A Glitch in Time

by Gary D. Snyder

Chapter 15:

Doctor Drakken had indeed traveled into the past, intent on eliminating his arch-nemesis once and for all. After only ten minutes he began to think that, even if travel into the past was not forbidden by the laws of either Man or physics, it should be. Despite his best attempts to calculate the correct settings for the temporal complosion device his trip through time had been disorienting and it was some time before he felt well enough to continue with his mission. When he was able to go on he quickly verified from some discarded newspapers that he was at the right date, but quickly realized the he was several miles from where he needed to be. Consequently he was forced to take a bus, trying to remain as inconspicuous as a blue person in a lab coat and gloves could be and doing his best to fend off two persistent young teenagers who insisted on pestering him during the ride.

"For the last time, 'dudes'," he growled at them, "I look like a scientist because I really am a scientist. Second, I've never been in a music video, whatever that is. And finally, I've never heard of anyone named Thomas Dolby, whoever he is. So stop bugging me with your silly questions. Although," he mused, "the idea of blinding someone with science is an intriguing one. I suppose I could build some kind of ultra-bright wide-field laser. Once I get back to the future, that is."

The two teens looked at each other and snickered. "Right dude, whatever," said one, as he got up to leave.

"Totally," agreed the other as she joined him. "Good luck with getting your car recharged."

As they exited the bus, laughing, Drakken stared after them, totally baffled at what they found so amusing. Then he pushed the episode from his mind to concentrate on more important matters. The memory of every detail of this evening was etched clearly in his mind, and he had planned to the last detail exactly what he would do. Only two things nagged at him as he went over his scheme again. The first was not having Shego with him. He refused to admit, even to himself, that he missed her, steadfastly maintaining that he only wanted someone to assist him should any unforeseen complications arise. The second item was an irrational dread that Kim Possible would somehow appear to again frustrate him in his latest plan. It was nonsense, he told himself, but the many battles he had waged – or would wage – with her had thoroughly conditioned him to expect her to show up. Despite knowing that he had left her in the 21st century and that she had not yet been born, he still expected her to appear at any moment to challenge him once more with yet another of her sarcastic remarks.

He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he almost missed his stop on the outskirts of Middleton University. Alighting from the bus, he strode purposefully across the campus towards the student dormitories he remembered so well. It was now about 6:00 PM and getting dark, and the few people still on campus that he encountered didn't give him a second glance as he passed them. He successfully entered the dormitory through a rear entrance without anyone detecting him and made his furtive way up the back stairway to a specific room. Knowing exactly what he would find, he flung the door open, entered, and closed the door behind him in one swift motion to confront the startled occupant inside.

"Drew Lipsky," he announced with satisfaction.

"Yes?" the young man replied. He set down a screwdriver with which he had been working on a mechanical contraption and peered curiously at the stranger who appeared to know him. "Do I know you?"

"Not yet," Drakken replied with a sinister smile. "But trust me, you will. Now, listen to me very carefully…"

About that same time Kim, Jimmy, and Shego materialized on the outskirts of the campus. Jimmy had been more successful with his calculations of the target space-time coordinates and the passage through time had been unsettling, but not especially bad. Kim immediately activated her Kim-municator. "You there, Ron?"

"Reading you loud and clear, K.P.," Ron's voice came back. "How are you guys doing?"

"A little dizzy, but nothing bad," Kim replied. "We're going to split up now. If we run into anything we'll let you know. Until then, stand by and wait for our signal."

"Roger that."

"One question," Cindy's voice piped up. "What should we do if Drakken shows up here? Pull you back?"

"Negative!" Jimmy called out. "If he shows up there it'll be because he's sure that he's completed his mission. If that happens and you pull us back into the present Kim could cease to exist. We'll just have to make sure that he doesn't succeed. Do not bring us back until we tell you. Clear?"

"Fine, okay," Cindy answered sourly. "I was just asking, is all."

"I know," Jimmy said in a subdued voice. "And Cindy?"

"Yes?"

Jimmy drew a deep breath. "Watch your back. There are a lot of henchman and maybe more syntha-drones still around there. You may want to close and bar the doors."

"Already done," came Ron's voice.

"Good," Kim commented. "Wish us luck. Over and out." She switched the device off and returned it to the pouch at her side and looked at the others. "Everyone clear on what they need to do?"

"Check," replied Jimmy. "I'll keep an eye out at the dance location. If Drakken shows up or I spot anything unusual, I'll keep things under control until you two show up."

"And I'll do some recon for Dr. D. around campus," Shego went on. "If I find him, I'll hogtie him and bring him to the rendezvous point."

"And I'll try to find my parents and keep an eye on them," Kim concluded. "I'm not sure exactly where my dad would be, but I'm pretty sure that my mom was in residency then. I mean now. I'll check the hospital out first and if I can't find her I'll try locating my dad." She held out a hand, palm down. "Good luck."

"Thanks," Jimmy said, placing his hand on top of hers, "although from a scientific viewpoint luck is merely the result of -" He broke off as he caught Kim's stern glare. "Umm…good luck to you, too," he finished meekly.

"Yeah, whatever," Shego said, as she laid her hand on theirs. "But if you ask me, luck is strictly for suckers. Give me stealth and guile any day."

On that note the three went their separate ways, with Jimmy headed towards the student union building, Kim moving towards the university hospital, and Shego blending into the shadows. Both Shego and Kim were familiar with Middleton and could find their way about even with the university grounds twenty years out of date, but Jimmy was forced to consult the directories posted about the campus to find his destination. Despite his worries about the delay he arrived well before the dance was scheduled to begin. The only ones there were the members of the decoration committee attending to last minute details, and the musicians who were setting up their music equipment. Several of them were practicing a few test chords and riffs on their instruments and grimacing at the results coming out of the amplification system.

"Excuse me!" Jimmy heard a voice call. As Jimmy looked about, the caller, a young women about twenty years old, called, "I'm sorry, but only dance committee personnel are allowed in here. You'll have to leave."

"Oh, yes. Right," Jimmy stalled. "I was just, you know, the band and all -"

"I understand," the woman replied, politely but firmly, "but rules are rules. We're still getting things ready here. We definitely don't want anyone getting hurt tonight."

You and me both, Jimmy thought. He turned to leave, wondering where he could possibly keep an eye on things, when a sound like angry cats fighting made him pause. The band members, thoroughly disgusted with the results of their tuning attempts, were pounding on the amplifier and muttering threats under their breath. An idea struck him, and Jimmy snuck a look at the woman who had ordered him to leave. Satisfied that she wasn't watching, casually strolled up to see what the musicians were doing.

"I'm telling you I tuned it," one member of the band was saying, brandishing his guitar for emphasis. "It's got to be in the electronics somewhere."

"There was nothing wrong with it this afternoon before we packed," another was arguing. "The instruments must be out of tune." He tapped his bass for emphasis.

The third member of the group, standing at an electronic keyboard, looked skeptical. "All of them? I'm betting that something got damaged when you packed the stuff up."

"Don't tell me how to handle the equipment!" the bass player shouted back. "I've never damaged anything in my life."

"Well, whatever's happened we have to fix it. We only have forty minutes before the dance," the lead guitarist argued.

The keyboardist gave him a sour look. "Dude, there ain't gonna be any dance!" he said.

"Is something wrong here?" Jimmy asked innocently.

The three stared at him as if he were some alien from space. "Who are you?" the guitarist asked.

"My name is Jimmy. It sounds like you're having some problems with the equipment."

The keyboardist gave Jimmy a scornful laugh. "You figure that out by yourself? You must be the world's shortest genius."

Jimmy simply gave them a pained smile before replying. "You might say that," he said. "Could you give me a C major, please?"

The band looked at each other and shrugged. The player at the keyboard played the requested chord, flinching at the cacophonous discord that emerged from the speakers. "So, what do you think, Einstein?" He exchanged a mocking smile with the others.

Jimmy was not a musician, but he did understand wave theory and harmonics, had been an expert in electronic amplification circuitry since the age of three, and was able to mathematically assess the difference between the complex waveform that should have been produced and the waveform that had been produced. "Well," he replied casually, "from the massive crossover distortion I'd say that you've lost the bias on your Class AB intermediate amplifier stage. It could be a shorted coupling transformer or possibly a fried input biasing resistor, but I'd bet that one of your coupling capacitors has probably shorted through." He turned to go. "Well, good luck with that."

The smiles on the faces of the band had turned to looks of blank astonishment at Jimmy's discourse and as he started to leave they scrambled to surround him. "Hey, little dude," the guitarist said. "Not so fast. Did what you say actually mean anything?"

Jimmy nodded. "Pretty much."

"Could you maybe help us out and fix it?"

Jimmy appeared to consider it. The repair would be fairly easy to effect, but he needed to make sure that he could stay even after making it. "Well, I don't know," he said slowly. "I mean, I'm not even supposed to be here. I wouldn't want to get into trouble."

"Hey, as long as you're with us, you're cool," the bass player assured him. "Heck, you could even stay here on the stage the whole time we're playing tonight."

That clinched it. "Deal," said Jimmy. He turned the amplifier around, shut it off, disconnected the power plug just to be safe, and began loosening the fasteners that secured the back to the case. As the band looked on Jimmy burrowed into the circuitry, being careful not to touch any of the capacitors which might still have held a potentially lethal charge. He quickly located the component he was seeking and, after careful examination, convinced himself that it was, in fact, defective. He had hoped that the amplifier unit had a duplicate component that he could swap out without degrading the performance of the circuitry but saw that there was none. With a sigh he reluctantly removed his wristcomp, opened it, and carefully extracted a tiny component from its insides. "A perfectly good nucleonic condenser," he muttered under his breath. "I hope you appreciate this, Kim."

"What's that?" one of the musicians asked.

"Nothing," Jimmy called out. With infinite care he snipped out the faulty capacitor with his laser, delicately positioned the new part inside the case, and used his laser again to fuse it into place.

"Is that it?" the bass player, eying the tiny part doubtfully.

"Only one way to find out. Let's fire it up," Jimmy replied. He replaced the back on the amplifier, re-connected the power cord, snapped a few switches, and nodded to the band members. This time, when the instruments were tested, the expected tones emerged. The players looked at each other with broad smiles on their faces and gave each congratulatory slaps on the back. In the midst of this a hand fell on Jimmy's shoulder. For a split second he thought that perhaps Drakken had gotten the drop on him, but the next words he heard dispelled that fear immediately.

"I thought I told you that you had to leave?"

Jimmy turned to face the young woman, but before he could speak the lead guitarist spoke up. "You got it all wrong, babe," he said. "He's with us."

The woman looked confused. "He is?"

"Absolutely," the bass player affirmed. "He's our equipment manager."

The woman couldn't keep the skepticism out of her voice. "Your…equipment manager," she repeated. "Him?"

"Absolutely," the keyboardist replied. "An absolute genius at it, too." He nodded at Jimmy. "Seriously. I mean that."

"Well…I don't know…his parents…" the young woman faltered.

"You know," the lead guitarist said, "once in a while we have an open mike in our set. How'd you like to sit in for a song later? Had any experience? Got any favorites?"

Jimmy immediately vanished from the woman's mind and she blushed. "Well, I don't have any real experience," she replied. "But once in a while, you know, just with some close friends, you understand, I sometimes sing…"

Jimmy sighed, chose a strategic spot on the stage where he would have a good view both of the dance floor as well as the backstage and wings, and settled down to his vigil. He wondered how Kim and Shego were faring with their assignments as the woman continued to prattle on.

"…and I really like Both Sides Now, but Killing Me Softly is probably my all-time favorite…unless maybe it's one of Karen Carpenter's songs…"

As the list went on and on his feeling of curiosity gradually gave way to one of envy. Come on, Drakken, he thought miserably. Where are you?

"…but I suppose you probably want dance music, don't you? Do you know anything by ABBA?…"

End of Chapter 15