Notes: The opening part of another potential story. There's a little prelude to potential future Kim-Ron, a little nudity, innuendo, double entendres, and some voyeuristic elements, but nothing really bad.
The opening section of a story tentatively named, "Ron Factor Found." This part doesn't include spoilers for the main plot.
Summary: Kim & Dr. Director watch a naked Ron in the shower - but it's not (entirely) what you think.
Kim waved goodbye to Tara as she walked out of the Middleton High gymnasium after practice. It had gone well, even with Ron stuck in detention for not turning in the extra homework he'd earned for not turning in the extra homework of the night before soon enough.
"Mr. Barkin is definitely taking this extra homework thing way too far with Ron," she thought, stepping to the side as a freshman on his skateboard zoomed by. "On the other hand... I can't really argue with the results." Ron was so terrified of having even more piled on him that he was actually doing the homework.
She hid a small grin at the thought as she turned a corner, passing the nearly empty bike rack near a side entrance. She was still grinning, remembering the serious face Ron had worn while infiltrating the school's ventilation system while trying to get the assignment turned in (despite the impossible deadline) when the ground beneath her feet opened up and she dropped off the face of the Earth.
"Oh, come on!" Kim called out as the transparent capsule she found herself trapped within began to accelerate. She was less panicked than she'd been the first time she had been shanghaied by the Global Justice transport network, but she still found it disorienting and disturbing.
"Not exactly your typical amusement park ride," she winced to herself as the capsule made an inexplicable loop-de- loop. As the bottom of the capsule began to stream flame up the transparent walls, reaching as high as her waist, Kim wondered at how the transport system worked, the mechanism for locomotion, how fast she was really going, why she didn't feel any heat as the flames rose ever higher around the cylindrical shell, and most importantly... "Why can't Dr. Director ever just call me?"
The cylindrical pod came to a halt with a jarring lurch that rocked Kim on her heels, even though she was expecting it. As the doors to both the capsule and the tube system swung open in harmony, she immediately staggered through the opening, and entered the hidden Global Justice base.
"Welcome back to GJ, Kimberly Possible," Dr. Director intoned, her lips curving into a smile.
"Thanks," Kim replied sardonically, running her fingers through her hair as a makeshift comb. "You really know how to make an invitation."
The older woman's grin widened, and she gestured Kim to follow as she turned and walked out of the transport room. "My apologies for the lack of forewarning, but frankly I was just too excited to wait, and I just knew that you would be, too."
"Really?" Kim wondered aloud, her head swiveling back and forth as she walked, trying to see everything there was to see. They were passing through a section of the base she didn't remember seeing on any of her previous visits, and she found the hum of activity as GJ operatives went about their duties to be enthralling.
Dr. Director opened a door and gestured Kim through, then followed her in. "Please, take a seat."
Kim glanced around the room they'd entered, and realized it was either a small auditorium, or a large briefing room with tiered stadium seating. She selected a seat in the center of the first row and watched Dr. Director as she strode to the front and center and picked up a small remote control from atop a lectern.
"One of our top scientists," Dr. Director began, trying in vain to hide the enthusiasm that was constantly threatening to bubble over, "was going over some of our surveillance footage - footage from our 'Ron Factor' project."
Raising an eyebrow, Kim somehow managed to suppress the first half dozen things that immediately came to mind to say in response. She limited herself to a carefully neutral, "Oh?"
"Yes," Dr. Director responded, her sole eye alight. "He watched it over and over, because something seemed... off, but he could never place what it was. At first we thought... well, we thought it was something else, but then we noticed the same thing. Let me show you," she continued, pressing a button on the remote.
The lights obediently dimmed, and a projector hidden somewhere in the rear of the room brightened to life. After a short view of a blue screen with of a series of project numbers, identification marks, time stamps, and location codes, an image of a bank of lockers appeared in gigantic scale on the wall above Dr. Director's head.
"When the project was active," Dr. Director continued, "we didn't realize what we'd recorded. We assumed it was all a titanic failure; a complete waste of a whole lot of federal research dollars." Her smile was visible on her profile as she half-turned her face and stared up at the projected image. "But we were wrong."
On the wall above her head, Ron Stoppable walked into view in front of the locker, wearing his familiar red jersey and tan cargo pants. "What we had..." Dr. Director's grin broadened as she continued to watch, "was marvelous. Miraculous."
Ron's image drew his jersey and turtleneck over his head in one motion, leaving his torso bare. Kim's eyes widened as Ron opened the locker and stowed his shirts, then started to unbuckle his belt.
"Dr. Director," Kim began, unable to believe her eyes as the film continued to play out, "What...?"
"Keep watching," Dr. Director instructed, turning away from the display for a moment. Her eye gleamed as she added, "You'll see for yourself, shortly."
"That's what I'm afraid of," Kim mumbled. She kept watching, despite her misgivings, as he methodically removed his pants then stowed them carefully ("Probably so he won't wake Rufus," she thought) but closed her eyes as Ron's hands gripped the waistband of his pink boxer shorts.
"The exciting part is coming right here," Dr. Director breathed reverently, her eye riveted to the projection.
Kim's face flushed a brilliant crimson, and despite herself, her eyes opened. "Yep, he's naked," she noted, quickly closing her eyes again. "And he's a boy."
"Pay particular attention to the way he moves," Dr. Director instructed, her eyes riveted to the movie, not noticing Kim had closed her eyes. "You'll see shortly why it is so significant."
Kim squeezed her eyes even more tightly closed. "He's naked," she protested.
"Yes... It's the best footage we captured," Dr. Director answered offhandedly. "I was pleased when I saw it - there's no clothing to interfere with the camera's recording, so it eliminated a great deal of uncertainty in our analysis."
"But he's naked," Kim repeated with emphasis.
Dr. Director waved a hand dismissively, "He signed a waiver. Now, if you look here," she continued, unconcerned - unaware of the reasoning, even - with Kim's protest.
Kim's eyes slowly opened, and was immediately confronted with a monumental vision of Ron-ness spread across the vast expanse of the auditorium wall. "This is some sort of divine punishment, right?" she asked herself. "Karmic payback for changing my clothes in front of him all those times?" Despite herself and her nervousness, she was becoming... a little interested as she watched.
She often found it hard to think of Ron as a boy, despite the Moodulator incident, Drakken's Mind-Swap machine, and a thousand lesser events over the years. "He's not really a boy, he's... Ron. Who I used to take baths with. My best friend since Pre-K. The ballerina to my cowboy. He's something... entirely different than a boy."
Even her father was so used to thinking of the two of them as a set, rather than their component parts (so to speak) that it had taken her wearing the little black dress - she'd been dressed not just to the nines, but dressed to stalk, kill, stuff, ("eat and mount", a little voice insisted on adding in her head), and display the prey she'd bagged like a trophy on the mantle ("or a ring finger," that little voice interjected again) when she was done to boot - before he'd ever thought to give Ron the "Black Hole" lecture.
Now, in full color, and in a massive display that was impossible to ignore just by virtue of its sheer magnitude, she was forced to face a simple truth. "Ron isn't just Ron, he's also definitely a guy." Kim didn't know whether to be angry, upset, or thankful towards Dr. Director for forcing her to face this moment of enlightenment, but she knew without a doubt that she'd never be able to look at Ron in quite the same way again.
"... you can see that he's entirely naked, which removes both clothing, and its interaction with his skin from the equation, which simplified the math enormously."
"It certainly does that," Kim squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. She felt unaccountably warm as she watched him, and his movements, as instructed.
Ron was obviously unaware of the surveillance, and since he thought he was alone, he was completely open and unashamed of his nudity as he stowed the last of his clothing in the locker. He looked relaxed, and from the small smile on his face, he looked to not have a care or concern in the world.
Many times - although not often when Kim herself was directly involved (or directed to her, anyway - they knew each other too well for that to work effectively) - Ron would present a face to the world that he thought would make other people like him, want him, accept him, praise him, or whatever other goal he desired. He'd tried it with a bad boy persona, a new haircut, the Mad Dog routine, and dozens of other times.
He donned them effortlessly... For a time. Maintaining them... That was another matter entirely.
Here, thinking himself unobserved, she was able to see him as he behaved without the need to don those masks or assume those personas - either with anyone else, or with her. The fact that he was still so Ron-like - just like he was when he was alone with her - was almost a surprise.
Kim found it to be oddly reassuring, despite the blush in her cheeks as she watched him. She had always thought Ron was at his best, and most natural - free of pretensions and airs - when he was with her, but now she had proof of that - of sorts.
"Not that watching him take off his clothes and goof around while stripping is much of a proof," she admitted to herself. "I just wish I knew why Dr. Director wanted me to watch this. He's so... naked. Uninhibited. Even more than usual."
Ron collected a towel from a stack at the end of the bank of lockers, but thinking himself alone, he didn't bother to wrap it around himself. He moved out of the camera range for a moment, but then the view shifted to another camera, one that watched him retreat down a row of lockers.
Kim's blush deepened as she watched his backside wiggle as he walked, and she found her gaze drawn to a dimple she hadn't known he possessed. "That's adorable..." When she remembered she was watching Ron, her blush deepened further. "Good thing Drakken's pollen's long since worn off, or I'd be completely gone by now."
"What was that?" Dr. Director asked curiously, turning away from the playback.
"Nothing," Kim stammered, feeling her cheeks flush brighter. "I so didn't mean to say that out loud."
"Hmm," Dr. Director's eye narrowed curiously, but she turned back to watch the screen. "You understand of course, that the original holographic footage has been rendered down to two dimensions for this compilation, which will affect the perspectives a bit."
"Of course," Kim agreed blandly. "Note to self: Holo-Ron. Suggested birthday gift. Start hinting."
"Ah," Dr. Director interrupted Kim's naughty thought. "We're getting to the best part." The camera angle shifted again, to one looking out of the back of the locker room's shower area.
Kim blinked, as a sudden thought occurred to her that had been nagging at the back of her mind, but had been overshadowed by the sheer overwhelming ... Ron-ness of what she'd been watching. "Dr. Director, why do you have so many cameras in the boys' locker room at school?"
"It's not just the locker room, Kimberly. While the Ron Factor project was in progress, we recorded quite literally everything Ron did, everywhere he went, everyone he met, until Sheldon interfered," Dr. Director explained, pausing the playback with Ron about to step into the shower room, having deposited his towel on a nearby bench.
"The bathroom? The locker room?" Kim asked. "The bedroom?"
"Certainly. But don't worry; it was a relatively simple matter to digitally remove all irrelevant subjects from the recordings, while still retaining the necessary parameters for proper computer analysis."
"Is this legal?" Kim wondered aloud, staring up at the screen, and the naked Ron plastered across it. She felt confused on a number of levels, and the amorality of the voyeurism was beginning to overwhelm her embarrassment. "It seems ferociously unethical - not to mention the fact that he is underage."
Dr. Director smiled politely - and mysteriously. "We have the necessary authorizations," she answered, but didn't explain what had been required.
Kim's eyes narrowed. For a moment, she wondered about what else Dr. Director had received authorization for. "Who else has seen this?"
"No one without clearance," GJ's commander explained easily. Before Kim could express further reservations, Dr. Director resumed the playback.
"Now, watch this," Dr. Director instructed. Ron stepped into the shower room (which looked a great deal like the girls', Kim noticed, aside from the color of the tile). He took two steps into the room, then slipped and fell onto his back. "You see?" she demanded, her eye alight.
"Ron fell," Kim shrugged. "Not exactly a new occurrence, even if the naked part is different."
"Yes, but did you see why he fell?" Dr. Director asked.
"Wet tile?" Kim guessed. "Or maybe just his Ron-ness. He is kind of clumsy," she explained apologetically, looking away from the screen as Ron slowly climbed to his feet, rubbing his rear end with one hand.
Dr. Director stopped the playback, and nodded in acceptance of Kim's analysis. "You might expect so, given the raw footage. But something didn't look right, so we did some additional examination of the evidence."
"No wonder there were so many federal dollars wasted," Kim thought.
"To start, we built this virtual model of Ronald," Dr. Director explained, as she started another projector. At first, both projectors ran at the same time, rendering neither's output visible, but as she shut down the first, the image of the new one sprang into focus, revealing...
"A skeleton?"
"Ron's skeleton to be exact," Dr. Director nodded. "Based on the scans we made of his body, and the surveillance footage, we were able to generate his internals - down to the deepest levels. We also procured some security footage from the Middleton Space Center which greatly facilitated this part of the process; thanks to that information, it was more a matter of properly aging and enlarging his bone structure to fit his current size than deriving all the minuscule details from scratch.
"Once we had the skeleton built, we added the ligaments, musculature, circulatory systems," Dr. Director droned on, listing the various components of a human's anatomy, and on the screen, Ron's flesh grew atop his bones, "using first the average values for American males of his phenotype, then comparing the results to our surveillance footage to check the accuracy, adjusting them where necessary.
"At first we had some problems integrating our baseline scans into this process - the clothing issue I mentioned before. Fortunately, we were able to procure identical articles of all of his clothing - from a single source, oddly enough - which simplified the process of digitally removing them from the scans."
"Smarty-mart," Kim mumbled under her breath.
"Exactly. And it was a surprisingly affordable part of the process."
"It figures."
The image on screen was now an identical match for the photographic surveillance videos; they had duplicated Ron digitally, down to the smallest hair - it briefly zoomed in to display what might have been the beginnings of a pimple or possibly an extrusion from a hair follicle on his chin as proof of that fact.
Rotating, the image now showed Ron's body from all angles and perspectives as the limbs began to move, demonstrating both range of motion exercises, and his normal mannerisms - with the computer simulation side by side with clips of video as evidentiary support for their accuracy. Kim had to admit that it looked very, very close; it even appeared to match his easygoing devil-may-care attitude.
"Next," Dr. Director continued, "we replicated the shower room."
A much simpler process was illustrated, starting from a simple wireframe diagram of the room, and ending with a simulation that looked very close to the original.
"The tile color's too uniform," Kim noted, more to say something than to offer a true critique - it was frankly astounding the level of detail and precision that GJ had gone to just because Ron had slipped in the shower. "How much did they spend on this?"
"We were economizing on the rendering," Dr. Director admitted. "We had to cash in some favors to Foggy Bottom and Langley as it was to get the analyses done on a timely basis. But the friction coefficients, surface mapping, and every other aspect of the room that we could think of has been accounted for, and perfectly replicated in the simulation. We used a laser scanner to double check the dimensions, and measured every background characteristic we could think of to incorporate into the simulation."
"Okay," Kim replied, her brow furrowing. "That explains why the boys' locker room was closed for a week. The bigger question is why?"
"Watch..." Dr. Director replied, animation returning to her features. On the screen, Ron's digital model was suddenly in the shower room, posed precisely as Ron had been before his slip and fall.
"We did an analysis on the surveillance footage," Dr. Director explained. "From every angle, taking every possible factor into account..."
The perspective zoomed in until Ron's lower half filled the screen.
"Then we incorporated our data on Ronald's range of motion, reflexes, musculature, and everything else. This was then plotted in this thrust vector analysis and force measurement plot."
Kim blushed at the odd emphasis Dr. Director had placed on the word "thrust" while looking at Ron's... lower half, feeling silly and juvenile even as her cheeks crimsoned. "Okay," she repeated. "And?"
The image on screen zoomed in further, to Ron's lower right leg. "When we added these vectors," and they appeared on screen, resulting in a bewildering array of multicolored arrows, shadings, arcs, and lines that all but obscured the digital leg, "this is the result. Then we ran the simulation."
The perspective shifted back to the entire shower room. Ron walked into the room, then the motion stopped.
"Okay," Kim began, her brow furrowing. "He walked. So?"
"So he didn't slip!" Dr. Director announced proudly. Her eye gleamed as she stepped through the beam from the projector and pointed for emphasis. "We ran the results dozens of times. Double checked all the inputs, characteristics, and analyses. We fixed a score of minor flaws and miscalculations, included the friction effect from air molecules, calibrated moisture levels based on reflection and refraction, and even added variables for temperature and humidity, and every time we ran the simulation, our conclusions were confirmed."
"What conclusions?" Kim demanded.
The image of Ron entering the shower was overlain with the vector diagrams once more as Dr. Director fiddled with the controls. Ron began to move inch by inch into the room, the vectors shifting and morphing as he went to reflect the changes in position, musculature, and angle. He took his steps in, and then the playback paused.
"At precisely this point," Dr. Director informed Kim, "we reconciled the shifting forces, and found the anomaly." She began to breathe more deeply, as the force vectors wavered and shifted. "Our model was perfect, but it only proved the negative of our expectations.
"We ran the model dozens of times - improving it, tweaking it, making it closer and closer to the reality that was in the surveillance footage. We matched his respiration, pulse, blinking, shifts of weight... all of them corresponded precisely, we were able to perfectly recreate the video. Until Ronald reached this point."
Kim watched as the vectors continued to blink out, until only Ron's leg was left, and one single arrow remained, pointing at a precise angle outward and down on the inside of his calf. "So what's that one?" she asked, as the force vector arrow began to blink on and off, but not disappear.
"When we were unable to match the model to the real, Dr. Williams had a brilliant idea; if we couldn't identify the discrepancy, we could at least quantify it. So we did. That is what that force vector is.
"We checked thermal, infrared, ultraviolet, sonic, acoustic, and even a number of esoteric radiation scans, and aside from a brief fluctuation in the electromagnetic field which was probably caused by someone turning on a light in the building, and which certainly wasn't causal, we could find absolutely nothing to explain the discrepancy. We finally came to one conclusion."
Dr. Director's eye glowed in the projector's light, and her face beamed with pride and satisfaction at being proved correct. "That, Kimberly Possible, is an unknown force that was applied to Ronald Stoppable's leg at precisely that instant, and was the true cause of his slip and fall.
"The human leg - Ronald's leg - does not move in the manner necessary to create the motion observed in the surveillance footage without an external stimulus; I can show you a close up of the muscles involved if you want - with or without the skin covering them; it's quite a fascinating process to watch. We can measure the force that was applied to his leg to make it move in this manner, we can quantify it, and we can reproduce it in our model to recreate the situation, but there is nothing our scientists can find to explain this force, where it came from, or why it affected Ronald at just this moment.
"So," Dr. Director elaborated, "now that we had our Ron model built and our theory formulated, we went back to the other recordings of Ronald that we had in our archives. There are literally dozens of similar occurrences - some touching Ronald directly, some the people around him, other times items near him, although this one is the clearest, and the least controversial thanks to his isolation, nudity, and insulation from other external factors because of his location.
"That," she proudly proclaimed, pointing triumphantly at the flashing vector that still pointed at the model of Ron's leg, "Kimberly, is the Ron Factor. It exists, and we've proved it." Her face glowed with excitement, pride, and satisfaction at that conclusion.
"Well, on the plus side, it wasn't naked Ron that had her so excited," Kim noted silently, staring at the arrow on the screen. "That would have been majorly freaky - like me being a little excited about it isn't freaky enough." "Okay, so then what is the Ron Factor?" Kim asked.
Dr. Director shrugged, her satisfaction visibly dimming. "That's... another question entirely. Unfortunately, we still don't know what exactly it is, and nothing in our science can explain it."