Author's note: OK, I should have explained in the author's notes last chapter that more time travel explanations were on the way. I was too eager to post the chapter and got ahead of myself. Basically, there are more explanations in this chapter, and one or two more coming in subsequent chapters. I felt it was best to break up all the time travel concepts so that there wasn't too much to absorb all in one sitting. Also, a couple of reviewers asked about the time travel aspects in A Sitch In Time and how that would play here. That helped me realize I had not accounted for it, so I threw in an explanation as to how Shego and Kim could go zipping through the time stream without collapsing it (in ASIT).
Thanks to everyone who is reading.
Mad love to the following for posting reviews: The Incredible Werekitty, Kemiztri, JPMod, WidowShark, ron-sama, Jezrianna2.0, PotentialBoy, PseudoJuliet, Kimberly Anne Possible, Jokerisdaking, aimtbj, Babymama9672, Sestren NK, LKillingsworth, MrDrP, Caiyne, Porphyria-Kris, Dreammergurl2007, Mobius97, yvj, Tusconcoyote, willk1989, and Spooks-A-Lot
Story highlight: Faithful reader Sand Lord (hailing all the way from Germany) has a really interesting fantasy piece called "The Cat And The Monkey" in which Ron gets a new sister. Very cool, check it out, link is in his profile.
"My name… is Neo…I, uh…. I mean, Rufus."
XI.
Despite the fact that Ron had a death-grip on Tim's throat, the future version of his brother-in-law seemed quite calm.
"Kill me if you want," Tim croaked, "But that won't change anything."
"Maybe," Ron snarled, "But the are many ways of bringing about your death, and most of them are painful."
"You don't have it in you," Tim bluffed.
"Do you have any idea what I've been through?" Ron growled.
"Judging by your clothes, I have a pretty fair guess," Tim wheezed. Ron was allowing just enough air to get through so Tim would stay conscious.
"No, you don't" Ron responded, "You have no clue. I was stuck in the fifth century on a Roman boat heading for Ireland and France."
"Sounds fun," Tim quipped.
Ron's grip tightened, "People died, the food was horrible, and a woman who looked a lot like my wife practically offered to have my children."
"Must have been a nightmare," Tim offered, beginning to gray out.
Ron relaxed his grip just slightly, "You're going to return me to my own time."
"Was already planning on it," Tim said, trying to breathe.
Ron let go of him.
Tim collapsed to the floor and lay there panting.
Ron gazed impassively at him, tense and ready. He'd already forcefully emptied Tim's pockets so there would be no surprise gravimetric fields this time.
For some time Tim lay on the floor trying to recover.
"Where's Rufus?" Ron said after a time.
"Died," Tim replied evenly.
Tim stood staring at Ron for a few seconds.
"You're saying the signal from Rufus' artificial brain was cut off and he died?" Ron shouted.
"What did you say?" Tim looked stunned.
"Answer me!" Ron bellowed.
"Rufus is an artificial mind," Tim muttered, as though he was just remembering something important that perhaps had not occurred to him before.
"TIM!"
"Huh? What?… Oh, sorry. Yes, the signal was cut off and Rufus died." Tim said, recovering his thoughts.
Ron stepped menacingly toward him, "Then I'm gonna…"
"Look," Tim said, cutting him off, "I can send you back to your own time, you can drop in a couple of days before you step through the portal and prevent yourself from doing that, and prevent Rufus' death. In fact, I need you to do that very thing."
Distracted, Ron's eyes narrowed suspiciously, "Why?"
"Because the timeline is collapsing," Tim said glumly, "I made a mistake sending you into the distant past, and because of that, the continuum is breaking down. You must have seen evidence of it already."
Ron shook his head and then suddenly remembered something, "The mist!"
"The what?"
"There was this mist that came rolling in from the Atlantic. It moved against the wind and basically enveloped the entire boat. Everything turned dark." Ron explained.
"Yeah," Tim mused, "That was probably it. So look, I need you to go back to your own time, stop yourself from stepping through the portal and everything should fix itself."
"Explain to me why the timeline is collapsing," Ron said.
Tim shook his head and threw him a dismissive wave, "Too complicated, and ironically, we don't have enough time. I need to get you back to your own time as soon as possible."
"OK," Ron said, not letting his guard down, "Where are you going to send me? Back to that office building?"
"I think I'll just drop you near your own house." Tim replied, "You can get yourself situated and ready to do what needs to be done."
"What happens when I stop myself from stepping through the portal?" Ron asked.
"Well, you'll disappear, because you will never have stepped forward in time, but that's just this you. The other you, the one that never comes into the future, will still exist, so you will basically be fine." Tim explained.
"Wait. So if I stop me, then I'll disappear, but then I won't disappear and everything will be fine?" Ron sounded confused.
"Yes," Tim said simply.
"Man," Ron said scratching his head, "Time travel is like a cornucopia of disturbing concepts."
Ron was suddenly overcome with a sense of déjà vu.
"That's one way to put it", Tim said with a little chuckle.
"I thought you didn't want me to go back because of what might happen to your family?" Ron asked remembering a conversation they'd had before.
"As far as I can tell," Tim explained, "The divorce will happen anyway. Basically, it's one of those events in history that can't be changed. But at least you can enjoy a couple of good years together. Kim always said the early part of your marriage was a happy time for her."
Ron said nothing in response. Let Tim rant on about unchangeable history if he wanted. Ron was going to do all he could to keep his marriage together. And if ultimately he couldn't, then at least he could tell himself he tried, and the actual divorce wouldn't come as a shock.
But then it came back to him. He'd be returning without Rufus. An overwhelming sadness came over Ron. Once again he had to deal with the death of his friend. The little mole rat who, unbeknownst to Ron, had once been an experiment of Drakken's in intelligence-boosting that had gone awry. Thinking he'd failed to boost the IQ of a baby mole rat, Drakken had returned the animal to Smarty Mart for a refund. Not knowing anything about them other than the fact that they were hairless, Ron simply assumed all mole rats could squeak out a word or two, and had a certain amount of intelligence. Ron always felt he could understand animals; even speak their language sometimes.
"Ready?" Tim asked after a few minutes of adjustments to his equipment.
"Yeah," Ron said quietly. Before him an image of his house appeared. Without turning to look at Tim, he stepped through the portal.
"You know," Came Tim's voice from somewhere behind him, it grew faint the more he talked, "You really are too trusting, Ron. Just way too much optimism for your own good."
Ron whirled around, the image of the lab was shrinking, "What?"
"Seriously," Tim sounded very far off, "You've got the kind of optimism a Seattle golf enthusiast would envy."
The image shrank to nothing and disappeared. Ron turned to look at his house, and realized he wasn't quite home. Oh, it was his house all right, but there were a ton of details he hadn't paid much attention to when he stepped through the portal. His thoughts had been centered on Rufus.
There were one or two trees near the front door that Ron didn't recognize. In addition, a flower garden was on this side of the house, flowers fully in bloom. When Ron had left his own time, eight months into their marriage, they'd moved into the house not long before, and had no time to do any landscaping yet.
In addition, the house was painted differently from when he had left. There was a small lawn out front with a swing-set on it. Other children's toys were scattered about the yard.
Confused, but with a growing sense of dread, Ron walked to the front door and tried the handle. Locked. He went to push the doorbell and something caught his eye. It was one of those little wooden signs people often put outside their front doors to confirm to friends and strangers alike just exactly who is in residence.
Ron absently pushed the doorbell while reading the sign.
There were two lines of text carved into the wood.
The top line said 'The Mankeys'.
The bottom line said 'Josh, Kim, and Patricia.'
The door opened, and Ron found himself staring into the face of his wife. Her hair was cut short, and was interspersed with a few gray strands. There were fine lines around her eyes. Her mouth hung open.
Then she collapsed in a faint.
"What about Monkey Fist?" Kim asked, her voice trembling.
"That idol he stole? May have given him the power to travel through time." Wade answered.
"Someone's already moved to another point in the continuum?" Justine demanded, her voice taking on a slight edge of hysteria.
"It would seem so," Wil said to her.
"Well, then, what's the problem?" Kim asked, "We're still here, right? I mean, if Monkey Fist's departure from our time causes the time stream to collapse, then it should have happened as soon as he stepped into the vortex."
Wade shook his head, "Doesn't work that way."
"Why not?" Kim demanded.
"Because you're still thinking in linear terms!" Justine almost shouted.
"OK," Wil said, putting his hands up in a 'calm down' gesture, "Let's all take a breath. Obviously we need to be made to understand."
Justine rubbed her eyes in frustration, Wade decided to take up the explanation.
"Let's go back to our railway car analogy," he said, scooting up to the table and drawing their attention to the piece of paper with the rectangular figures drawn on it.
"As Justine said before, the timeline is like a bunch of railway cars strung together; past, present and future." Wade explained patiently.
"Right," Kim acknowledged.
"Well, in order to destroy the timeline, there has to be one in existence in the first place. If something isn't there, then it can't be destroyed, right?"
"OK" Wil acknowledged.
"That means, all of these events within the time line; our lives, yesterday, today, tomorrow… if they are all in the timeline, then they all happen. They exist; past, present, and future. Today has to be here in order for it to be destroyed. Tomorrow has to be there in order for it to be destroyed. And chances are, tomorrow has already been destroyed, we just haven't gotten to it yet." Wade paused to let the information sink in.
"But it doesn't make sense," Kim insisted.
"It does if you just stop thinking in linear terms," Wade told them.
"How do we do that?" Wil asked.
"Look at our train here. Let's pretend this train actually is a real timeline with its own universe and people living in it and everything. Its time is like ours, their planets have day and night, a past, present and future."
"OK," Kim was growing frustrated.
"Notice how the four of us are outside of this timeline. We aren't subject to the laws of physics contained within it. So let's say I take a passenger off this car, and move him to another car in what that passenger would consider the past. As Justine explained earlier, the timeline will try to reconcile the fact that the same individual energy signature is in two different places at once. It will bring those two cars together, the train will collide, and the timeline will begin to tear itself apart."
"This is part of the reason why I used a train as an analogy," Justine put in. "Time travel is a plethora of unsettling theorems."
"That's one way to put it," Wade acknowledged and went on, "So as the timeline collides and then collapses, from our vantage point, we're watching the effect it has on all of the history in the timeline, not just events in the past having an effect on the future."
"Like the 'dead grandfather' theorem. Go back in time, kill your own grandfather and you won't exist," Will said.
"Right," Wade nodded, "That's elementary Temporal Mechanics. But see, that accounts for what happens within the timeline, not the timeline itself. In other words, that's what happens to passengers inside the railway car, but the railway car itself remains intact. You with me?"
"I guess," Kim said unconvincingly.
Wade went on anyway, "Alright, listen very carefully. Part of the reason Justine used railway cars for an analogy, is because there are certain events throughout the timeline that act as couplers between the railway cars. In other words, certain days, or years, that are the points where each of the cars is connected to the other. Once the timeline collides with itself, the first thing that will happen is all those couplers will become unhooked. The railway cars will detach from each other. But remember even though those cars are detached, they're still intact; the events within them still happen. But they will begin to unravel, to fall apart nail by nail; day by day, year by year. And it will be different for each segment of the timeline. Some railway cars will instantly come apart. Others will take awhile to disintegrate. Just remember, inside those cars that remain intact for a short time, all the events that happen will remain as they are… for the time being."
"Meaning…?" Wil asked.
"Let's say the car before ours is destroyed first. The events that happen on our car will remain as we know them until our car begins to destroy itself." Wade answered.
"Forgive me for being ironic," Justine put in, "But as soon as Monkey Fist stepped off our railway car, he set in motion a series of events that follow their own timeline. In essence, it's a sort of timeline outside the timeline. Because we're still here means that our timeline, or at least our section of it, has not yet collapsed."
"What if Monkey Fist is just in a different place on our railway car? Like a year ago, or ten years ahead of us? Will that bring about the collapse of the timeline?" Kim asked
"No," Justine answered, "You could time travel within your lifespan all you wanted. You could even travel to, say, a year before or a year after. As long as you time traveled within the span of your own life, your unique energy signature would stay on the same railway car and the timeline would not need to bring two different cars together."
"I'm sorry," Kim said, frustrated, "But I just can't believe any of this."
"So what?" Justine snapped at her, "That doesn't change reality. You my not believe the sky is blue but that doesn't change the fact that it is. Just because you can't see the dimension outside the timeline, doesn't mean it isn't there. It's why I quit my research. I knew I was on the brink of what might have been the most destructive discovery in human history; the very annihilation of history itself. You may not want to believe it – and frankly, I don't want to either – but it doesn't change the fact that it will happen. That's right, I said will happen because it has not yet. Not in the 'timeline outside the timeline'."
Kim looked very hard at Justine. Not in anger, however, because she sensed something odd in Justine's voice.
"You're not talking like it's a hopeless cause," Kim said quietly.
For the first time since she arrived, Justine Du smiled, "You're right. There's a slim chance we might be able to do something about it."
"What?" Wil said eagerly, "What can we do?"
"Well, we'd need to find a way to send someone to wherever Monkey Fist is, and find some way to prevent him from getting on the railway car he currently occupies. Prevent his leap through time, and everything should take care of itself. To begin this, I'll need to reconstruct my Quantum Disruptor." Justine informed them.
"Didn't you used to call it something else?" Wade asked.
"The Kinematic Continuum Disruptor?" Justine said and actually giggled, "Oh, I was such a young and carefree teenager."
Wade laughed with her, Wil and Kim looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders.
"I'm going to need the lab facilities at Global Justice," Justine said, turning to her husband.
"We're officially under a Directive One lockdown," Wil said forlornly, "I can't legally engage in any operations until I get official clearance from the highest levels government. That'll take weeks. Even an emergency requisition would take at least two weeks."
"Aint bureaucracy grand?" Wade said glumly, "You'd think they'd make an exception for the destruction of all humanity."
"They'd want a full investigation to confirm our findings first." Wil remarked dryly, "Somehow I don't think we have that kind of time."
"What if you were officially requested to engage in a joint operation?" Kim asked.
Wil looked at her shrewdly, "Under those terms, I could bring GJ back up to full operation in less than a day. But it would have to be an official agent from an official agency."
"Not a problem," Kim said smiling, "You remember that time I saved Prince Wally from the Knights of Rodigan, Wade?"
"Oh, man," Wade said scratching his head, "Yeah, but that was a long time ago. I don't remember much about it."
"What was the name of his country?" Kim asked.
Wade shrugged his shoulders.
"OK," Kim said, thinking, "Do you remember Wally's dad, the King, what he did in gratitude for saving his son?"
Wade brightened, "That's right! He made you a lifetime member of his secret service, with official credentials and everything! Not to mention the fact that he granted you a knighthood."
"Right," Kim confirmed, and turned to Wil, "As a knight and official secret service agent of…" Kim looked at Wade.
Wade shrugged.
"We'll look it up later," She turned back to Wil, "I am officially requesting a joint operation between Global Justice…"
"And…?" Wil was waiting.
"You're not gonna like this." Kim warned.
"I may vanish from existence tomorrow, so who cares?" Wil said.
"Team Possible."
"WHAT?"
"I said you weren't going to like it." Kim said serenely.
"But you're requesting this as an official agent of…whatever that country is?" Wil asked after a moment's brooding.
"Yep. And since we're asking for your assistance, we should understand up front that this will fall under Team Possible's jurisdiction. I will of course, be happy to give you plenty of latitude to conduct your end of the operation as you see fit." Kim said matter-of-factly.
"Oh, thank you SO much," Wil growled in mock gratitude.
"You guys get busy building your quantum thingy," Kim ordered, "Our first priority is to rescue one of my team members currently being held hostage by Apollyon."
"If we're able to locate Monkey Fist," Wil said to Kim, "You may need to go after him before we recover agent Stoppable."
"No," Kim said seriously, "I couldn't save the universe without Ron."
Wil breathed a frustrated sigh. It was the Duff Killagin operation all over again. He turned to his wife.
"What else do you need?" He asked her.
"I'm going to need something called the Pan Dimensional Vortex Inducer. It's capabilities will help speed up the construction of the Quantum Disruptor."
"Drew."
For days he'd been working at whatever this thing was, only stopping to nap for a couple of hours, and eat a quick bite. Already he was looking thinner and much more haggard.
"Drew!" she said louder.
He was operating a sort of laser drill, the hum was a little loud.
"Doctor Drakken!" Shego shouted at the top of her lungs.
"Huh?…What?" He looked up from his work. The safety goggles made his eyes look buggy.
Then he took off the goggles.
Turned out his eyes actually were buggy.
"What is it, Shego?"
"GAH!" Shego uttered a startled yelp.
"What's your problem?" He queried.
"Your eyes? Yeah, they're all buggy!"
"Exposure to the laser drill. It'll go away in a couple of hours. I've just now finished this thing."
"You should eat something," Shego insisted, "Here, I made you a sandwich."
"Mmm, splendid," Drakken snatched the sandwich from the tray and began wolfing it down.
"You choke on that and I am NOT giving you the Heimlich," Shego said dryly.
"Mmmphmph….I'm so hungry, " He said through his mouthful, "I think it's actually digesting before it gets to my stomach."
Shego changed the subject, "So what are you doing with the Pan Demental whatever …. You know maybe we should call it something a little easier to remember."
"Like, 'The Thing What Shego Steals All The Time?'" Drakken suggested helpfully.
Shego giggled, "Yeah, you'd think those doofuses at the lab would lock it up better. I steal that thing like, what, once every three years?"
"Well, maybe it's just you that's the problem. They should put up a sign or something," Drakken said, swallowing the last of the sandwich.
Shego laughed, "Like 'Hands Off, Shego'?"
Drakken laughed with her, "Oh no, they'd have to word it more politely than that. Something like: 'Dear Shego, if just this once you wouldn't steal our Pan Dimensional Vortex Inducer, you'd really be doing us a solid!'"
They both erupted in laughter together. It echoed throughout the lair.
"I don't think I've laughed like that in awhile," Drakken said, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes, "I needed that."
"Yeah, what's been with you, lately?" Shego asked him.
Drakken looked serious, about to tell her what he was working on. He made the mistake of blinking twice.
Shego snorted.
"What?" Drakken asked.
"Your eyes!" Shego said giggling, "When they're all buggy like that you really shouldn't blink. It's unintentionally hilarious."
Drakken smiled a sinister smile and blinked two or three times.
"Stop that!" Shego burst out laughing.
"Aw, come on," He said leaning toward her playfully, "Don't you like your little Drew Bug?"
He batted his eyelashes.
Unable to hold it in, Shego let out a boisterous belly laugh.
"Drew Bug likes you!" He said advancing toward her.
Shego was actually surprised to find herself squealing with delighted terror. She took off running.
Drakken chased her around the lair for awhile, batting his eyes, waving his arms above his head and shouting "Here comes Drew Bug… Drew Bug's going to get youuuuu!"
Shego squealed with laughter and stayed just out of his reach.
If you'd been there to see it, you probably would have gotten a little nauseous, and perhaps a little vicariously embarrassed at such childish behavior. But they were blissfully alone, and frolicked…
-that's right, I said 'frolicked'-
…about the lair with gleeful abandon.
An alarm from Drakken's newly finished device ended their play long before they would have wanted it to.
Things were moving at a breakneck pace now, and there seemed to be more tasks that needed to be done than there were enough people to do them.
Wil spent a couple of minutes mentally berating himself for being played so expertly by Apollyon. Shutting down Global Justice was just what Apollyon had intended in order to keep both GJ and Ron away from Monkey Fist's trail. And it had worked perfectly from the villain's standpoint.
Wil brought Global Justice back into active status. He had Tim working on a new set of security protocols and lockouts based on Wade's personal electronic security measures. As soon as those were complete, Global Justice would be back to full operation.
In the meantime, they learned the Pan Dimensional Vortex Inducer had been stolen. Justine was compelled to start construction on her Quantum Disruptor from scratch, which would delay their progress somewhat. Jim Possible led a team of GJ agents to investigate the theft.
But things weren't all bad. Kim had managed to take a scan of the vortex Monkey Fist used to travel through time. Justine, studying the scan, made a rather startling discovery. The Tempus Simia left a distinct energy reading; almost like a trail leading from one railway car to another. They might be able to follow where Monkey Fist had gone. In addition, Justine theorized that same distinct energy pattern acted as a multi-dimensional tether to the Tempus Simia. This allowed the Tempus Simia and its bearer to return to the same general time period they had originally left. Justine and Wade were fairly confident they could build an apparatus that would allow Kim (and Ron) to follow Monkey Fist wherever he had gone. Though construction of the artificial Tempus Simia would take some time.
Wade was working on four different projects at once. Rufus had let him know that Ron was in a simulated version of Middleton that seemed to be set some eight years into the future. Why this was so was anyone's guess, though Wade and Kim felt it was just Apollyon trying to torture Ron, after having had his fun with Kim.
After monitoring the simulation set in Future Tim's lab, Rufus realized Apollyon was on to him. He discussed several options with Wade and finally, they settled on the one Kim agreed with the least; if Apollyon came after Rufus, it would at least distract him in order to free Ron. In fact, with a distracted Apollyon, Kim could, in the simulation, flat-out tell Ron he was in a simulated world, though it would probably take quite some time to convince him. There was also the risk that Apollyon would overhear the conversation and simply terminate Ron.
But time, ironically, was growing short, and it was becoming increasingly necessary to take larger risks.
After insuring Apollyon was busy with the simulation, Wade set to work with Rufus on several modifications that needed to take place. They had to work quickly, though, because Apollyon would begin to suspect something was up. Already he was spooked by what had happened in the Roman simulation.
As expected, Wil Du got a call from the Director of Homeland Security, Doctor Director, about why GJ had been brought back on line without following the mandated protocols. When given a brief status report of the situation by her former top agent, Director Director immediately got on a secure line with the President and informed her of the situation. The President issued an executive order authorizing any and all resources to be made available to Global Justice and officially recognizing Team Possible as an international crime fighting and law enforcement agency.
The President in turn held a conference call with various government leaders around the world to pass along news of the impending catastrophe.
Countries across the globe began putting their various secret versions of Global Justice on alert; Britain's MI-6, Germany's Das Justice Korps, France's… well, France didn't have such an organization, figuring the rest of the world would do the hard work and share with them… Global Defense Australia (GDA, mate), or Japan's…actually, the Japanese-to-English translation is Advanced Super Fortunate Criminal Fighter Force Team (their agents endure a lot of teasing from the international community).
Unanimously, the upper echelons of the world's governmental bodies agreed that to inform the public of the very strong chance the entire universe would simply vanish from existence might cause a panic or two. And for the most part, the international press was compliant. Rumors abounded, of course, but were derided by officials as paranoid UFO fantasies.
Secretly, however, all the knowing eyes of the world turned to Middleton and waited anxiously for the outcome of the fate of all humanity for all time.
Shego was frantically packing supplies into the hovercraft, still trying to absorb what Drakken had just told her.
Drakken was busy mounting his newly built apparatus to the undercarriage of the hovercraft. The alarm had told him things he didn't want to know, and he finally told Shego things she didn't want to hear.
"So you got all this from your underground robot, who got it all off the internet?" Shego was trying to piece together the sequence of events that had led them to this point.
"I told you, Shego," Drakken's voice was muffled from being beneath the circular hovercraft, "It wasn't just on the internet. It was information stored in a hidden database. Some sort of artificial intelligence has found a way to collapse the time stream. I gave the battlebot the ability to thoroughly search the internet for all kinds of information and draw conclusions from it. It told me that not only were the calculations correct, but that whoever had developed it was likely working on a way to make those calculations a reality. That's why I had you steal the Pan Dimensional Vortex Inducer. Basically it functions as an advanced Quantum Disruptor in which I can monitor the cohesion of the time stream. It will also allow me to open a tear in the space-time continuum and travel through it to another point in the timeline."
"Man," Shego whistled, "Time travel is an abundance of distressing ideas."
"That's one way to put it," Drakken acknowledged.
"And that alarm we heard not too long ago was the Pan thingy telling you the time stream is collapsing?" Shego asked.
"Yes," Drakken confirmed, "The very fabric of time and space is beginning to unravel. Right now it seems to be happening only at the extreme ends of the continuum, but it will eventually get here, and we will all vanish.."
"So where are we planning on going?" Shego asked, afraid and confused.
Drakken wheeled himself out from under the circular hovercraft and stood up to face her.
"Not where, Shego, but when." Drakken informed her.
"But if the time stream's collapsing, won't all times be unsafe to go to?"
"Yes," he said with some gravity, "But if there's a chance it can be stopped, I'm willing to bet there's one person to do that. And she may already be wherever it is in the timeline she needs to be to stop it."
Shego blinked at him a few times. Then it came to her, "Kim Possible?"
"She has a knack for putting a halt to this kind of thing," Drakken stated. "I mean, admittedly some of my take-over-the-world schemes have been pretty dumb. But that Diablo-bot plan, and some of my other ones should have worked. And yet… check her track record. She might even need some help."
"Whoa, wait just a minute, time out," Shego held her hands in a 'T' formation, "You want to team up with Kim Possible and help her save the world?"
"Shego, believe me, I still want to take over the world. But if the timeline vanishes, there will be no world to take over. Why should I not help if I can?"
"I… I dunno… I guess so."
"But first we need to test my Trans-Dimensional Corridor Generator. Once that's completed, we need to find Kim Possible before she leaps into the time stream and take an energy reading of her. The only way we'll be able to follow her is if we can track her unique energy signature. I think we can kill two birds with one stone in this aspect." Drakken explained.
"What do I need to do?" Shego asked.
Drakken stepped closer to her and looked into her eyes.
"Most of all, I need you to trust me, Shego." He said quietly, "I will do my best to see that neither of us comes to any harm."
Shego returned his gaze and, taking his face in her hands, gave him a brief but warm kiss.
Drakken was taken by surprise a little, and forgot to close his eyes.
"Then I will do my best to trust you… Drew Bug." She whispered playfully.
"We'd better get going," he said dazedly.
Shego went to retrieve a jacket. She still didn't understand why on earth he'd bought an open cockpit hovercraft. When he'd first purchased it, he was like a kid with a new toy; a new toy he didn't quite know how to operate. The first day he had it he'd giddily flown up into the lower stratosphere and nearly froze to death. The auto pilot brought him back down and Shego found Drakken frozen stiff in the pilot's seat.
He'd turned a frightening shade of pale blue.
And while Shego was able to revive him, with the help of a heat ray and some blankets, Drakken's color remained bluish, and never reverted to its normal tone. He'd been blue ever since.
She had asked him quite a few times why they didn't just get a canopy for the cockpit, but he kept insisting such modifications were too expensive. Sure, he could mount an expensive ray thingy on it, but a protective canopy? Apparently not.
Drakken fired up the engines and the craft lifted into the sky.
"I think we'll try a short hop into the past for starters" Drakken shouted above the roar of the hoverjets. "About six months to a year. But it's just a guess on my part since there's really no way to accurately arrive at a specific date in the timeline."
"OK," Shego shouted back, "Then what?"
"Then we find Kim Possible while we're there, and take an energy reading of her. Might be a good idea to get one of her sidekick as well. He's likely to be there, too." He replied. "We'll use those energy readings to track their latest location in the timeline and try to get where they are."
"And what if she actually hasn't left the time stream?" Shego shouted.
"Then it won't matter, since none of us will exist anyway. Got your seatbelts on?"
The hovercraft ceased its upward climb and began moving off at a high rate of speed. Suddenly, a blinding, pale blue flash overhead. Shego involuntarily shielded her eyes. Then darkness again. The hovercraft and its occupants disappeared.
Ron was having a bad day.
He'd woken up that morning a Roman soldier, spent his lunch time in the future with a brother-in-law who'd betrayed him yet again, and was now trying to revive his former wife, while her current husband tried to reassure their daughter that her mommy was going to be OK.
Bad enough having been fifteen hundred years away from her. Worse being this close and unable to touch her in any kind of familiar way.
Josh had come to the door soon after Kim had answered it and found his wife lying on the floor while Ron stood over her, trying to wake her up. Needless to say he jumped to a few conclusions.
Ron had to reassure Josh that he hadn't done anything, only rung his doorbell. But it didn't seem as though Josh had been fully convinced. And he seemed less believing of some farfetched time travel story.
"For all we know, you went back to Yamanuchi because you couldn't handle the responsibilities of being married, just like you couldn't handle being engaged to Kim back in college. You walked away then, too." Josh's tone was accusatory.
"I know that," Ron was trying to sound calm, "But you have to believe me."
"If you traveled through time, why didn't you go back to the day you disappeared?" Josh demanded. "No, wait, don't answer that. Your evil brother-in-law, Tim. You know what? He's been my brother-in-law for five years now, and he's never seemed very evil to me."
Ron didn't have a response. Suddenly it seemed as though fate had conspired against him. Every answer he thought to come up with he knew Josh wouldn't believe him. These were Josh's family members Ron was talking about. The very idea that Josh was a member of the Possible family and not Ron pained him deeply.
"Josh?" Kim's voice came from where she had been carried to the couch. Josh got up and walked over to her.
"I'm here, sweetie," He said soothingly.
"What happened?" She asked, reaching for his hand.
Ron felt as if he were going to be sick.
"We have an uninvited guest," Josh said, venom dripping from his voice.
Kim sat up abruptly and uttered a startled yelp.
"What are you doing here?" She gasped.
"Oh, Ron here's been time traveling, thanks to your evil brother Tim!" Josh spat, "And now he's been stranded in his own future."
Kim blinked, trying to comprehend Ron's presence.
"Ron," She said weakly, "Why are you here? Where have you been?"
"Like I said," Josh answered for him, "He's been at Yamanuchi this whole time. Once again, he's trying to take you away from someone else after regretting yet another stupid Ron Stoppable decision."
"Is that what happened Ron?" Kim looked at him evenly.
"Josh Mankey?" Kim practically screamed, "I can't sit here and watch this! Send me in, Now!"
"I told you, Kim, you can't go in as yourself." Wade explained to her again, "Apollyon will notice the abrupt behavior change, suspect something, and very likely have Ron killed. Trust me, Rufus and I have a plan."
"It better involve me going into the simulation." Kim growled. She wasn't furious at Wade, but rather angry at what Apollyon, currently inhabiting Josh's character, was doing to Ron.
"It does," Wade assured her, "I just need to get some of this programming completed. I'm sorry, but Ron's going to have to tough it out for awhile."
Kim clenched her fists. Wil Du had already left, and Justine was at GJ getting things ready to build her Quantum Disruptor. Kim and Wade were the only ones left in his basement. Wade was typing and clicking at a furious pace.
It took some time to tell the story, but Ron told Kim and Josh everything that had happened to him, in as much detail as he could remember. Ron was going to suggest verifying the story with Tim, but since it was Future Tim that had done all the shenanigans, the contemporary version of Tim would have no idea what he was talking about.
Ron felt like he was losing a grip on his sanity.
"Why would you make something like this up?" Kim pleaded. She looked hurt that Ron would lie to her like this.
"I'm not making this up!" Ron insisted.
"Oh please," Josh snapped, "Of course you are. This whole Roman thing is ridiculous. I mean you could have at least invented an Irish Princess that doesn't look like Kim."
Ron had no answer for that. He bit his lip in dread, looking to Kim, then to Josh, then to their daughter. Kim wasn't going to believe him. And even if she suspected he might be telling the truth, she'd been married to Josh for five years, and they had a daughter together. Kim had moved on with her life. Even now she sat on the couch across from him, holding her daughter in her lap and grasping Josh's hand.
Ron felt the tears welling up within him.
Roman times didn't sound like such a bad place to live after all.
Suddenly, as if from nowhere, the air was filled with the noise of a helicopter as it swooped low over the house.
Josh seemed more surprised by this than anyone.
The helicopter noise faded slightly, then returned in intensity. It sounded as if the aircraft were about to land on the house.
Kim picked her daughter up while Josh moved cautiously to the window and peeked outside.
"Wha-?" he muttered.
Ron got up and went to the door, flinging it open.
"Hey!" Josh yelled, "Don't go out there!"
Ron ignored him and went outside.
The black helicopter hovered for an instant near the house, then settled to the ground, blowing debris and dust in every direction. Its engine whined down in a decrescendo as the rotors began to slow their revolutions. The canopy opened, and an elderly Japanese man climbed got out followed by a beautiful young Japanese woman.
"Sensei!" Ron cried, rushing forward, "Yori! What are you doing here?"
"What is the meaning of this?" Josh shouted.
"Stoppable-san," Sensei said, bowing and walking to Ron, "We have come for you."
"Where are you taking me?" Ron asked.
"Some place safe," Sensei answered.
"I'm sorry," Ron said and gestured back toward the house, "I've got some things I really need to deal with here."
"You must trust us, Stoppable-san," Yori said, stepping toward Ron, "Please. Come with us."
Josh advanced menacingly toward the three of them.
Ron hesitated, "Yori…I…"
Ron took a step toward her, gazing into her eyes.
"Please, Stoppable-san." She said again.
"Yori…" Suddenly, Ron seemed to relax. He smiled at her, "I love you."
"Stoppable-san?" Yori gasped in surprise.
"Oh, drop the pretense," Ron said with a dismissive wave, then looked around him, "I know who you are… Kim! So what is this? A hologram? Virtual reality?"
"Ron…" Yori/Kim stammered, "How did you know?"
Ron smiled at her, "Yori doesn't have green eyes."
"Thank you, Wade!" Yori/Kim said quietly, then threw her arms around her husband, kissing him fiercely.
Ron was jerked backward by the scruff of the neck and thrown to the ground.
"I hope you realize that was a kiss goodbye," Josh snarled at her.
In a tiny room on the fifth floor of an empty office building in downtown Middleton, Wil Du watched over Ron Stoppable and waited.
He'd received the call from his agents when all the surveillance equipment was disabled, and rushed over. The needles were the first thing to be removed.
Wil's communicator beeped, "He knows. He's ready to come out."
"Copy that, Wade." Wil replied and nodded to a GJ agent.
Small mirrors were placed on either side of Ron's head facing outward, cutting off the purplish beams and reflecting them back into their emitters. Ron began to convulse a little, then opened his eyes, blinking as though he'd just woken up from a week-long nap. He tried to sit up but was too weak.
"Ron," Wil said standing by the side of the chair. "Do you know where you are?"
"Kim just told me I'm in an office building downtown. The same one I went to after the last time I saw her." Ron answered, his voice was very faint.
"That's right," Wil replied, "You've been trapped here for a week."
"No wonder I'm so hungry." Ron said, "Where's Kim?"
Apollyon/Josh glared at them and uttered an almost feral howl of rage. Ron had suddenly vanished.
"Game over… Ray," Yori/Kim said with measurable contempt.
"Don't call me that!" Josh screamed. "You have no idea wh-"
Yori/Kim vanished.
"Well," Rufus/Sensei said looking at Josh, "Looks like it's just you and me…"
Suddenly the world changed. The house morphed into two long rows of buildings on either side a of a wide, tree-lined boulevard. Horses, trolley cars and carriages moved up and down the avenue. The skyline was dominated by the unmistakable silhouette of the Eiffel Tower.
Apollyon found himself standing on the sidewalk, next to a bookshop with a huge window. He looked at his reflection.
The face staring back at him was Ray Beam.
Apollyon snarled in rage, tried to remove himself from the simulation, and found he was unable to do so.
"Aw gee, Ray, looks like you're trapped here," came a voice from just down the sidewalk.
Ray looked to the source of the voice and saw a six-foot-tall naked mole rat dressed in black boots, black leather pants, and a long, black trench coat.
He was, of course, wearing sunglasses.
"See, while you were so busy with your game playing, Wade uploaded a Trojan Virus into the simulation, which you downloaded without knowing it! Of course, that would be why they call it a Trojan Virus." Rufus gloated, "Basically, it's just a simple router program that keeps you from leaving the simulation. Every time you try to get out, you're re-directed back in here. This, by the way, is Paris, 1898. Kinda romantic, isn't it?"
Ray glared at him. It was clear he was trying to think of a plan of action.
"It gets better," Rufus declared.
The mole rat whipped back the lapels of his trench coat and – before Ray could react – had a sawed-off shotgun with a pistol grip in each hand, extending them outward to point at Apollyon.
Rufus didn't wait for him to say anything.
Fire blazed forth from the gun barrels. Ray took the impact of both weapons and was blown backward, off his feet, through the large window of the bookshop. Ray came to a bone-shattering rest at the back of the store.
People on the street screamed and scattered.
Rufus casually walked up to Ray, "I bet you forgot to delete your pain receptors, didn't you?"
The look on Ray's face gave an obvious answer.
"You've been a bad boy, Ray," Rufus scolded. He put one of the shotguns into a long holster strapped to his leg and cocked the other weapon, bringing it to rest against Ray's head.
"Don't call me that," Ray wheezed.
Rufus answered by pulling the trigger.
Ray disappeared.
Rufus cocked the shotgun and walked outside. Ray was standing in the middle of the street, perfectly healthy.
"Ha!" Ray yelled, "You can't kill me! I know I'm in a simulation."
"Oh," Rufus said casually, "I know that you know. And now you know that I know that you know… ya know?"
"I don't-"
"Get it?" Rufus finished Ray's sentence for him, "That's not a big surprise. Yeah, I can't kill your artificial brain. But…"
Rufus whipped out the shotguns again and gave Ray both barrels.
"… it hurts, doesn't it?" Rufus finished, walking up to stand next to the bleeding and wheezing Apollyon. "You see, Ray, you're just a coward after all. And you know what they say about cowards. They say cowards die a thousand deaths."
Rufus finished him off.
Ray reappeared, healthy again, but this time he looked different.
This time there was fear on his face.
"You're going to find out just what that feels like, Ray," Rufus put the shotguns away and suddenly broke into a run. Just before he got to Ray, he seemed to float into the air, his feet coming level with Ray's face. Before Ray had time to dodge, he took eight hard kicks to the head. Rufus twisted in the air so that he came down just behind the dazed Ray Beam. He took Ray's head and turned it; turned it further than it should have been turned. Ray's neck snapped and he crumpled up in a heap at Rufus' feet.
"A thousand deaths," Rufus said when Ray re-appeared. "See, when you're killed in a simulation, the signal naturally cuts off, and the person who was in the simulation would be thrown out of it. But as I said, you're being re-routed back here each time."
Rufus took three running steps at Ray and lunged, driving his fist into Ray's midsection. Virtual air exploded out of Ray's lungs as Rufus took hold of the doubled-up form and body-slammed him to the ground.
"And not every death I hand you will be so quick and painless. Remember the agony you felt as Apollos?" Rufus asked.
Ray gibbered incoherently as panic sank its fangs into him. He tried to scramble away, but his skull had been cracked in several places and the fierce pain in his head blinded him. Rufus grabbed him by the throat and hauled him up so their faces were inches from each other.
"Tell me where you sent Monkey Fist," He snarled. "Woops, your jaw doesn't quite work. Just a second."
Rufus pulled out a shotgun and blew him away. Ray reappeared two seconds later.
"Monkey Fist!" Rufus demanded.
"I…." Ray stammered, "I…"
Ray took off at a run.
Rufus shook his head, "I was wondering how long it would be before you tried that."
The Mole Rat snapped his fingers. An exact replica of Ron's Ninjet appeared in the middle of the street. Rufus climbed in and pulled up some information on the central view screen.
Apollyon was still carrying the electronic flare Wade had snuck into his program several days before. Rufus pushed a button and looked up. A red flare climbed into the Parisian sky originating about fifty yards down the street.
Why do people always run right down the middle of a street when they're trying to get away from something? Rufus wondered.
He punched another couple of buttons and a missile streaked forth, down the street, and wiped Ray from existence.
Ray reappeared right in front of the Ninjet.
"Oh yeah, one other thing," Rufus said, getting out of the car, "You've been programmed to reappear near my position every time you die. But this can all stop any time. Just tell me where you sent Monkey Fist and how we can retrieve him without damaging the timeline."
Ray took off running again. Rufus uttered a frustrated sigh. He got back into the car, put it into hover mode, and moved off after his prey.
"Let me through. Please let me through!" Kim shouted as she stepped off the elevator. She took off running down the hall toward the room where Ron still lay in the chair. Medical technicians were busy checking Ron's pulse, and other vitals while carefully removing each of the electrodes attached to Ron's torso. Kim caught her breath as she stepped into the room. Ron looked haggard and worn. He had lost some weight.
"Hey, KP" Ron said smiling weakly and extending his hand to her. Over the years – through college and their recent engagement and now marriage - Ron had tried any number of pet names for his wife; something he could call her that no one else did, much the same way her father called her 'Kimmiecub'. After a few awful attempts to find something suitable, such as 'Kimmiebear' or something equally nauseating, Kim finally suggested he call her what he and only he had ever called her their whole lives together. And so he did.
"You've saved me again." He said feebly, "Did I ever tell you you're my hero?"
"What are you doing in this chair?" she said in a soft, mocking scold, "We've been busy looking for you and here you are laying around all week."
She took his hand and squeezed it, then put it to her cheek.
"You know, I like this face on you better," He said, looking into her eyes, "Were you on the boat, too?"
"Yes," she said, sniffing back tears, "I was Caeruleus Vulpes. Blue Fox, hello!"
"Aw, man." Ron almost whispered. Kim could see he was very weak, "Look, you're the most beautiful woman to ever walk the earth. Vulpes was an ugly Roman guy. You can't expect me to just pick up on 'blue fox'."
Kim laughed. One tear escaped her eye and rolled down her check.
The technicians were down to the last few electrodes.
"Everything's gonna to be cool." He said reassuringly.
"You better believe it is, Ron. We gotta go on a mission just as soon as you get better. I need my sidekick." Kim replied.
"Booyah," He said softly.
"Excuse me, miss," one of the medical technicians said, "Just need to get this one last electrode."
"Hey, Wade, how goes the interrogation of Apollyon?"
"Hey, Justine." Wade answered, "I think Rufus might be enjoying it too much. What's up?"
"Well, I've been thinking about this whole 'Ron-as-diversion' thing, and something just doesn't add up." Justine said with a curious tone in her voice.
"OK," Wade turned his full attention to her after watching Rufus drop Ray from the Eiffel Tower. "What's on your mind?"
"Why a time travel scenario?" Justine pondered aloud, "Why not just a simple simulation that kept Ron in some sort of dungeon or whatever?"
"Well, I thought it was about running simulations involving the collapse of the timeline," Wade answered.
"Yeah, but why run simulations after Monkey Fist has stepped out of our railway car? I mean, he had all the calculations, and they proved themselves conclusively. Why go to the trouble unless…" Justine trailed off.
"Unless…" Wade suddenly sat bolt upright. He grabbed a communicator and punched a button, "Wil! Come in, Wil, are you there?"
No answer.
Across the street from the office building, in the mobile command center, an alarm alerted a GJ agent that communications jamming equipment was being used in the immediate area.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion.
The instant the last electrode was removed from Ron, a panel in the ceiling slid silently open and what was clearly a ray-emitting apparatus was lowered via mechanical arm.
Kim watched in horror as Ron was suddenly enveloped in the yellow glow of a gravimetric field and lifted from the chair.
A second, crimson-colored ray short forth from the apparatus. A burst of reddish light accompanied a deep, pulsating explosive kind of sound. A visible, pale red shockwave emanated from the light-burst and spread out in all directions, knocking everyone off their feet. Kim was sent hurtling backwards and smacked painfully into the wall behind her, crumpling up in a heap on the floor. She struggled to lift her head, then summoned all her strength just to bring herself up to her knees.
A vortex opened in the air near the chair. Ron began floating toward it, faster and faster.
"RON! NO!" Kim cried out, she began to move toward the vortex. Wherever Ron was going, she was going with him.
The gravimetric field abruptly ceased and Ron sailed into the swirling crimson maelstrom.
And, like a TV turning off, the Vortex closed suddenly. Kim was in mid-dive when it closed, she was unable to prevent herself from smacking painfully against the far wall.
"RON!", she screamed.
For a split second, all was eerily silent.
Then the apparatus exploded into a billion tiny pieces. The explosion was accompanied by several louder, much more powerful explosions from somewhere beneath them, the floor of the building began to heave.
Kim found herself hauled to her feet by two powerful arms. Her mind blank, she was led, running down the hallway. But instead of running for the elevator, she was taken into one of the empty offices.
The window shattered as a grappling hook shot outward from the room. She looked numbly into the face of Wil Du as the floor beneath them lurched and fell away. Wil and Kim sailed through the window and out over the street as the building collapsed behind them. One more powerful explosion finished the job, and blew Kim and Wil through one of the large ground floor windows across the street. They crashed into a wall and slumped in a heap on the floor.
Groaning Ron's name, Kim struggled to get to her hands and knees. The world turned gray, and then black.
The last thing Kim remembered was the image of Ron being tossed into the vortex.
Then she knew no more.