Chapter 12: Heaven help a Jupiter's Child

"... so Mr. Barkin was all like, 'You haven't even begun to redeem yourself for all your transgressions and violations of school and district policy,' and I was like, 'I know you like the book and all, but it's like Lo, the Plow Shall Till the Soil of Redemption all over again. I mean, The Infiltration and Deception Manual doesn't even talk about ventilation systems. How can I write a book report about a guide that's so lame it doesn't even talk about HVAC?' And he was..."

"Ron, shush and focus," Kim hissed over her shoulder. "Mr. Barkin can wait."

Ron coughed. "K.P.," he began carefully, his voice calm and composed, "we're crawling through a ventilation duct... and you're in front of me. If you want me to focus, I will, but I'll have to focus on the only thing I can see - which is your b..."

"Don't even think about finishing that sentence," Kim ordered crossly, her muscles unconsciously tightening - shrinking certain unnamed portions of her anatomy as the musculature compressed.

"...boots," Ron grinned in the semidarkness as his eyes met Kim's through the arch formed by her kneeling body. Despite the dim illumination of the conduit and the shadows cast by her shoulders and limbs, he could see the disapproving scowl on her face, but was unphased by it.

He arched his own back while shifting his shoulders in an attempt to ease the tension that the effort of crawling through the close quarters of the conduits had generated. Doing so brought his face close to Kim's booted feet, and the organic tunnel her posture created. "'Made in Hollywood, USA,'" he read the small tag on the bottom of her left boot aloud, enunciating each word slowly and carefully - as though providing proof of his focus.

Kim snorted in a mix of amusement and irritation as Ron lifted his head away from her boot. "Never mind. Just..." she began, then fell silent as she abandoned the thought of reining him in as a lost cause. "You can't leash the Mad Dog when he's in this kind of mood."

She shifted her gaze away from him, back to the passage ahead, and resumed crawling forward. Despite (or because of) Ron's joking about her... boots, Kim unconsciously adjusted her posture to minimize her body's angle and lower her back - among other parts of her anatomy - and hide as much of herself as she could behind the shield of her boots.

"Fine. Do whatever you want," she commented over her shoulder as she crawled. "Keep talking. Let them know we're here. Just remind me to show you my boot really closely after we get home." Kim loftily ignored Ron's quiet chuckle as they proceeded through the dusty vent, and Ron fell into a good-natured silence as he trailed after her.

The underground lair Team Possible was infiltrating was huge, and the ventilation system was of necessity just as complicated. "Complexity" unfortunately, was not necessarily a synonym of "interesting," and the long conduits, and the unchanging matte grey vistas they encountered as they proceeded, quickly palled. "I shouldn't have told Ron to be quiet. This is boring."

As she turned to crawl into the leftmost branch at a fork in the conduit, Kim finally succumbed to the monotony of their mode of travel and broke the silence. "So Mr. Barkin's still not letting you out of detention?" she asked, reiterating the pertinent information from Ron's earlier monologue. "Why not? It's already been what...? Three weeks now?"

"Nope, I'm still in detention, and it's been four weeks," Ron confirmed, wisely not calling Kim on her change in position on the issue. "He has a stopwatch and he's logging every second I'm seated in detention - not just in the room, but seated. 'It doesn't count otherwise,' he says. And he won't even tell me how long I have left to go before I'm free either."

"That doesn't seem fair," Kim coughed as her hands stirred up a cloud of dust from a drift that had accumulated on the lip of a structural support.

"Tell me about it," Ron waved one hand frantically in front of his face, sending the dust cloud Kim had raised swirling, but not appreciably clearing the air. "And any time I so much as breathe funny he tacks on more time - and writes it down in a notebook so he won't forget. If he has his way, I'll be spending a semester of summer school just serving detention at this rate." When he realized that Kim had hurried on, he quickly continued after her retreating figure, leaving the dust filled section behind.

They continued on until Kim paused as the floor of the conduit she was crawling atop suddenly flexed, caving in slightly with a dull crump as the metal gave beneath her weight. She quickly adjusted her position to accommodate the weakness, widening her stance to spread her weight over a greater area. "Watch it through here," she ordered. "Remember to keep your weight only on the joints, where the supports and braces are, and not the center part of the panels."

"Like I don't know how to do this?" Ron protested. "K.P., How many lairs have we been in? A lot, right? And in how many of those have we gone in through the vents?"

"He does have a point," Kim admitted to herself, but she reinforced her instructions nonetheless. "Fine, just be careful," she reiterated. "And keep your voice down. We should be getting close." Kim cautiously resumed her forward motion, and she could hear Ron following closely after.

The sudden thump as a conduit panel fell away from the duct work behind her was almost completely unexpected. Kim covered her face with one gloved hand as she came to a stop. "Ron?" she asked, her eyes closed beneath the shield of her palm.

"Uh... Yes, K.P.?" he hesitantly answered.

"You did put your weight on the joints, didn't you?"

Ron chuckled nervously. "Um... I slipped?" he answered sheepishly.

In the ensuing silence, the clattering of the conduit panelling crashing against the stone floor far beneath the duct work reverberated loudly. Through the hole the fallen piece's absence created, a faint sound of distant voices could be heard - presumably guards being dispatched to investigate the racket.

"So much for sneaking in," Kim muttered under her breath. "About four seconds to fall... 9.8 meters per second squared..." she swiftly calculated. "Cake walk."

"Sorry, K.P." Ron mumbled, feeling more disappointed in himself than Kim did.

Reaching into a side pocket, Kim pulled out a red mechanism that had once been a hair dryer. "No big - we'll deal, just like always. Now turn around," she ordered.

Ron edged backward, but the quarters were too tight for him to adjust his position enough to truly reverse course in the claustrophobic conduit. Experience told him what Kim intended, however, and so he tried to accommodate her needs despite the cramped quarters. "How's this?" he asked apologetically, holding himself spreadeagled above the rectangular hole in the conduit's floor, elbows and knees straight, pressing his back against the ceiling to maximize clearance.

"That'll do," Kim nodded to herself. She backed up to the lip of the gap, no more able to turn around than Ron had been, scraping her knees across the crimped seams in the duct, then cautiously edged further backwards until she was positioned in the narrow gap between Ron's body and the hole in the floor.

She aimed her grappling gun with one hand, while her free hand and her booted feet held her safely braced above the opening. Thumbing the release on the pistol grip, Kim shot the barbed hooks of the gun's grapnel through the thin metal of the conduit, making it bite into the volcanic rockface the ventilation system had been mounted to. She tugged briefly on the braided black line, testing the connection, and found it to be secure.

Kim clipped the grappling gun onto the parachute harness she wore over her usual mission clothes, a legacy of their HALO jump into the rainforest surrounding the extinct volcano, then adjusted the gun's settings so that it would function as both a descender and a belay device. "Wade, you so rock."

Using her teeth, Kim pulled her gloves move securely onto her hands - first one, then the other. She kept her weight distributed to at least three points at all times to minimize the possibility of another structural failure, and despite some creaking, the remainder of the ductwork remained stable.

A sudden droplet of moisture splashing onto the back of her neck caused Kim to look over her shoulder. Ron's face was tightened into a look of intense concentration, and sweat was beading on his brow as he held himself braced above both Kim and the yawning abyss beneath the hole in the ventilation system he'd accidentally made. "It's no big, Ron," Kim reassured him. "You've done this hundreds of times. Just relax, and hold on tight," she instructed, "and we'll be down before you know it."

"You got it, K.P." Ron agreed, his expression much less sanguine than his cavalier tone. Still, despite his visible nervousness, he obeyed her instructions, slowly shifting his grip and his weight until he was holding onto Kim for dear life, and she was supporting both their weight. "Ready," he finally whispered, interlocking his hands to strengthen his grip.

With a grin and a rush of adrenaline that she secretly felt was one of the best parts of going on a mission ("Adrena Lynn, eat your heart out."), Kim abruptly slipped her feet free of the bracing on the edge of the opening, letting the pair's combined weight swing the lower half of their bodies down into the gap in the conduit. Almost perfectly coincidental with the shift in their orientation, Kim drew her arms in close to her body, trapping and squeezing Ron's arms tightly against the sides of her torso. Freed of all support, they plunged feet first through the opening with a low whir from the cable spool in the grappling gun - and a short, sharp ripping sound.

"Oh, man," Ron's irritated whisper was loud in Kim's ear as his limbs tightened involuntarily.

Kim giggled as they dropped through the gloom, enjoying the breeze on her face, the warmth of friction as the swiftly extending line slid through her gloves, and the gentle burn of her muscles as she supported both herself and Ron as he clung to her while they descended. "He's such a baby about freefall. How can anyone not love doing this?" "Lose your pants again?" she teased.

"Nah, it just feels like I tore the seat. Again." Ron mumbled his explanation into her hair, keeping his eyes squeezed tightly shut as he tried to ignore both the sensation of falling and the rush of air into the new opening in his clothing as his stomach roiled with unease.

The spool of wire inside the grappling gun whirred as it played out, and Team Possible fell in a barely controlled drop towards the cavern floor. Suddenly, and with a jolt that caused Ron's arms to tighten convulsively around Kim's chest, the whir of the mechanism deepened in tone and the rate of descent began to slow. With a faint whine, they alighted on the rough-hewn stone floor of the cavern beside the bent and battered section of fallen conduit panel.

Kim laughed quietly as she ejected the spent line from the grappling gun, and slotted in a replacement spool of cable before securing a new grapnel with a practiced twist. "Nailed the dismount," she gloated. "That totally rocked."

"Yeah, fun," Ron muttered. Now that they were safely on the ground, his stomach was rapidly regaining its equilibrium, but he still felt a bit unsteady on his feet. He kept his eyes closed as he concentrated on evening his breathing.

After twirling the recharged grappling gun like a gunfighter, Kim casually restored it to its usual resting place in a side pocket of her cargo pants. "Ron?"

"Yeah, K.P.?"

"We're on the ground. You can let go now."

"I knew that," Ron sheepishly commented, releasing his death grip as he opened his eyes and glanced around, taking in the unadorned stone walls of the corridor. "I was just being... focused."

"Good boy," she jokingly praised. "Keep it up." Reaching over her shoulder, Kim pulled a lipstick from a side pocket of her backpack. After removing the cap and twisting the base, she aimed the ruby crystal that had sprouted from within the innocuous casing and squeezed once.

The flash of lambently coherent light was brilliant in the gloom. A streak of glowing crimson shot from the faux cosmetic dispenser towards the ceiling with a buzz of superheated air trailing in its wake. "You might want to step back," Kim noted, even as she followed her own recommendations.

Ron glanced up in confusion, then jumped back with a muffled yelp. From out of the darkness overhead, a severed loop of their discarded cable slapped against the rock floor, the trailing length lashing the air as it fell.

Covering his head protectively with his arms, Ron waited until the sizzling whisper of the falling line could no longer be heard, then cautiously peeked around his elbow. Across the puddled heap of severed cord, Kim was looking up into the shadowed expanse of the distant ceiling - and the ductwork the shadows concealed - with an expression of satisfaction.

"Got it on the first shot," she smiled proudly at Ron as she stowed the laser lipstick back in her pack. "And you can't see what's left because of the lighting in here. Hopefully the guards will think the conduit falling was accidental - it should buy us some time, anyway. Pick up the cable, and we'll get moving again."

At her gesture, Ron obediently picked up the cable, wincing as his injudicious fingers felt the lingering heat at the severed end - a legacy of the laser blast that had melted through the fibers. Ron rapidly coiled the cable around his arm, twining it through his hand and around his elbow to form rough loops. When the process was complete, he stowed the coil in Kim's backpack, tucking it behind her history homework as she impatiently waited for him to complete the task.

Kim glanced to the fallen piece of conduit, then looked up once more to double check the inconspicuousness of what remained of their cable. "Good enough. Now let's find Drakken... and we should hurry, before any guards get here."

Together the pair proceeded up the tunnel, deeper into the lair, leaving the camouflaged traces of their presence behind.

xxXXxx

Kim eased slowly down the corridor, her back pressed against the rough textured wall. "Lava tunnel I guess... feels like he hasn't fixed it up much either. Which means either Drakken's not planning to stay here long, or he's just moved in and hasn't gotten around to polishing off the rough edges."

She paused, flattening herself as best she could, as she neared an archway built from a trio of curved steel I-beams. Tilting her head forward, she peered around the entryway's frame as Ron sidled cautiously up behind her.

"Bingo," Kim grinned to herself, as she spied the heart of the lair inside the cyclopean chamber. The massive cavern beyond the archway - what had once been the caldera of the defunct volcano before being enclosed - was clearly the home of Drakken's latest scheme.

Although the complex only occupied a third of the colossal cavern, steel constructs - catwalks, platforms, gantries, banks of lights, serviceways and ramps - had been installed to subdivide the vast expanse of the cavern into more usable, functional space. The catwalks formed a web interconnecting the components of the multi-tiered complex, as well as providing access to the tunnel openings that gaped from various locations and heights along the cavern wall. At the center of the massive steel web, ominously crouched like a spider as it squatted atop an elevated platform, lurked a massive energy cannon, the barrel of the weapon aimed vertically, towards the shadowed and distant roof of the chamber.

"Death ray," Kim whispered to Ron, nudging him with an elbow to get his attention. She pointed to the weapon as he crouched beside her. At his nod, she shifted her finger's aim, pointing across the cavern to a prefabricated steel platform that had been bolted to the wall. A pair of red-clad henchmen lounged in front of a set of flatscreen monitors, one displaying a diagram of the cannon, while the other appeared to show a mix of text and multicolored geometric shapes. "And the control room."

"Shego!" Ron whispered intently back, pointing towards the cannon.

Kim's brow furrowed as she sighted along Ron's finger. "Where is she?" "Gotcha," she finally whispered back. The villainess had been almost invisible as she leaned against the cannon's undercarriage filing her gloves' claws, thanks to her similarly colored and patterned jumpsuit.

Piqued by missing Shego - camouflaged or not - Kim quickly scanned the rest of the chamber, searching for any other surprises as she counted henchmen. "I see twelve plus Shego," she whispered.

"Usual plan? Distraction time?" Ron whispered back.

"Not yet," Kim answered. "I don't see Drakken."

Ron nodded and moved back, further from the entryway. "You know, you've got to give props to Drakken," Ron quietly said. "No matter how many times you beat him, he never gives up."

"That's not something we want to encourage, Ron," Kim pointed out as her eyes continued to rove over the cavern, mapping the catwalks and identifying the locations of all possible entrances, exits, elevators, henchmen, and access routes in preparation for making her move. "We want him to stop the whole 'take over the world' thing. Remember?"

"True, but hey, credit where credit's due." Ron slipped to the opposite side of the connecting tunnel and pressed his back to the wall, hiding behind the steel archway. Flanking the tunnel, they watched the villainous gathering and waited for just the right moment to intervene.

xxXXxx

With a low rumble, the elevated platform housing the cannon began to sink. Shego slipped her file into a pocket in her jumpsuit and walked to the edge of the platform, her expression twisting into an interesting cross between bored and exasperated.

"I see it," Ron commented quietly, before Kim could say anything.

"Not just that; Drakken must be coming. Look at Shego," Kim instructed.

Ron smiled at the look of insolent insouciance on the green woman's face. "Mr. Barkin would throw me in detention for a year if I looked at him like that," he said admiringly.

Kim's expression didn't change, but Ron sensed her amusement at his observation. They continued to watch, content to wait for just the right moment.

xxXXxx

From a tunnel mouth at ground level, a blue-skinned man stalked into the chamber. A gloating grin glowed on his scarred face, and in his hands he lovingly cradled a cylindrical object.

"They didn't steal the Pan Dimensional Vortex Inducer again did they?" Kim gasped in disbelief.

"What took you so long?" Shego called over to Drakken, the acoustics in the chamber bringing her words clearly to the heroes' ears.

"I was called away," Drakken answered her as he neared the platform, mumbling irritably to himself. "Remind me to complain to the contractor about the vents. I know it was a rush job, but that's no excuse for shoddy craftsmanship."

"You get what you pay for," Shego retorted, clearly bored with the conversation.

Drakken stepped onto the central platform, and as he opened an access panel on the side of the evil device, the angle of the weapon's barrel began to sink as the platform began to rise. Soon, the platform had returned to its former position, and the cylinder the mad scientist was carrying was revealed.

"Ok, so it's not the Inducer," Kim breathed a little easier as she realized the cylinder was decorated - unlike the plain casing of the Pan Dimensional Vortex Inducer. "Unless they've redecorated it since the last time it was stolen," she worried. "Not that they did after any of the other times, but maybe..."

Kim's eyes widened as Drakken slowly turned the cylinder, screwing it into a socket in the base of the weapon. As it rotated, the markings were revealed: first a radiation warning sigil... then a biohazard symbol... and finally a picture of Drakken's scowling face above block, capital letters warning : "MINE". "That can't be good."

xxXXxx

Doctor Drakken looked up at the gleaming shape of his latest diabolical creation and bit back the urge to laugh maniacally as he closed the access panel, hiding the deadly cylinder he'd added to the weapon behind the innocuous protective shielding. "Now that the evil majesty of my molecular discombobulator has been infused with the primal force of annihilation that is my atomic projector, the world will have no other choice than to bow down before me!" he proclaimed, shaking one fist in the air in triumph.

xxXXxx

Kim couldn't have asked for a better moment to announce her presence. "Took him long enough. He's usually quicker at feeding me a straight line." "I don't think so," she called out.

The blue-skinned mad scientist spun about, searching for the lackey who had dared to contradict him while he was gloating, interrupting his moment of glory. "Who said that? Shego!" he barked.

"Wasn't me, boss," the green-skinned woman denied. "Based on past experience, I'd have to say it was most likely..."

"Kim Possible!" Dr. Drakken shouted, pointing towards his teen-aged nemesis as she suddenly appeared, standing on a gantry far overhead. "Impossible! How could she have found us?"

"That's what happens when you steal stuff," Kim informed him, her smile plain even atop her distant perch. "People track you down. Haven't you learned that by now?"

"Told you we shouldn't have stolen that crystal thingy," Shego muttered out of the side of her mouth, igniting her hands into glowing life. "You should have just built one of your own."

"Oh, please. Like it's that easy. I'd like to see you try to build a focusing crystal capable of withstanding the raw, primal power of my atomic projector. Annealing the mounting brackets alone would take..."

"Complain later," Shego barked as she jumped to the top of the cannon, her boots flexing as she landed atop the curved barrel. "It's time to take out the trash."

"Careful, Shego! Aligning the radiant fins is a delicate process!" Drakken protested, waving his arms wildly in emphasis. He winced as her feet trod carelessly on the carefully positioned mechanisms.

Ignoring her employer (as she so often did), Shego leaped from her new vantage to a catwalk along the edge of the cavern. She paused as she regained her balance after the jump, then ran up the sloping path, heading for the smirking cheerleader, leaving twin contrails of glowing plasma in her wake as flickering energy dripped from her clawed gloves.

"She never listens," Drakken muttered under his breath. Leaning over a railing he yelled at the minions clustered below - uniformly goggling at the two females as they charged towards their latest confrontation. "Don't just stand there! What do I pay you for, anyway? Get her!"

Chastised, the henchmen scrambled to obey. With a swirl of activity, the red clad lackeys rushed about, seeking a way to reach the fight - or at least to appear that they were doing so - but mostly not accomplishing much.

xxXXxx

With the villains either locked in combat with Kim (specifically Shego) or standing around watching the fight (everyone else), Ron made his move. He tiptoed around the perimeter of the chamber, the catwalk creaking beneath his boots, until he reached the ramp leading up to the control room Kim had pointed out to him earlier.

Even though the villains were distracted by Kim's fight, Ron was frankly amazed that he made it to his target undetected. "Yamanouchi 1, Bad guys, 0." As Kim cartwheeled away from a flurry of plasma-enhanced punches, Ron tiptoed up the ramp to the control room, and found the henchmen had deserted it to join their fellows in watching the fight. "Time to do what I do best."

Ron reached into a pocket and pulled out his faithful companion. "Up and at 'em, Rufus," he whispered, waking the naked mole rat from one of his frequent daily naps. "We've got a job to do."

The naked mole rat stretched, yawning hugely. After scratching his belly with one claw, he flashed a quick thumbs up at Ron, showing his readiness.

"Here's the situation," Ron instructed quietly. "We've got one laser cannon with two control panels, both with lots of blinking lights, levers and buttons - precision engineering at its finest. Lets break 'em both," he grinned in anticipation.

Rufus chittered his agreement with the plan, and climbed into the bowels of one of the consoles. From the depths of the machine, intermittent chomping sounds, fizzles of electrical discharges, and the squeal of metal grinding against metal quickly emerged.

Ron turned to the other console and began to randomly press buttons, throw levers, and turn dials. He read a handwritten warning label mounted below one knob: "Caution: Do not turn past 4." He immediately turned it to 11.

High overhead, Shego leaped from a derrick, then leapfrogged over a sconce. She slid beneath a flying kick, then vaulted to a catwalk at a lower level before returning to the fray. Despite himself, Ron found himself joining Drakken's henchmen in watching the fight; the sheer athleticism of the conflict as Kim fought Shego - displayed by both combatants - was enthralling.

With a sharp pop and a smell of ozone, the blinking lights on Rufus' console abruptly went out. From a small gap in the casing, the pink animal staggered out of the sabotaged machine, covered in ash, and with the tips of his whiskers smoking.

"Way to go, Rufus!" Ron praised. His cheer turned into a pained grunt as he suddenly crashed to the diamond-plate floor of the control room, a heavy weight pressed atop him.

Ron blinked, finding himself nose to nose with Shego, her body pressing down on his. He licked his lips nervously as he stared at her perfectly symmetrical face, her flawless, creamy green complexion, the smooth arch of her cheekbones, the bold slant of her brows... the cold emerald of her eyes.

"She's awake!" The realization brought Ron's silent observations to a screeching halt.

"You know," he told her seriously, as she straightened, pressing down on his sternum for leverage with one hand as she rose. As she knelt above him, straddling his stomach, he added, "I love your skin. I don't know what it is, but there's just something about..."

Ron yelped and scrambled backward, sliding out from underneath the villainess as her right hand began to glow with plasma flame. The hand that had been on his chest curled as it slid down his body, bringing glittering highlights to the razor edges of her claws, but thankfully, that hand didn't ignite, nor did she dig in with the talons.

"Say one word about me being 'hot,'" Shego snorted derisively at the flinching sidekick, waving her flaming hand, "and I swear I'll geld you."

Ron continued to crab-walk backwards until his back was pressed against a support pylon - as far from her as he could go in the small room. "Not a word," he promised, his eyes wide as he stared up the length of Shego's body into her eyes. "I'll still think it though."

Shego rose to her feet, and dismissively turned her back on the buffoon. She ignited her other hand, surrounding it with a matching aura of green plasma, then jumped out of the control room. Pushing off with one leg from atop the smoking console Rufus had sabotaged, she leaped back to the top of Drakken's death ray in the center of the cavern.

"Hey, Kimmie," she called out, "your boytoy just tried to hit on me," Shego smirked as she watched Kim's face, trying to gauge her reaction to the taunt.

"He's not my boyfriend," Kim retorted.

Shego was disappointed that Kim didn't show more of a reaction to the dig. "Sure you're not just a little jealous?" Shego's smirk grew wider, and a hum of amused speculation began to rise from the loitering henchmen below.

"So not; we're just friends," Kim shot back. "Besides, even if we were, I have no reason to be jealous. I know what his 'dream girl' looks like - and she's a lot more like me than you," Kim returned Shego's smirk with interest as she posed on the edge of a catwalk. "His 'dream girl' looks like me - even if she does have your build and coloration. But then, there's no accounting for taste."

Shego blinked, and the plasma sheathing her hands winked out, so great was her surprise. "He actually told you something like that?" Shaking her head, she mumbled under her breath, "Kids today... no sense of propriety..." before adding "You talk about stuff like that, and you still say he's not your boyfriend...?" she demanded in a louder voice.

Kim snorted at the expression on Shego's face. She crouched, her unconsciously graceful pose leonine - or leopardine - as she jumped to the pulley assembly at the end of a crane mounted above the death ray. "It wasn't like I asked him," she explained. "He was sort of talking in his sleep. I guess it's kind of flattering if you think about it - in a sick, twisted sort of way. But then, Ron is a guy - he can't really help it."

Shego snorted, but didn't dispute the characterization. "Pervert," she mumbled, scowling at Ron where he peeked around a stanchion.

Glancing over the edge of the platform to the watching minions below, Shego couldn't tell whether the henchmen had overheard the tail end of the conversation or not. Not that it mattered; they weren't doing anything constructive. They were simply standing around watching her fight with Kim - and from the expressions on their faces, they were enjoying the fight just a little too much. Shaking her head in disgust, Shego growled, "Idiots," and flung a blast of green plasma into the thickest concentration of them, scattering them like a flushed covey of quail. "I'm surrounded by idiots and perverts," she snarled.

Kim chuckled. "Aren't they on your side?"

"They're supposed to be," Shego growled, her attention split between her opponent and the henchmen. "Why aren't you doing something?" she barked, sending them scrambling once more.

Kim grinned as Shego's expression darkened as the henchmen fell all over themselves trying to escape from Shego's wrath, rather than helping her with the intruder. Kim rose to her feet as Shego snarled and leaped to the attack once more.

Ron peered around the edge of the support, watching Shego and Kim as they leaped nimbly around the cavern, using catwalks, cranes, gantries and Drakken's new weapon as jumping off points as they fought for position and advantage. "You can do it, Kim!" he called out encouragingly.

A sizzling bolt of green plasma abruptly smacked into the support Ron was hiding behind. "Gah!" Ron leaped away from the smoking crater and scuttled back across the control room.

Ron's blind scramble brought him to the edge of the platform near the ramp - where there was no safety fence - and before he could realize the danger, he overbalanced and slipped over the edge. Crying, "Kim!" he fell to the cavern floor, landing in an awkward parachutist's tumble that saved his legs from fracturing, but left him sprawled indelicately on the stone floor.

Unnoticed, Rufus ran down the ramp leading from the control room. He wended his way invisibly along the catwalks, seeking a way down to Ron.

xxXXxx

Shego paused atop the cannon, catching her breath as Kim knelt on a catwalk, peering down at her fallen friend. "Ron, you ok?" Kim called.

"He's better than you're about to be," Dr. Drakken's sneering voice caught both Kim and Shego by surprise. In the heat of the fight, they'd almost forgotten he was there.

As they turned, the mad scientist fiddled with a pair of joysticks mounted to the back of the cannon, aiming the barrel directly at his nemesis. Shego pinwheeled her arms, sliding down the barrel of the weapon as it moved beneath her. "Watch it!" she yelled, coming to a stop near the breech.

Kim crouched, readying herself to dodge. "Ron?" she called again, not daring to turn her eyes from the muzzle of the massive weapon, watching for any indication it was about to fire.

"I'm okay," he coughed. "Kind of," Ron amended, as he climbed to his feet, only to find himself surrounded by grinning red- suited henchmen. The smiles grew broader as they drew shock sticks from their belts.

Drakken laughed and pulled a lever. "You won't be for long..." he chortled. "Prepare to be discombobulated!"

As the lever sank into firing position, a harsh burst of crimson light erupted from a monitor in the control room Ron had abandoned. The words "Overload Warning!" flashed on the screen, bathing part of the cavern in a ruddy light as a klaxon began to echo through the chamber.

"Wha...?" Drakken began, glancing around as his hands fell away from the controls.

With a grinding of gears and the slow whimper of a flywheel coming to a halt, the cavern was abruptly enveloped in total darkness. In the chthonic night, Drakken's growl of maddened frustration echoed magnificently. "Stop! Nobody move!" he commanded. "The power's out."

"You think so? What was your first clue?" a male voice echoed in the cavern.

Kim chuckled. "That was one of Drakken's henchmen."

"I heard that!" Drakken snarled. "And I'm docking your pay! I don't take lip from my lackeys. Shego! Get the emergency power."

"On it, boss," she acknowledged.

In the total darkness under the earth beneath the hollow core of the dead volcano, a flare of green came to life as Shego raised a hand...

And Ron began to scream.

xxXXxx

Shego glanced down from her perch, but the light from her hand was insufficient to pierce the depth of the darkness. "Stoppable?" she called curiously as the screams continued.

"Ron!" Kim called from somewhere above Shego.

Neither call had any effect on the panicked cries and screams. "Eyes in the dark! Eyes in the dark! Eyes in the dark!" rang out, the panicked tones filled with a primordial terror.

In the pool of darkness below her, tiny pinpricks of blue light appeared as the frightened henchmen activated their shock sticks. But as quickly as they appeared, they began to wink out. The flickering movements of the puny lights were hypnotic as they danced in the darkness like fireflies - and were as ephemeral. One by one, they winked out - as quickly as they had appeared they were quenched.

The sound of thumps, groans, and crashes began to filter out of the darkness in a savage accompaniment to the unending screams that dopplered around the cavern. "Boss?" Shego called, seeking direction.

"Forget them! Just get the lights!" Drakken's frightened bellow was nearly drowned out by a swiftly muffled cry of pain and a horrid, wet splintering noise.

"Right," Shego ignited her other hand, and bathed in the green glow of her innate plasma, jumped up to a catwalk. She hurried to an inconspicuous metal panel inset into the cavern wall, and tore the door from it's hinges with a squeal of tortured metal.

A booming crash erupted from the darkness, swiftly followed by another. "Hurry, Shego!" Drakken ordered, more than a hint of panic in his voice.

Shego doused one hand, then reached into the panel's heart to throw the old-fashioned toggle it concealed. With a whine as the backup generator rumbled into life, light slowly returned to the underground chamber.

Another round of booming crashes erupted, undeterred by the illumination. Ron's screaming stopped as the light returned, and in the silence of his cries' aftermath, the strange booms echoed even louder.

Hurrying back to the edge of the catwalk, Shego looked down. "What the...?" she began in astonishment, her eyes widening in shock.

Scattered across the cavern floor lay the bent and broken bodies of Drakken's henchmen. Their shock sticks lay beside them, abandoned where they'd fallen - having proved worthless as protection against whatever had taken them out.

Shego jumped down two levels to the central elevated platform, landing in a crouch beside the frightened form of her boss. "What happened?" she demanded, her eyes wide as she turned from the grim spectacle to face her employer.

"Ron!" Kim's cry echoed through the cavern as she jumped down. She landed beside Shego, then jumped down to the floor after a barely perceptible pause to regain her balance.

Shego moved to follow the teen, but Drakken's hand on her shoulder stopped her in her tracks. She snarled as she turned on him, one clawed hand rising menacingly, but the expression on his face brought her up short again.

Drakken pointed, his finger shaking uncontrollably, and Shego ducked her head to follow the indicated line of sight. The colossal main entrance to the cavern - a door 12 feet high and nearly 20 feet wide - was bowed out at the center. A massive concavity had been formed, the indentation such that it appeared a titan's fist had punched the metal.

Her eyebrows rising, Shego whistled soundlessly. "What did that?" she demanded.

"Ron!" Kim called again.

There was a flicker of movement, and another boom echoed through the cavern. Shego squinted, and realized that a slight figure stood by the door, and was the source of the sounds... and the indentation. "Stoppable?" she breathed in disbelief.

xxxXXXxxx

Kim jumped over the prone bodies, largely ignoring them once she realized they were merely unconscious rather than dead. After seeing the awkward positioning of some of the limbs - some were bent at unnatural angles, indicating broken bones or dislocated joints - she had briefly feared the worst.

"Ron?" she breathed as she neared the damaged door, and the figure crouched before it. "Are you okay?"

The figure glanced over his shoulder, and Kim blanched. Ron's eyes were wide, his pupils blown, and he was shaking - either with fear or rage, it was impossible to tell. He was mumbling to himself, but too quietly to be understood. "I haven't seen him like this since Florida..."

Ron lifted his arms, revealing the twisted, mutilated remains of the shock sticks he carried - obviously commandeered from the henchmen, and much the worse for wear. He paused with the sticks raised, then with an animalistic grunt of effort, swung them against the door. A booming crash erupted from the tortured metal, and the indentation developed a lopsided bulge as a new mark melded with the old.

He paused, then looked down at the rough edged stumps of the weapons in his hands. The sticks he wielded had snapped at the force of the final blow, sending the sizzling and malfunctioning heads flying randomly across the cavern. He gazed uncomprehendingly at the remnants of his weapons, his pupils pulsing as he gazed without seeing.

Kim edged closer as Ron dropped the broken sticks, and realized he hadn't fallen silent - he was still repeating what he'd been screaming earlier, mumbling "Eyes in the dark," over and over again. "What does that mean?" she wondered.

"Ron?" she asked cautiously, reaching out to him. As her hand touched his shoulder, he spun, and his fist crashed against her cheek, knocking her violently to the floor.

xxXXxx

"Incredible!" Drakken breathed, staring as Ron's punch knocked Kim back. "I wouldn't have believed it was possible, but the sidekick actually took down Kim Possible..." A look of rapture grew on his face as he thought aloud, "If I can get a sample of the buffoon's DNA, I can..."

"NO!" Shego barked, the finality of the command undeniable. "No cloning. Not ever," she ordered. "Not me, not you, not Kimmie, and not the sidekick."

Drakken scowled, but reluctantly nodded. "Very well," he agreed. "I suppose if he's willing to turn on his best friend, his clones wouldn't make a very dutiful army, anyway," he groused.

"Do you think the rumor's true?" Shego asked after a pause as she watched Ron sink to his knees beside Kim's prone form.

"What rumor?" Drakken asked distractedly. He was too caught up in watching Kim as she sat up and hesitantly reached for her slumping sidekick again - more cautiously this time - to really focus on Shego's words.

"The one about Stoppable and WEE. I wouldn't have thought even Gemini would have the nerve to try something that twisted, but..." she trailed off, and gestured silently to the two teens.

"Hmm," Drakken scowled. "Perhaps so. Global Justice has been unusually... dedicated in their pursuit of WEE lately, and..." he too gestured silently toward the two teens, as though Kim's fallen position were evidence enough. "Definitely poor supervillain form if it is true."

Shego snorted. "Says the man who wanted a clone army."

"I'm a mad scientist. It's what I do," Drakken calmly pointed out, unphased by her mild sarcasm - he was used to far worse from her.

"So what do we do now?" Shego asked, glancing away from the duo. "The lackeys are down - not that they were good for much anyway - and Kimmie and the sidekick will eventually remember we're still here."

"I had hoped Global Justice would be so distracted by WEE, they'd ignore my efforts entirely," Drakken admitted. "But perhaps I miscalculated."

"You didn't; they were. But you forgot they've still got Kimmie to do their dirty work for them."

Drakken growled at the evident truth of that. "No matter." He turned and opened the rear access panel on his weapon. He unscrewed the cylindrical shape of his atomic projector from its socket, and handed it to his sidekick to carry. "Come, Shego. This plan is foiled. But my next one will be far superior, and we will succeed - my global conquest is inevitable."

Drakken smirked as he hopped from the platform, crossing a small gap and landing on a catwalk. "In the mean time," he called over his shoulder, "you can help me think of a suitable 'thank you' present to send to Gemini. After all, we really must express our appreciation for his transformation of the buffoonish sidekick into an unstoppable killing machine."

Shego grinned; the idea sounded very appealing - and entertaining. "You got it boss. Maybe something to match his explosive personality? Or possibly something that would provide a pointed lesson? Or so shocking it'll make him lose his head?" she chuckled. "I can't wait to see what you come up with."

She followed him up a ramp and into the tunnel leading to his flying saucer's hanger, abandoning the fallen henchmen to their fate, but carrying the seed of their next scheme along with her.

xxXXxx

Ron's eyes widened in horror as the sound of his hand striking his friend reverberated in his ears. The shock of the blow - the emotional shock more than the physical - snapping him back to himself more profoundly than anything else possibly could have.

"K.P.?" he whispered. But Kim remained silent, her body lying prone and still on the stony floor beside the broken fragments of the henchmen's shock sticks.

As Ron's eyes dropped away from her prone form, his vision blurred as tears arose. As he lifted a hand to wipe the salt droplets away, his gaze alighted on a smear of crimson across the side of his fist.

"no..." Ron breathed, the color draining from his face as he stared at his friend's blood on his hands. He lifted his quavering hands, staring at the stain that trumpeted his betrayal as thoroughly as the mark of Cain.

His lungs heaving, Ron sank to his knees before Kim's body. He stared at the blood on his hands, his heart racing faster and faster.

"I killed her," he whispered. Ron's face fell as he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to shut out the horror of what he had done. The attempt was futile; visions of Kim's bloodstained body flickered before his mind's eye.

Her desecrated corpse smiled up at him, her grin a morbid rictus as she leered from her splayed position. "No," he whispered, shaking his head.

"Ron," Kim gurgled, the name bubbling ghoulishly as it leaked from a wound in her throat. As she sat up, she pulled a knife out of her heart, her skin licking across the golden blade with an eerie slurp, reluctant to release its grip on the weapon that had been embedded in her flesh, as she drew it inch by inch from her body.

"No..." Ron panted desperately, unable to force his body to move. Despite his wild desire to flee, and the surging adrenaline pumping through his veins, he could only stare at Kim's visibly decaying corpse as it reached out with cold, claw- like fingers.

"RON!"

xxxXXXxxx

"Ow," Kim winced as she sat up, lifting herself from the stony floor. She rubbed her aching cheekbone with one hand, then scowled as a burning from the corner of her mouth made itself known. She wasn't really surprised to find a streak of blood on the back of her hand as she lowered it. "Split my lip."

Kim stuck her tongue from the side of her mouth, feeling at the cut with the tip. "No big," she realized, even though it stung. Shaking her head, Kim shifted her attention away from her injuries, and towards the source of them.

"Ron?" she asked cautiously. Ron knelt nearby, his hands cupping the air, fingers pointing upwards toward his lowered face. Kim blinked as Ron didn't move, making no sign that he had heard her.

She tentatively reached out, but not even her touch to his shoulder brought him out of his daze. "Ron?" she asked again, louder this time.

"I'm so sorry, K.P." Ron breathed inaudibly, not looking up from his stained hands. "I didn't mean... I killed you," he concluded hopelessly.

Kim cupped his cheeks and lifted Ron's face, physically turning his gaze to meet hers. Ron's eyes were closed, his brow furrowed, and his skin was pale and bloodless, blanched by self- loathing to the point of translucence.

"Ron!" Kim barked, but without response or reaction from him. "RON!"

xxxXXXxxx

Peering over the edge of what looked to be the edge of an enormous cliff from his diminutive perspective, Rufus watched Ron fearfully. Despite everything Kim was doing, Ron remained unresponsive.

The maze of catwalks he'd attempted to navigate had proven confusing and ill-suited for a naked mole rat. With Ron incapacitated, Rufus abandoned the attempt to follow the conventional path, in favor of a more direct - if unconventional - route.

Rufus edged determinedly over the side of a catwalk, dangling over a fall many times his own length, and began to rock himself back and forth, his tail whipping as he slowly built up speed. When he had sufficient momentum, he flipped acrobatically through the air, rotating whiskers over tail in three perfect 360 degree rotations before catching himself on a power cable leading up to one of the lights mounted high above the cavern floor.

Sliding down the cable, Rufus let go just before the cable looped and sank into the wall, taking to the air once more. The leap was smaller, but brought him to a hydraulic line leading to the central elevated platform and the cannon it supported.

After spinning around the line with one clawed hand, Rufus let his weight draw him down. Using his tail as an improvised brake, he controlled his rapid plunge, then leaped once more to a support stanchion. Disdaining another jump, Rufus wrapped himself around the strut and slid the final few feet to the cavern floor.

Ordinarily Rufus would have celebrated his acrobatic success - he was much like his "father" Ron in that respect - as he landed on the back of an unconscious henchman with bows, waves, and considering the complexity, probably a loud "ta-da!" to boot. Given Ron's fugue and the lack of appreciative witnesses, however, he reluctantly forwent the opportunity.

Scampering across the unconscious bodies of Drakken's lackeys, Rufus finally reached Kim and Ron. "Wha-oh," he uttered, looking up into Ron's face.

xxxXXXxxx

"Wake up Ron," Kim pleaded, cradling Ron's bloodless cheeks between her hands. "Please..."

Kim glanced to the side as she felt a faint touch on her shoulder but when she turned to look, there was nothing there. She turned back to Ron and blinked at the sight of Rufus perched on Ron's shoulder.

Rufus was chittering wildly, a constant stream of naked mole rat that Kim found incomprehensible. "And here I bragged that I understand him so well..." she thought distantly.

Rufus ducked under Kim's hands and wrapped himself around Ron's neck, still unleashing a stream of dialogue that she couldn't begin to understand. To her surprise, Ron showed a reaction to it - after he'd proven unresponsive to anything she had said or done.

"Rufus?" Ron breathed.

"Ron!" Kim and Rufus joyfully responded.

"I killed her," Ron whispered.

"No!" Kim insisted. "I'm right here, remember? It was just a dream!"

Ron blinked, and for the first time, seemed to acknowledge her presence. "K.P.?"

"Yes," Kim breathed. "Are you okay?"

"I thought I killed you..."

"No, Ron. Think... remember... Look at me; I'm here, and okay," Kim ordered.

Rufus chimed in with his agreement, "Uh huh, uh huh."

Ron abruptly moved, and before Kim realized his intent, he had entwined himself around her, embracing her and hugging her as thoroughly as Rufus had done to Ron's neck. "K.P. ... You're alive..." he whispered in her ear. "You're warm," he breathed reverently, as though that were the most amazing thing.

Kim squirmed her shoulders, awkwardly disentangling her arms. Once they were free, she patted Ron on the back. "It's okay, Ron." "I guess it's his turn to do the 'touchy' thing for a while," she grinned in amusement.

She rose to her feet, and Ron reluctantly did the same, but kept himself wrapped around her. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, and showed no signs of releasing her.

Drawing out her Kimmunicator, Kim pressed the red button to page Wade. She rolled her shoulders, freeing one arm from the knot Ron had made of their limbs, and held the machine at arm's length as she waited for the boy to reply.

"Hey Kim, how'd..." Wade trailed off as he received an eyeful of their embrace - Rufus on Ron, and Ron on Kim in turn. "Anything I should know?" he asked, his voice torn between teasing and weirded out by what he could see.

"Flashback," Kim answered succinctly.

"Oh," Wade replied, his expression and voice evening out. "Everything... okay?"

"It is now," Kim sighed.

Wade nodded slowly, unsure whether the response had been truthful, or merely hopeful. "So... how'd the mission go?"

"Mission successful," Kim noted, turning the Kimmunicator so that Wade could see the death ray - with the stolen focusing crystal still in place - and the fallen minions, who remained unconscious. "It seems like it's been hours since the lights went out, but in reality it's just been minutes." "But it looks like Drakken and Shego got away." Kim was distantly grateful they had fled instead of attacking while Ron was so out of it.

"Now, we need a ride," Kim added, "then a pickup by GJ for the henchmen. Some need medical attention, but none of the injuries I've seen are life threatening."

A steady tapping of keys came from the Kimmunicator's speakers as Wade's fingers began to type on one of his keyboards. "There's not that many favors due in the region," Wade noted. "Can you catch a ride from GJ when they come to collect?"

Kim frowned, before slowly, cautiously, replying, "No... I think we should get back to school ASAP." Hurriedly she elaborated, "Ron needs to get back. Mr. Barkin's been coming down on him pretty thoroughly." "We don't need to trouble GJ with Ron again - and vice versa." she thought, but didn't speak her reservations aloud.

Wade slowly nodded, and Kim wondered how much of her unspoken thoughts he had picked up on. If he had any doubts, he didn't speak of them; instead he simply acknowledged her decision, "Gotcha."

"And now... might not be the best time for a parachute jump," Kim awkwardly explained, gesturing with her chin towards the blonde lump attached to her.

Rufus chittered his agreement from Ron's neck, peering around Ron's ear to see the Kimmunicator.

"Definitely." Wade paused to type on his keyboard, then said, "I'll have a ride for you by the south face of the volcano in less than 30."

"Thanks Wade," Kim smiled sadly.

"No big, Kim," Wade flashed a thumbs up, then terminated the connection.

"Let's go, Ron," Kim ordered as she stowed the Kimmunicator. Ron was reluctant to release her, but she eventually disengaged his grasp, save for her left hand, which he held tightly with his right.

Kim led the silent and pale Ron carefully out of the lair, her efforts cheered on by Rufus.

XxxXXXxxX

In any school other than Middleton High, the landing of an Apache attack helicopter (AH-64D) in the faculty parking lot would have inspired a rush of interest and a variety of gawkers, no matter the hour. At Middleton, a school long since grown inured to advanced technology, unusual modes of transport, and general weirdness, it barely inspired a ripple of interest even among those still in attendance after school was technically over for the day.

"Thanks for the ride!" Kim called over her shoulder as she drew Ron along after her. They paused near the cafeteria entrance as the rotors on the helicopter returned to speed. As it took once more to the air, they entered the school, Kim still pulling Ron along by the hand.

"Greetings, knave, sprite-kin," a female voice called out as they entered.

Kim paused, and smiled at Zita. Her smile widened as Ron smiled as well - virtually the first reaction he'd voluntarily shown since he'd come out of his fugue state. "Hi, Zita," she answered, over Ron's quiet, "Hola."

Zita paused, taking in their postures and Ron's odd expression. "You guys okay? Ron looks paler than Malcolm after a weekend in an immersion cap."

"Weird mission. We're good, though," Kim explained. She smiled a bit as Ron nodded, the motion accompanied by a tighter squeeze to her hand.

Zita glanced back and forth between the two. "So what's up with the hand holding? You two finally hook up?"

"So not," Kim shot back, but didn't release her grip on his hand. "Ron's just..."

"I thought she was dead," Ron answered quietly - which was both true, and utterly misleading. "I thought I killed her, and her corpse was going to kill me as revenge." He gripped tighter, feeling the softness of living, undecayed tissue under his fingertips, and the warmth of life she exuded. "It... helps."

"Ouch," Ron's ex winced, and her expression grew sympathetic. "Makes me glad Malcolm's hobbies are a little less dangerous these days."

"Keeping him on the straight and narrow?" Kim asked.

Zita's smirk was almost menacing. "You know it."

"Uh, K.P. ... Mr. B... Stopwatch?" Ron hesitantly interrupted.

"I know," Kim answered. "Sorry, Zita... We have to go. Mr. Barkin has Ron on almost as short a leash as yours is on Malcolm."

"Better run along then," she smirked. "I'm not letting him slip his leash again, and I bet Mr. Barkin feels the same way with Ron." She waved goodbye as she headed out the door.

"That is one weird mental picture - and one I could have done without." Kim's tension eased as Ron released his grip on her hand as the door closed behind Zita. As it clicked shut, he began to move ahead, hurrying towards detention. "Um, Ron?" she called after him. "You do remember that you tore your pants?"

Ron simply shrugged. "So? I'd rather not waste time changing them. Every tick on Mr. B's stopwatch counts."

As Ron hurried into room 12 and slid into his seat, Kim was startled to see Mr. Barkin clicking a button on a hand held stopwatch. "I thought Ron was kidding about that."

"Possible," Mr. Barkin growled as she entered and moved to sit beside Ron. "I don't remember giving you detention. Lately."

"I'm just here as moral support," she explained, claiming a seat beside Ron. "Ron's had kind of a tough day."

Kim was surprised to see that the room was empty aside from the three of them - but Mr. Barkin had still lingered here after hours, apparently just in case Ron returned from the mission in time to serve his detention. She found herself unsure whether to find his dedication praiseworthy for the unbelievable devotion it reflected, or disturbing in its obsessive single-mindedness. "Most likely, its both."

Mr. Barkin strode over to Ron's desk, looming menacingly over him for a time. After a small eternity, as Ron's eyes grew increasingly larger in his pale face, his gaze shifted to Ron's neck - and the naked mole rat perched on his shoulder. After another long contemplative pause, he slowly nodded. "Very well. So long as you keep him on task, I'll allow it."

"Thanks, Mr. Barkin," Ron smiled, albeit a trifle unsteadily.

"Don't thank me yet, Stoppable. I need to step out, and when I return you'd best have your nose to the grindstone. I'd hate to have to have to add a notation about more detention to your records..."

"Of course not, Mr. B," Ron insisted, a bit of animation returning to his face. "You know her motto. K.P. can do anything - even 'keep me on task.'"

"For your sake, let's hope so," he growled. "Now get to work!" he barked.

Kim and Ron hurriedly dug through their backpacks, assembling the necessary books and papers. Although neither had taken their full panoply of work along on the mission, by pooling their materials, they managed to gather enough to cover the majority of their classes, and encompass the bulk of their homework. They quickly began studying - Kim rather pointedly correcting Ron when he began moving off on an unrelated tangent.

Mr. Barkin nodded his reluctant approval of Kim's dedication, before stalking from the room. "I'll be back," he promised.

As soon as Mr. Barkin had left, Ron immediately leaned back in his chair and would have relaxed, had Kim not forcibly kept him on track. "At least he's getting back to normal," she noted, with a mix of fondness and irritation.

xxxXXXxxx

Hurrying through the deserted corridors of Middleton High, Mr. Barkin was relieved that there were no witnesses to his unseemly haste. Despite the remote possibility of being seen, he still felt the situation warranted the speed.

As he neared a door, he paused, glancing around to verify he was alone. Removing a keyring from his belt, he unlocked the door and slipped inside, then double checked that it had locked behind him.

After verifying the faculty lounge was as deserted as the corridor outside, Mr. Barkin opened his wallet and withdrew a laminated business card. He turned it over, revealing the hand written number on the back. After taking a deep breath to firm his resolve he lifted the phone receiver, and dialed the number.

"Yes... Hello? Yes, Doctor. This is Steve Barkin. From Middleton High. Sorry to call so late, but you had asked... Yes. Yes. Ron Stoppable. How soon can you...? Friday? Excellent. Thank you."

xxxXXXxxx

To be continued...