Notes : Here's my answers to a couple reviews I've gotten so far, though I've learned brevity is a virtue in these notes, so I'm not saying much: The creature in Part 4 was a Shoggoth (not that this tells readers without experience with Lovecraft's stories much, but still...). Also, "M.P." could actually be either one of two individuals - although both candidates are related. At this point, I'll just leave it at that.
Kim wiped the tears roughly from her cheeks and forced herself to sit up straight in the pod's chair. "I don't have time for tears," she mumbled, watching the Kimmunicator closely for any indication of a connection. "Ron doesn't have time for this..."
"Come on... come on..." she pleaded. Finally, as her escape pod drifted ever nearer the surface, her impatience was finally rewarded as the animation on the screen was replaced by tiny lettering saying, "Connected..."
"How'd it go, Kim?" Wade asked as he appeared on the screen. He paused to sip from the bendy straw of a disposable Bueno Nacho cup before continuing. "I picked up signs of an underwater explosion from a seismic monitoring station on Oahu, so I'd say things went..." he trailed off as he noticed her reddened eyes, dampened cheeks, and blotchy complexion. As he set aside his soda, he asked, "Are you crying? What's wrong? What happened?"
"Tell GJ we need a SAR Op here ASAP," Kim ordered, sniffling briefly as she scrubbed her cheeks with the back of one hand.
Rufus nodded his agreement emphatically from his perch atop her shoulder, "Uh-huh, uh-huh." he chittered.
Wade's fingers typed furiously on a keyboard for a few seconds. "Done," he nodded. "I'll have an ETA for time-on-site in a few minutes - once the hoverjets are scrambled." He leaned forward, his image growing larger on the screen. "Seriously, Kim; are you okay? Where's Ron?"
A tear slowly trickled down one already dampened cheek, but she ignored it. "Gemini escaped and triggered the self-destruct on the base. The nature and range of his escape craft is unknown," she continued with the barest hint of a quaver in her voice, despite the dry, formal language she was using, as she went through the debriefing to bring Wade up to speed.
Even as he updated the incident report for Global Justice, Wade cautiously asked, "Kim?"
Ignoring Wade's question, Kim continued, "Based on previous encounters, we have an estimated 23 - that's two-three - hostiles in a mix of escape pods and scuba gear, that will need to be collected and secured from near this vicinity. There is a high probability of injury, nitrogen narcosis and-or decompression sickness, so medical personnel and any nearby emergency units, especially those with a hyperbaric capability should be put on immediate stand by."
"Kim? Rufus?" Wade asked, glancing between the two of them, even as he continued to type out the report, looking more and more nervous. "Where's Ron?"
Kim turned her head so Wade couldn't see her face, and simply continued to give orders, "We need to coordinate an expanding concentric search pattern centered on the remains of the WEE base with the goal of search and rescue, and also criminal apprehension. Given the unknown nature of Gemini's escape vehicle, he has likely fled the vicinity, but his henchmen are likely to still be in the area."
Rufus met Wade's eyes and slowly shook his head from side to side, whimpering pitifully.
Wade's eyes widened as his hands stilled on the keyboard, so great was his shock. "Kim? Do you know for sure, is Ron...?"
"He's fine! I know he is. He has to be... We just need to find him!" Kim announced grimly.
"Of course," Wade soothed, quietly adding the priority code for "Agent MIA, in need of assistance" to the sitrep before sending it off to the GJ operational server for processing. He checked a number of monitors, and waited impatiently for updates, hitting the "Enter" key on one of his keyboards every few seconds to force an update to the screen.
"What's the ETA, Wade?" Kim asked.
"GJ hoverjets are launching from bases in Tokyo, Honolulu and Sydney," Wade answered, double checking the times and distances displayed on his monitor and calling up a link to the "Jane's All the World's Police Aircraft" website to double check the aircraft's top speed. "Earliest estimated time on site... less than twenty minutes."
"That's not good enough!" Kim snapped, her voice cracking. "Ron..." she began, then fell silent, squeezing her eyes shut in an attempt to stem the fresh flood of tears that threatened to erupt. "Wade, we have to hurry," she quietly finished, tacitly acknowledging the situation was more dire that she wanted to openly admit.
"I know," he agreed, the tip of his tongue poking from between his lips as he typed furiously. After a minute, he reached up to turn one of his secondary monitors to get a better view of the information displayed on the screen. "Okay, there's a US Navy detachment in the area returning from a tour of duty as part of Operation Unified Assistance. I'm sending a request for aid and the preliminary incident report to the admiral in charge of the task force."
Kim held her breath, staring into the monitor as she watched Wade type. Hoping and praying...
"Confirmed!" Wade grinned, "part of the fleet is diverting to assist in rescue operations."
Releasing her breath in a massive exhalation, Kim smiled, and for the first time, her face revealed a hint of relief. "Thanks, Wade; I don't know what I'd do without..." she fell silent before she could complete the sentence, and the moment of relief vanished from her expression as quickly as it had appeared.
"I know, Kim. I know," he breathed. "Try not to worry; I'll keep you up to date as news comes in."
Kim nodded, a grimace that she had intended to be a smile briefly crossing her face as the Kimmunicator's video screen powered down. She sat back to wait for her pod to reach the surface, mentally ticking off every second that passed as she tried not to think about what might have happened to Ron - or could be happening to him even now.
The inside of the escape pod briefly flooded with light as it breached the surface. Kim shaded her eyes even as the pitching of the ovoid capsule submerged the small window in the vessel once more, sending the passengers back into darkness.
The familiar tones of the Kimmunicator caroled as the pod began to rock and sway with the motion of the ocean's waves as it bobbed up and down. "Go Wade," Kim announced. She had used the enforced waiting time while the craft slowly surfaced to regain a semblance of her composure, and her tears had dried.
Wade didn't comment on her composure (largely in hopes of helping her maintain it), or the reddened eyes that were the legacy of her tears; he simply brought her up to date on the rescue efforts, trying to be as calm, concise, and informative as possible. "The US Navy and GJ are cooperating in the search, but so far there's no sign of Ron. I've flagged your pod for retrieval, so hold tight..."
A solid thump from over Kim's head, and a brief jerk as the escape pod was forced partially underwater immediately followed his words. "What was that?" she asked.
"It's easier to collect the pods and move them to the collection point than to try to rescue the passengers at sea," Wade explained. "GJ hoverjets pick them up - yours, in this case - with a magnetic grappler, then deposit them on the deck of the carrier - amphibious assault ship, I should say." He paused to check one of his screens, then said, "You should be lifting right about..." he grinned briefly, "Now." With a lurch, Kim's pod rose from the ocean's surface, bobbing and swaying at the end of a cable and spinning slowly about as it rose into the air, trailing a cascade of water in its wake.
As her pod slowly rotated as the GJ hoverjet ferried her escape pod to the waiting rescue ship, Kim watched as best she could through the small window inset in the pressurized door, seeing a number of helicopters circling the seas, intermixed with the dark purple and black wedge shapes of hovering Global Justice aircraft. Rufus' head spun slowly about as he tried to watch everything at once as the pod rotated, until he finally fell over backwards, landing in Kim's lap with his eyes spinning. "Whoa," the naked mole rat stammered.
"Easy, Rufus," Kim soothed, stroking his protuberant pink belly with one hand as she watched a ship grow larger and larger each time the pod rotated enough to bring it into view. "Wade? How's the search going? Anything we can do?"
"They're doing the best they can, Kim," Wade informed her. "And they're trained to do this kind of thing. I'm working on something to look for Ron specifically if the conventional search doesn't work out, but it's complicated; I'll let you know if my idea pans out."
"Thanks, Wade. You continue to rock," Kim smiled sadly, the expression not reaching her eyes.
"Hang in there, Kim. We'll find him," Wade promised. His image flickered off as the pod was slowly lowered down onto the broad deck.
The jolt as the escape pod landed on the deck was minimal, but the scraping sound as the magnetic grappler disconnected and was retracted was very loud. Kim slowly breathed out, centering herself, as the door seal broke with a muted hiss and the pod's door slowly retracted.
Kim climbed out of the escape vehicle with the assistance of a pair of Marines. She absently noted her pod was one of a dozen or more that had been collected on the rear quarter of the ship. "I guess they've had some practice at the recovery procedure; no wonder that lift was so smooth." The guards politely gestured, and she obediently fell into step between them.
Her escort led her past a dispirited collection of henchmen in red and white uniforms sitting forlornly under the watchful eyes of heavily armed Marines while white-garbed medical personnel circulated among them, treating minor injuries. Kim's eyes narrowed as she frowned at them, and the ones who noticed her attention flinched.
A few of the prisoners were sodden; either from the escape from the base, or a later attempt to elude the rescuers. The Greek letters emblazoned on the chests of those prisoners were running - the seawater had leeched the dye so that the character smeared almost to illegibility. The sorry state of their uniforms matched the expression on all of their faces as they contemplated their future under the watchful eyes of the guards.
Kim turned away from the prisoners as she entered the superstructure of the vessel, and after climbing some stairs and wending her way through a few rooms, found herself in an operations center. She halted just inside the door, not wanting to interfere with any of the operators who were busily talking to the pilots searching the ocean, or monitoring the banks of sensors and scanners.
"Miss Possible?"
"Yes?" Kim asked, looking around for the source of the voice.
"Welcome aboard, ma'am. The admiral sends his compliments. I'm Captain Richards."
Kim smiled, and politely shook the extended hand. "Thank you for the assistance, Captain," she replied, her voice a little rough from breathing the oxygen-rich air of the escape capsule. "I passed your other 'guests' on the way. Do we have a tally on the rescue operation?"
"We've collected twenty-one so far. No officers, or at least none that are apparent; all were wearing the same uniform. If the briefing report this..." he paused to check a clipboard before continuing, "Wade Load sent us is accurate, we're still looking for a 'Gamma' and a 'Xi,' in addition to your partner and the 'mastermind' of the operation. We've got descriptions of him and your partner from one of the Global Justice agents on the scene, and of the missing men from the base based on preliminary interviews with the prisoners, so we've got a handle on the rest of the rescue operations.
"I understand you've met this 'Gemini' personally Miss Possible, correct?" the captain asked. At her nod, he continued, "Good; the description we have is somewhat generic - height, weight, hair color, and so on. I've sent a request to Global Justice HQ for more information on the leader of this... 'Whee' group, just in case he's trying to disguise himself as a common trooper, but we haven't received a response back yet."
"Gemini's pretty unique - and I didn't see him in the group I passed. Frankly, I'm surprised the description was so poor - but I can definitely help you with that, at least," Kim stated. Drawing the Kimmunicator from her pocket, she paged Wade, asking, "Can you bring up Gemini's file, Wade? The Captain has some concerns," when the monitor came to life.
Wade tapped a few keys, then reached behind him to flip a large toggle. "I can do better than that." From the red emitter near the top of the Kimmunicator, a hazy spray of light glowed into existence. As the emitter pulsed, a holographic image of Gemini crackled into life on the bridge of the vessel, the image frozen in time, showing the one-eyed villain in the act of raising his prosthetic hand to attack, as large as life.
"Meet Sheldon Director," Kim grinned, impressed as always by Wade's genius, and glad of the distraction as she gestured to the hologram. "AKA 'Gemini,' leader of the Worldwide Evil Empire. AKA Castor Nygma Pollux, AKA ... well, you get the idea. Last time I looked, I think he had about 30 or 40 aliases. His right hand is a cyber-robotic prosthetic, and contains a battery of missile launchers with a variety of ordinance, ranging from comical to lethal, and it is also capable of generating an intense electrical discharge. Like I said, he's fairly recognizable."
From his position in a side pocket of her cargo pants, Rufus chimed in, "Gemini. Un huh."
A strip of paper slowly emerged from the back of the Kimmunicator, the narrow ribbon lengthening until it dragged on the ground. "Here's his full rap sheet, Captain," Wade announced.
The captain accepted the printout as Kim tore it free and handed it to him. He glanced over the form, but his attention was mostly riveted to the hologram, which remained fairly stable even as Kim moved the Kimmunicator and set it on top of a nearby console. "Interesting; I didn't know the state of the art in holographics had advanced this far."
The image crackled, then faded into deresolution. "It hasn't," Wade confessed, "There's still more than a few bugs. It's still a useful feature, however."
Struck by a thought, Kim interrupted. "If Gemini's description was that poor... What kind of a description do you have for Ron? My partner," she queried.
Glancing at the clipboard, the captain casually read, "Height... weight... blonde hair, brown eyes, general air of buffoonery, vapid expression..."
"Vap..." Kim gritted her teeth and demanded, "And just who exactly gave you this... 'description' of Ron, Captain?"
The captain blinked curiously. "Like I said; one of the Global Justice operatives on the scene." He ran his finger across the clipboard, then added, "An agent... Du."
Kim's fragile control on her composure cracked. "You can tell Agent Will Du to take his vapid..." She visibly struggled to control herself, then finally bit out, "The only reason I'm here, and not with Ron right now, is because he pushed me into the only remaining escape pod and hit the launch button. So be sure to question Agent Du as to whether someone who would do that, or someone who didn't even think to mention the one eye and prosthetic hand when giving a description of Gemini, is closer to an 'air of buffoonery.'" With that, she stormed out, with Rufus' loud raspberry accompanying her.
The captain blinked as he watched her retreat. "Interesting," he noted.
"Very," Wade's voice piped from the Kimmunicator. "She didn't mention that before."
An apologetic half-smile graced the captain's face. "I have to admit, I didn't think to question the description. I'd seen her partner in some of the news reports about their exploits, and well, frankly, it seemed to fit with what I remembered."
"Ron has... hidden depths," Wade explained. "But that can wait. Tell me captain, do you have an ASW buoy handy?"
"Active, passive, sonic, electronic, acoustic...?" the captain trailed off, his expression curious.
"Active and electronic," Wade clarified. "I have an idea how to help locate Ron - but it will only work for Ron. If you connect the Kimmunicator to the buoy, I should be able to reconfigure it."
Weighing the Kimmunicator in his hand as he picked it up, Captain Richards asked curiously, "What did you have in mind?"
Kim scowled as she brusquely stomped past the prisoners once more. She cast a dubious eye across the motley lot, checking each one over, but as she had suspected, none was Gemini in disguise.
It was a trifle amusing the way the men flinched away from her when they were all much older, larger, and stronger, but it did nothing to dispel her foul mood. "I can't believe Will would still be like this..." she shook her head in disbelief as she walked away from the captives, the low growl emanating from her pants pocket showing that Rufus shared her opinions.
She found a spot out of the way of flight operations that still allowed her to look out over the ocean. She watched the hoverjets and helicopters circling as smaller boats and hovercraft trolled the surface, searching for the last few remaining missing men. "Ron..."
"Can you tell me just what it is that you're doing?" Captain Richards asked as he watched the telescoping probe that had sprouted from the blue-green device twitch from inside the depths of the buoy.
"I'm reconfiguring it to search a specific frequency for a return," Wade explained. "By narrowing the focus, I can also increase the power and range of the buoy's transmitter - which will help."
"So Ron had a device like this... 'Kimmunicator' on him that you can track?" the Captain asked curiously.
"No, this isn't going to look for a Kimmunicator," Wade replied, but didn't explain what it was looking for. "Even if he did have one, he'd have probably lost it by now. Anyway, once I'm done modifying this, it should be able to find him anywhere in the area. The problem would be if..."
"The dropoff to the west?" the captain noted, glancing at a topographical overlay of the local ocean floor that had been taped onto a nearby wall.
"Exactly. That sea cliff is steep, and even with my modifications, I don't think the buoy's signal would be able to penetrate that depth. But even if Ron were that deep..."
"It wouldn't be a rescue, it would be a recovery," the captain agreed.
"Yeah," Wade fell silent, and for a time, only the clacking of his keystrokes as he typed were heard.
Kim watched the controlled confusion of the search efforts as the sun sank ever lower in the sky. She felt a little ashamed of her outburst, but didn't really regret it. "Oh, Ron," she thought darkly. "How am I going to tell his folks?" she wondered as her mood darkened.
A swirl of activity, and the rapid approach of a small Zodiac cutting across the center of the search area (contrary to the usual movement of the search pattern) caught her attention. "What's going on?" Kim wondered aloud.
"Begging your pardon, ma'am," a Marine interrupted her. As she turned to face him, he explained, "The captain thought you should know - we've found someone who matches the description of your friend. He's being brought in now, and the captain thought you might like to meet him."
The swell of emotion that rolled through her was staggering. "Yes, please," Kim smiled, and the surge of hope that filled her was nearly blinding.
She followed the Marine to a docking station, where the Zodiac she had noticed previously was clearly bound. Kim stared at the craft as she waited impatiently, trying to see into it, but aside from the presence of a supine form surrounded by the wetsuited figures of the search party, she couldn't make out any details.
As the Zodiac was lifted onto the platform, Kim felt her heart race. The figure in the bottom of the craft, although still obscured, was clearly wearing Ron's wetsuit.
Barely able to restrain herself, Kim impatiently waited as the raft was hauled onto the platform and locked into place. As soon as the men aboard began to disembark, she forced her way through the press of bodies to kneel beside the prone figure.
Kim's heart immediately sank. "It's not Ron," she said aloud. Even though the transparent breath mask feeding him oxygen was fogged from respiration and condensation, obscuring his features, she knew it wasn't Ron.
Rufus emphatically nodded his agreement as he peered out of her pocket, his tiny claws gripping the fabric of her pants. "Not Ron. Not Ron."
She stepped back and watched as the medical personnel went to work, removing Ron's wetsuit from the small man. As they worked, she noticed something. "Wait - why are there two scuba tanks?" she asked one of the frogmen who had come in with the Zodiac.
"Can't say, ma'am," he answered. "He had both tanks with him when we found him."
Kim's heart sank even more. She watched the medical team cut the wetsuit from his body, revealing the pair of red and white pants that were far too large for the man's slight frame, that he had nonetheless worn beneath Ron's wetsuit.
Scowling, Kim knew she could at least unravel one of the mysteries. "Check his pockets," Kim ordered. "He'll have a ring in one."
"Please stay back. He needs to be prepped for a flight to the mainland," one of the doctors working on him protested even as he secured the man's limp arm to a backboard. "He's got the bends."
"Do it!" she barked, seething. There was no earthly reason for the man to have taken both Ron's and her own scuba tanks when he fled from the undersea base, but because he'd done so, he'd also eliminated two of Ron's few potential routes to safety - and the one she'd been most hopeful that he would have been able to reach.
Rather than waste time arguing, the man simply complied when he had finished securing the limb, and handed over the plain gold band he found before returning to his work. Kim held the ring up to the light, and as she expected, she saw the almost invisible circuitry that lined the interior - as well as the HenchCo logo.
Kim gave the ring to the Marine who had lead her to the docking platform. "It's a HenchCo muscle ring. Instant perfect physique. The captain should confiscate any that are on the other captives as well. It's not exactly a weapon, but it does give the wearer unnatural strength."
The Marine eyed the ring curiously. He made a move as if to put it on, but Kim stopped him.
"Check those pants," she instructed, pointing to the prone figure that was being prepped for his flight. "Unless you want to grow that much bigger, I wouldn't put it on. He couldn't fit in Ron's wetsuit while wearing it, so he must have taken off his ring so he could fit into it; you can see the difference that made." And the difference between the pants - even cinched closed as they were by a massively tightened belt - and his unimproved waist was indeed obvious.
Kim watched the team hustle the backboard the WEE henchman had been strapped to up to the flight deck for his trip to a decompression chamber, followed by her erstwhile escort, still eyeing the ring he held in one palm. She watched the frogmen launch the Zodiac again to return to the search, then dispiritedly climbed the stairs back up to the operations deck.
As she passed the captives once more, it was clear the guards had taken her instructions to heart. More than one potbelly was now in evidence, and rather than looking like a slumming Olympic weightlifting team, the sullen henchmen looked a lot less threatening - and even more dispirited.
Not even bothering to see if they would react to her presence again, Kim ignored the captives. She returned to her silent vigil, watching the ongoing search and rescue operations. Rufus moved about, trying to find a comfortable position in the unfamiliar pocket, but soon settled down.
The nearly silent landing and later vertical takeoff of a Global Justice hoverjet as it collected the WEE henchman suffering from decompression sickness she let pass without comment. She simply watched it go as it shrank into the distance.
Kim scowled ferociously as her mood darkened still further, her head turning to follow the course of the hoverjet's retreat - and that of the injured henchman it contained. As she watched, she tried to think of a possible way - any possible way - that Ron could have escaped from the self-destructing base without the aid of their own equipment, or the missing escape pods, and kept drawing a blank. "He has to have survived. Somehow," she tried to convince herself, but her mood remained grim.
"Done!" Wade breathed a sigh of relief as the probes and connections withdrew from the casing of the buoy and retracted back into the Kimmunicator. The screen on the device briefly flashed as it broadcast a subsonic signal, and the buoy's case obediently closed, sealing the interior inside the protective shell.
"Good," the captain acknowledged. "It will be dark soon, and SAR operations in the dark are a lot more challenging than daylight operations."
"Launch the buoy near the center of the search area, please, and I'll be able to monitor the returns through the Kimmunicator," Wade instructed. "If Ron's anywhere nearby, we'll know."
Left unmentioned was what no response would mean - either Ron was out of range (and consequently unrecoverable), or the chip the buoy was modified to detect had been damaged severely enough to be unresponsive. And since the chip was embedded in Ron's neck... Wade didn't want to think about either outcome.
The captain gestured, and an orderly obediently carried the buoy towards the flight deck. "Three more people to find," he noted, mostly to himself, as he turned to look out an observation window at the deck of his vessel, and the ongoing search mission beyond. "And most likely only two. At this point, I think we have to concede that 'Gemini' has escaped."
"How's Kim doing?" Wade asked. "I was sorry to hear it wasn't Ron you found."
"As well as can be expected," the captain answered. "I thought it best to leave her in peace; my men are keeping a discrete eye on her, though."
Wade remained silent as the captain read a report an ensign handed him. As the captain shook his head in dismay, Wade raised a curious eyebrow as he took a sip of soda.
"Wade?" the captain asked carefully as he handed the report back to the waiting ensign. "Do you know Ron's shoe size?"
"I don't know offhand; I can find out." He raised a confused eyebrow. "Why?"
"The divers have recovered... A part of... It's... Well, to be blunt, we found a leg," the captain finished somewhat awkwardly, mindful of the boy's actual age, despite his mental maturity. "Human, left, from mid-thigh down. It's approximately the right size for a male of Ron's general height, and from the lack of decomposition, and the lack of clothing, the most likely..."
"I'll see if the Middleton Medical Center has his baby footprints on file for comparison," Wade interrupted as his fingers blurred on a keyboard. "In the meantime, please launch that buoy. But..." he fell silent, then eventually added, "Let's... not mention this to Kim until we know for sure."
"Agreed," the captain nodded grimly.
As the sun sank beneath the waves, the small craft and helicopters slowly returned to their home berths. Kim watched the GJ hoverjets land one by one atop the assault carrier briefly to refuel, and to collect the WEE prisoners. When they took off, they retreated into the distance rather than returning to station over the surrounding ocean.
In the dying light, Kim slowly returned to the operations room, barely noticing the Marine that shadowed her. As she entered, she overheard Wade talking to the captain.
"... there's been no sign of a contact from the buoy, and if he was within a hundred miles of here - within a survivable ocean depth, anyway - there would have been something. Either his body went over that cliff, or the base explosion... What did the autopsy on that leg they recovered determine?"
"It was bitten off," the captain said bluntly, and concisely. "But the doctor think it could have been postmortem. We can hope, anyway. No word yet on the baby prints?"
"Not yet; records as old as R... Kim!" Wade interrupted himself as he noticed the new arrival.
The captain visibly straightened his posture as his face assumed a comforting and professional mein. "Miss Possible; good. Dr. Director has arranged a flight home for you."
Kim nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
"I've sent the information about how to monitor the buoy returns, Captain," Wade added. "The battery should be good for a few more hours yet. If you find anything at all, please contact GJ immediately; they know how to get hold of me. Thank you for all the help."
"Glad to," Captain Richards answered. "Hopefully we'll have some better news for you."
"Thank you, Captain," Kim replied, but it was clear from her voice that she didn't retain much hope. "Sorry I haven't been a... better guest."
"It's perfectly understandable," the captain smiled understandingly, his expression sympathetic.
"If you'll follow me, ma'am?" the Marine who had been shadowing Kim prompted.
Kim nodded, and pocketed the Kimmunicator as Wade broke the connection. She followed the Marine back down to the flight deck, and to the hoverjet that awaited her.
As she strapped herself into one of the passenger seats, she vaguely wondered if the choice of someone other than Will Du as her pilot was deliberate, but she decided she didn't really care. She was simply grateful that she didn't have to face him - yet. "He should be grateful for that, too."
Once Kim was seated and settled, the pilot, a woman wearing sunglasses (that Kim suspected were just as gimmicked as the ones Wade had once made for her), lifted into the air with a roar from the engines. The pilot seemed disinclined to talk, another fact Kim was grateful for.
Kim settled in for the long flight home, trying to think of what she could possibly say to Ron's folks that would make the news she had to deliver any easier. "Ron's a hero, but that will be cold comfort at best."
On the far side of the world, a police dispatcher answered a call. "911 Emergency; how can we assist you?"
"I'm sorry to bother you," a faded but still energetic voice answered, "and I don't know if it's an emergency but..."
"How can we help you, ma'am?" the dispatcher patiently prompted.
"I hate to be a burden," the woman continued, "but the dogs are going crazy around here. They're barking up a storm, and even my Miss Purrsworth is hissing something awful. I live alone, and I'm afraid..."
"Not to worry, ma'am," the dispatcher soothed the elderly caller as she double checked the address that had automatically appeared on her screen when the call was routed to her, then began typing an incident report. "There's a patrol car in the area, and we're sending it to investigate."
"Oh, thank you. I don't like to make a fuss, but they've been barking, and barking, and barking for over an hour now - even Mr. McCaffery's little Puggsly is making a frightful racket, and he's just the sweetest little thing you've ever seen. He wouldn't bark at a fly..."
