A Glitch in Time
by Gary D. Snyder
Prologue:
The lithe figure successfully threaded its way through the latest maze of deathtraps, springing and rolling through the lethal barrage of ray-blasts with a skill that bordered almost on prescience. Once past the deadly obstacles the form then pressed against the rough rock wall of the passage leading from the chamber, vanishing into the shadows and moving as silently as a ghost. The intruder moved forward cautiously, wary of any further traps, and was concerned rather than relieved when it encountered none. After making sure that no one was within earshot the figure pulled a small device from a side pouch and activated it. A small video screen lit up, showing a young black boy surrounded by computer equipment.
"Wade. You there?" the intruder whispered. The voice, while cool and authoritative, was nonetheless soft and distinctly feminine.
"As always, Kim," a youthful voice replied. "What's up?"
"I'm in a corridor of sorts, but there doesn't seem to be anything trying to stop me in here. Could you give me a scan and let me know what the sitch is?"
Wade smiled. "Done and done. Just hold up the Kim-municator and give me a second." Kim did so and a thin sheet of purple light shot from the device, scanning the passage from floor to ceiling. Wade shook his head. "I'm reading nothing. Based on that and your GPS coordinates my guess is that you're in the final passage leading to the main lab. The device should be in there."
"Roger that. I'm going in." Kim replaced the Kim-municator and raced down the corridor, secure in Wade's assurance that the way was free of danger. The passageway was perhaps a hundred yards long, and Kim slowed only when her sharp eyes detected a brighter glow coming from in front of her. As she drew nearer she could see that it was the entrance to a large, well-lit chamber. She hugged one of the rock walls and edged closer, determined to carefully survey the inside of the new area before stepping in. As she was making her examination a cold, accented voice called out to her.
"Kim Possible," the voice said, almost as though identifying a familiar but unexpected species of bacteria. "It's been a while. Please, come inside. I'm sure that it must be drafty out there for you."
Seeing no point in remaining in the corridor Kim stepped inside. "Professor Dementor," she replied in a cold but civil voice as the masked figure stepped out on a catwalk far above. "It has been a while." She gestured towards an imposing contraption humming quietly in the center of the lab. "And I take it that this is the temporal complosion device you stole?"
"That?" Dementor pointed to the large machine in surprise. "Actually, no. That's just the central air conditioning unit. You wouldn't believe how hot and muggy it can get down here." He reached behind him and pulled out a device that resembled a notebook computer. "This is the complosion device."
"Then I'll thank you to hand it over," Kim said easily. "They won't let you keep it in prison, anyway."
"I'm afraid that I can't do that," the evil professor replied. "I have some very big plans for this little device. Plans that, I'm afraid, I can't let you or your companion interfere with." Dementor snapped his fingers and a half dozen burly henchmen emerged from various shadows, hemming Kim in. He looked around. "Where is your companion, anyway? Aren't you two an item now?"
It was the wrong thing to say. With a snarl Kim snatched what looked like a hair dryer from the belt at her side and fired a grappling hook up towards the catwalk on which Dementor was standing. The hook wrapped around the railing and a press on a second button reeled the trailing line in, pulling Kim up and away from the startled henchman and towards their leader.
Dementor pounded the railing in frustration. "When will I remember she has that thing?" he chided himself angrily. He turned to run and was stopped in his tracks when Kim, anticipating this move, swung herself up and onto the catwalk in front of him. "Game over, Dementor," she growled. "Give it up."
Her opponent struck a megalomaniacal pose. "Give up? Never!" he cried. He removed what appeared to be a metallic billiard ball from a pouch in his costume and hurled it at the young woman blocking his way. Kim, however, had dealt with Dementor often enough to expect something like this. She flipped out of the way of the projectile and let it fall to the floor below, where it disintegrated into a cloud of thick blue smoke in the midst of Dementor's henchmen and caused them to stiffen into so many immobile statues. In retaliation Kim lashed out with a side kick at Dementor as she landed, striking the temporal complosion device and sending it spinning into space.
"The comploder!" Dementor cried in horror as it hit the floor. "What have you done?" He seized Kim's grappling line and slid down with Kim in hot pursuit. Rather than attempt to escape, however, Dementor seemed more concerned with the battered device, which was sputtering and humming erratically. After a few frantic moments Dementor looked up at Kim with what she could see of his face pale as a ghost. "It's been activated," he spluttered. "I can't shut it off."
Somehow Kim knew that this was not a stall and definitely not a good thing. "What does it do?" she demanded.
"In this condition, I don't know," Dementor confessed. "Perhaps nothing, but perhaps…" He stopped and wordlessly gestured all around them.
Kim whipped out her Kim-municator. "Wade, we've got major issues here. The temporal complosion device has been damaged and activated, and Dementor is wigging big time about it."
Wade wasted no time with questions. "Let me see," he ordered. Obediently Kim held out the Kim-municator so that Wade could survey the damage and assess the situation. "Dementor's right," Wade said after a few seconds. "It appears that the primary generator circuit had been activated but it's running open loop. There's nothing controlling the reaction. It's just a matter of time before something gives."
"What do I do?" Kim asked.
Wade thought about it. "Plug the Kim-municator's universal adapter cable into the expansion port on the device," he instructed. "I'll try to compensate manually through the communications hook-up while you try to initiate the shutdown sequence."
"Yes!" Dementor cried excitedly. "That might work."
"Let's hope so." Kim did as Wade had told her, extending the retractable cable from the Kim-municator and plugging it into the matching connector on the complosion device. On the viewscreen she could see Wade typing feverishly and sweating as the humming from the device slowly became less erratic.
"Okay," Wade called out. "I've got it stabilized for the moment. Begin the shutdown sequence."
Kim looked helplessly at the controls. "Could you talk me through it?" she asked weakly.
Wade shook his head. "Not and compensate the reaction, Kim. It's up to you."
Dementor stepped between Kim and the temporal complosion device. "You mean it's up to me," he corrected with pride. As Kim watched he operated the numerous complex controls and muttered to himself as though reciting a checklist. "Interface buffers closed. Filtering controls reset. Conversion compensators deactivated."
The humming from the device was becoming erratic again. "Hurry up," Wade urged. "I can't hold it much longer."
"IF gain amplifiers powered down. Pre-ignition circuits off."
Wade's voice became almost pleading. "Hurry!"
"Stabilizers re-initialized. Main generators off-line!" Dementor stabbed at a final button just as the humming became a shriek of power and crackling tendrils of energy leapt from the device and knocked Kim and Dementor backwards. As they lay there, stunned, the scream of energy dopplered away into a faint hum before disappearing altogether.
It was Kim who stirred first. Groggily she retrieved the Kim-municator, which lay a few yards away, and noted that the adaptor cable was broken and charred although the rest of the device seemed unharmed. "It looks like we did it, Wade," she announced wearily. There was no answer. "Wade? You there?" Puzzled, she pressed a sequence of buttons to run the built-in diagnostics and was greeted with the message:
UNIVERSAL ADAPTOR CIRCUIT FAILURE 0x128
ALL OTHER CIRCUITS OK
The Kim-municator is working, she said to herself, so what's the story? And what was with that energy discharge just before the device shut off? She heard Professor Dementor groan and walked over to him. Dementor blinked his eyes open just as Kim was leaning over him.
"Did…did we make it?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered. She squatted down next to the Dementor and laid a gentle but firm hand on his chest, keeping him pinned to the floor. "And now I have some questions to ask you."
Later, back at the Possible home, Kim's father and mother pored over the sheaf of figures, diagrams, equations, and readouts that Kim had brought back from Professor Dementor's secret lair. After some time Kim's father sighed and shook his head.
"Well?" asked Kim.
"It's pretty obvious that you don't need to be a rocket scientist or brain surgeon to understand this stuff," Kim's father replied.
"Really?" Kim asked hopefully.
Her mother nodded. "Yes. Because your father and I are and we can't make heads or tails of this."
Kim slumped unhappily in her chair. "But I need to know what this is all about. This was everything that Dementor could get on what the complosion device did just as we were shutting it off. And Wade's mother said she hasn't seen Wade since I last spoke to him. I'm positive that there's a connection." She pouted unhappily as she thought about it. "Wade's gotten me out of more jams than I can remember. If there's anything I can do to help him, I've got to do it."
"Now, now, Kim," her mother said, patting her shoulder. "We understand. We'd love to help, but we just aren't the right people. Have you checked with Ron?" Kim's silent glare made her mother beat a hasty retreat. "Not that you have to," she quickly assured her daughter. "Just an option, is all."
"I'll remember that," Kim said, her voice encrusted with icicles.
Her father tried to change the subject. "Offhand, Kimmie, I'd say you'd need to speak to a certified super-genius who's an expert on theoretical physics and chronospatial dynamics. Unfortunately everyone with those qualifications that I can think of is locked up in hush-hush government projects."
"Or apparently missing," her mother added.
Kim thought about what her parents had said and debated silently with herself for several minutes before she came to a decision and stood up. "Not everyone," she said.
"Come again?" her mother asked.
"If I need a super-genius," she said, "then I'm going to get one. What's the best way to get to Retroville?"
End of Prologue