A Glitch in Time

by Gary D. Snyder

Chapter 14:

The two groups stared at each other in shock before reacting.

"Shego?" Ron yelped, instinctively adopting a defensive stance.

"Ron?" Kim cried in astonishment.

"Possible?" Cindy blurted out, confused to find her with Shego.

"Cindy?" Jimmy called out, surprised to see her.

"And Brainiac makes five," Shego concluded wryly. "I guess that wraps up the introductions, so if no one has any objections, let's get going."

"Not so fast, lady," Ron objected. He moved to block her way, glaring at her suspiciously. "What are you doing and what's going on here?"

Shego looked disgusted. "Do we really have time for this?"

"We'll make time," Cindy insisted, siding with Ron. "Kim and Jimmy disappear without a word, and when we track them down we find them palling around with you and acting like it happens every day. Suspicious? I think so."

"Look, guys, Shego is right. We really don't have time for this," Jimmy replied. He strode forward and was startled when Ron adroitly flipped forward to block his way.

"Not so fast, half-pint," declared Ron. "We just left two Shego syntha-drones somewhere upstairs and find another Shego here. By my count at least one of them has to be a fake."

"Two," Cindy corrected him.

Ron thought about it and nodded. "Right," he agreed. "At least two have to be fake."

"Well, at least we know you're the genuine article," Shego commented. "Is this actually going anyplace?"

"Yes, it is," Ron assured her. "If those two drones looked like Shego and were fake, how do we know that any of you are the real deal?"

The question stumped Jimmy, Kim, and Shego. As odd as the idea seemed to them, they realized that Ron had a valid point. It was true that Drakken had always been interested in clones, syntha-drones, and similar replicants, and it was not beyond his ablities to duplicate any one of them. Kim and Jimmy looked helplessly at each other, trying to figure out some way to convince Ron and Cindy that they were who they are. Shego took a more direct approach.

"I don't have time for this!" she snarled, as her hands burst into emerald flame. "Move it, or lose it!"

Kim responded by diving forward and interposing herself between Shego and Ron. "Back off, Shego!" she snapped.

"And who do you think you're protecting?" Shego demanded. "How do we know that Drakken didn't make them just to slow us down?"

"A syntha-drone?" Kim lifted an eyebrow and gave Shego a skeptical look. "Of Ron?"

"Or Cindy?" Jimmy added incredulously.

Shego considered that and the green glow died away. "Yeah, that is kind of far-fetched," she admitted. "I mean, Drakken usually can't even remember the buffoon's name. Why in the world would he pick him to duplicate?"

"Hey! I am confident in who I am!" Ron protested angrily. "If Drakken can't remember who I am then that's his problem, not mine!"

"Could we maybe talk about this later?" Kim asked him.

Ron's anger turned to her. "Oh, yeah? And what about you? I mean, you just take off on a mission with someone else without even telling me. A really high opinion you must have of me!"

"That's not the way it happened, Ron," Kim protested.

While Ron and Kim were squabbling Cindy had stalked over to Jimmy and planted herself in front of him. "And why not me?" she demanded to know. "I'll have you know that my tai chi and martial arts skills are considerable."

"Oh, please," Jimmy objected. "Everyone knows that in a conflict brains will prevail over brawn any day."

"Leave it to you to think that," retorted Cindy. "The martial arts are a harmonizing of the spiritual and the physical, a transcendent blending of mental clarity and physical conditioning. Only a big-headed, short-sighted egomaniac like you would think that brains are the only important thing."

The arguments were cut short by a short but piercing whistle from Shego. When the others turned to stare at her she put her fists on her hips and frowned. "Are we through here? It sure looks like everyone's satisfied that everyone else who they say there are."

Cindy scowled. "If he isn't the real Nerd-tron he's obnoxious enough to be."

"Ditto," Jimmy grumbled.

"Yes, I'm sure," Ron added bitterly.

"Me too," Kim finished, look unhappy.

"Good. Because we've burned up what could possibly be invaluable time that we could have spent getting to Drakken and shutting him down. Poindexter says we're on a tight schedule so I'm not going to repeat this. Zip it, move it, and stop wasting time!"

Shego turned and resumed her way down the corridor towards Drakken's lab. The rest followed behind her like a troupe of ducklings. "Touchy," Ron commented just loud enough for Jimmy to hear.

"Just bleach her hair and she could be a syntha-clone of Cindy," Jimmy muttered back.

"I heard that," Cindy hissed.

"What's with the new outfit, Ron?" Kim whispered, trying to change the subject.

"Got it from Wade," Ron replied shortly, still brooding.

Kim looked startled. "Wade? But Wade is –"

"I know, Wade's gone missing. But he left some kind of emergency computer program behind that contacted me, told me about this suit, and told me how to find you. The suit's come in pretty handy so far."

"Is that how you defeated the Shego drones?" Jimmy asked him.

"Hey, I was there, too!" Cindy put in irritably.

"Well, did you defeat the drones?"

"No," Cindy admitted.

Jimmy looked smug. "I didn't think so."

"Well, I didn't beat them either," Ron admitted quietly. "Cindy and I had some kind of flashback and when we came out of it both of the drones had kind of checked out on us."

Jimmy snapped his fingers softly. "Of course!"

"What, 'of course'?" Cindy asked.

"The temporal interphase. The syntha-drones didn't exist back during that particular moment in time. When the interphase hit there was nothing for the syntha-drones to merge with. That must have cleared their programming and rendered them inactive."

Kim looked worried. "Will they come back on?"

"I don't know," answered Jimmy. "It depends on what kind of restart sequence they have built in."

Shego stopped and held up a hand to halt the others. "All right," she murmured softly. "Drakken's main lab is just ahead. If he did anything with that temporal complosion device he would probably have done it here."

"Why here? Why not in the workshop where he was examining it?" asked Jimmy.

"Because the power mains feed into here," Shego explained. "This would give it as much power as Drakken could feed it. I have to admit – when he does something, he likes to do it big."

"Makes sense," Kim opined. "That is so Drakken."

Shego nodded. "Right. Okay then. Here's the plan. The princess and I will go in first –"

Kim interrupted, sounding annoyed. "Could you maybe use my name, since we're working together?"

"Okay, whatever," Shego conceded. "Kimmie and I will go in first and take out Drakken and whoever might be flanking him. The whiz kid will do whatever he has to with that temporal complosion device. And Blondie and the buffoon will…well, do something useful. Or just stay out of the way and try not to get hurt." Both Cindy and Ron growled at this last part, but decided that this was not the time or place to start an argument. "Everyone set?"

"Set," said Kim and Jimmy together.

"Yeah, whatever," Ron answered listlessly.

"Ditto," added Cindy.

"Okay, then – let's hit it!" With fists positioned and glowing a familiar green Shego burst through the door to the lab, followed closely by Kim and Jimmy and with Cindy and Ron lackadaisically bringing up the rear. Inside they found a large room filled banks of electronics and test equipment, a large and untidy desks strewn with papers, and half-opened filing cabinets. In the center of the room was a platform covered by a glowing dome supported by three columns along which thick cables and conduits were gathered. Next to this platform was an electronics console supporting the temporal complosion device which was connected to the console by an intricate mass of wires. No one seemed to be present, but Shego looked about warily. "Watch yourselves," she warned. "This could be a trap."

Kim glanced about the room and shook her head. "I don't think so. There aren't any good hiding places here. And since Drakken was expecting us to escape I doubt he'd have set a trap here." She crossed the room to the console and studied the temporal complosion device. "At least the comploder is here. It means Drakken was here. But where is he now?"

The others had entered and were examining the contents of the room. "This kind of looks like the matter conveyor platform on Space Journey," Ron observed.

"What?" asked Shego.

"Space Journey. It's a TV show about…well, going into space. Weird alien dudes, hot alien babes, cool gadgets, exciting adventures, outrageously expensive DVDs…"

Shego shook her head. "Never heard of it."

"What? How could you not? I mean, it's only been on TV for the past forty years!" Ron exclaimed. "Well, the past thirty-some years have actually been syndicated re-runs. But it's got a huge fan base. I mean, Spacies are everywhere!"

"I've only got cable a couple days ago, kid," Shego said. "And even if I hadn't, I like to think that I have a life. Well, between taking over the world, anyway."

Cindy finished her inspection of the equipment ringing the room. "I wonder where Drakken is. Is it like him to just leave things he stolen unattended like this? What could he be doing?"

"I think I know," Jimmy said. He had been investigating the papers on Drakken's desk and his voice sounded strained. "And I think that it's all my fault."

"What do you mean?" asked Kim. "What is?"

Jimmy held up the newspaper that had been lying on the desk. "You remember what he said about removing a thorn from his side? And how you wouldn't be there to stop him? He must have gotten the idea when I told him about how changing the past would change the present and future. That's exactly what he's planning to do. That's probably what he's doing now."

Kim came over to him and looked at the newspaper. The contents didn't seem very sinister. It appeared to be a society page of the Middleton daily newspaper, dated twenty years ago. As she studied the paper more carefully an item caught her eye and she smiled. "Hey! There's an article about my mom and dad's wedding!"

Jimmy nodded, looking somber. "Exactly. Drakken knows if there's no Mr. and Mrs. Possible, there won't be any Kim Possible to interfere in his plans."

Kim's mind rejected what Jimmy was suggesting. "What? That's crazy. Mom and Dad are, like, tight. He could never break them up."

"Not now. But if he's gone back in time, it's possible that he could keep them from getting together in the first place. No meeting…no marriage…no Kim."

Ron looked panicked. "What? No Kim?" He gestured frantically, as if trying to catch time itself. "That's not possible!" he protested.

"That's exactly what Drakken is hoping for," Jimmy replied. "The article says that they met at a school dance. What do you know about your parents getting married?"

"Well…" Kim thought about it. "My dad was in graduate school and my mom was in residency they first met. They met totally by accident and went to some dance that night. Mom says that it started out pretty bad, but by the end things really clicked for them. They started dating, one thing led to another, and that's pretty much it."

Jimmy frowned. "That's all you know?"

"Hey, I wasn't even around!" Kim said defensively. "Do you know how your parents got together?"

"Not really," Jimmy was forced to confess. "But I think it probably had something to do with ducks."

Kim had started pacing. "Wait a minute. Drakken and Dad went to school together. That means he probably knew about how they first got together. And that means he'd probably try to sabotage their first date at that dance."

"That's good enough," said Jimmy. He leafed throught the other papers on the desk and found what he was searching for. It was a flyer advertising the Middleton University start of the school year dance mixer, complete with the date and time. "It looks like the three of us are going to the dance."

"Three?" echoed Cindy.

"What do you mean three?" asked Ron.

"What I said," Jimmy replied. "Kim, Shego, and I are going back. You two are staying here."

"What!" Cindy yelled. "We just found you and now we're splitting up again?"

"It's necessary," Jimmy argued. "Shego knows Drakken's moves better than anyone. Kim knows her parents better than any of us. I'm the best chance we have of dealing with any time tricks Drakken may have up his sleeve." Cindy started to object but Jimmy cut her off. "And I'm responsible for all this. I have to do whatever I can to fix it." His voice softened a bit. "There's a chance that Drakken's henchmen or syntha-drones might try to interfere with the equipment if we leave it unguarded. I need you here."

"There is no way I'm letting Kim go into the past without me," Ron insisted, "and that's that."

"Jimmy's right, Ron," Kim told him. "I need someone here that I can trust to watch my back. I've always been able to count on you before." She looked into his eyes, searching deeply for the answer she needed. "What about now?"

Ron's look of determination crumbled to one of indecision and finally that of reluctant acceptance. He nodded, looking down at the floor. "Got your back, K.P.," he said hoarsely, his voice almost breaking. "You can count on me." They moved into each other's arms and embraced for a long moment. "I just wish part of me could be there with you."

"It will be," Kim assured him.

"Okay," Shego said briskly after fidgeting uncomfortably for a long moment. "If touchy-feely time is over, we'd best get on with it. Can you get this thing set up for us, Poindexter?"

"Just give me a few minutes," Jimmy assured her. "And for the last time, the name is Neutron. Jimmy Neutron." He busied himself with the temporal complosion device and several instruments scattered about the lab, referring from time to time to the schematics Drakken had left behind. After approximately ten minutes he wiped his brow and straightened up. "Done," he announced. "This should put us about an hour or so before the start of the dance. That should give us time to locate and intercept Drakken."

"How will you get back?" Cindy asked.

"That's your job. Drakken probably has a remote recall device but I've rigged a high-powered microwave link to the Kim-municator." He gestured to a pair of parabolic dishes flanking the platform's control console. "She'll be able to keep in touch with you and signal when we need to get back. This dial controls the power level of the link. When you get the signal, press these two buttons." He indicated the controls on the console as he spoke. "That will power up the comploder and initiate the recall sequence."

Cindy nodded. "How long should we wait?"

"We'll be progressing through sequential time at about the same rate as you. One hour there will be one hour here. If you don't hear from us in an hour, forget about us and stop the singularity. Just push these buttons here to switch the temporal lock to the location of the singularity, and then push this lever all the way up. That should destabilize the singularity and disperse it."

Cindy studied the console and committed the instructions and controls to memory. "Okay. But I still think I should –"

"Hey," Jimmy smiled, "I need someone here to watch my back, too."

Cindy said nothing as Jimmy headed towards the platform where Shego and Kim were waiting. "All set?" Kim asked.

"All set," Jimmy nodded.

"Then let's light this candle," Shego intoned. "Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed, seats and tray tables in the full upright position, yada-yada-yada." Jimmy and Kim stared at her and she stared back defensively. "What? You're the only ones who get to say that kind of stuff?"

Jimmy shook his head, rolling his eyes, and then looked at Cindy. "Activate," was all he said. Cindy, remembering the procedure Jimmy had told her to open the passage through time, pressed several switches. A low hum, constantly rising in pitch and volume, began to issue from the platform as a swirl of lights descended from the dome to envelope the three figures beneath it. After several long seconds of pulsing lights and sound the glow faded, revealing an empty platform. Cindy shut the console down without a word.

"Left behind again," Ron complained. "There's nothing worse than being left behind."

"I know," Cindy agreed absently. "But this time, they're the ones left behind. They're trusting us to get them back."

End of Chapter 14