate were heading toward the barn as fast as they could run. As they approached, a small airship with a tartan patterned gas bag rose from inside the barn. The men opened fire, but their pistols were unable to inflict any obvious damage before the dirigible climbed out of range.
