Chapter 5: I Fought the Law and...
Three men in non-descript suits studied a series of security recordings. The suits were muted colors, the sort that would not look out of place on mid-level managers in a bank building. They were neat, precise, while not being flashy by any means. None of these men wore a black suit though they could quite easily be referred to as "Men in Black."
The one closest to the screen spoke first. "How is it our men come into contact with a subject with these kind of abilities and they do nothing?" he was obviously angry.
"In the confusion of the fight, once they completed their objective, they withdrew. The team leader didn't know about the female until later." The second man said.
"Sloppy. Inexcusable." The angry man muttered.
The third man reached past the other two and restarted the recording. They watched again as video recorded by helmet mounted cameras showed the pale woman suddenly turned light green and started hurling bolts of green energy at the men. The image switched to another angle, this time showing her fighting side by side with a younger couple. The video once again reached its conclusion as the strike team withdrew.
"What about surveillance?" The second man asked.
The first man touched a control, showing the battle once more, this time from a camera hidden in the rafters of the beach house.
The third man finally spoke. "I know who this woman is. She's not an alien at all, she's a human-mutate. She goes by the name of Shego and she's a criminal mercenary, most often associated with Drew Lipsky, also known as Doctor Drakken." He stopped and touched a few controls on his PDA. "She also goes by the name of Sheila Ogehs, an alias she uses from time to time in parts of Europe. Her real name is Sherry Godfrey. She used to be part of a group of Meta-humans called Team Go, until she struck out on her own as muscle for hire."
"Then what does she have to do with our prisoner?"
"I don't know. I thought at first he was somehow related to our targets, but all the tests Doctor Oray…" he gestured at the second man "…ran showed he is just a baseline human."
"A baseline human who managed to break a trained soldiers leg and otherwise incapacitate three other men before we doped him." Oray replied. "It took almost three times the normal dosage to bring him down this time, and it looks like it is already wearing off."
"So what do we know about him?" The first man asked.
FBI Special Agent Starler checked his PDA once more. "James Neil Argus. Age twenty-four. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, current residence Tybee Island Georgia. Owns a small time bike shop there. Lived most of his life in Charlotte except during high school when he moved to Chicago. Returned to North Carolina after a crippling sports injury…"
"There is no evidence of that injury." Oray said flatly.
"That much is evident and another question for which we don't yet have answers." Starler responded. "Nothing in his jacket even hints that he has these kind of abilities."
"If he was in contact with Max Evans, that would explain the healed injury. Our sources say that he has the power of psychokinetic healing, among his other abilities." The first man suggested.
"I've considered that, but so far I can't find any indication that this guy has ever been in contact with our targets." Starler said.
"I don't know. Something about this kid's record is just too…neat. I think he's been cleaned up by somebody, somebody professional. What I don't get, though, if he's working for another agency, what was he doing here and what is he doing with a known criminal." The first man, Special Agent Tybor, wondered.
"Another proper question that requires and answer." Starler said. "In the mean time, I think we might be able to use this criminal to our advantage. Tybor, I want you to call Special Agent Reth. Tell her to have our plane ready, I think we may be able to put our rivals at Global Justice off of our trail for a bit. Tell her we will be flying to Colorado." He turned to Oray. "Doctor, I think you have a patient to attend to."
"Yes sir." The doctor said, then left without another word.
Kim and Ron finally managed to calm Shego down. A hysterical meta-human with the power to hurl destructive bursts of plasma was a downright frightening thing. Needless to say, it was by then quite hard to tell what had been damaged by their attackers and what she had destroyed herself.
"I just want to know how they found me!" She raged, small bits of green fire playing up and down her bare arms as if it no longer wished to be contained just at her fists. "And why they took Neil!"
"What if they were really after him?" Ron asked, hoping to divert her attention.
"Look, Stompable, they were trying to KILL me!" She grabbed his shoulders, fortunately without scorching him with her barely contained power."
"Shego, if they wanted you dead, they'd have stayed to finish the job. You were just collateral damage in their eyes." Kim explained.
"How so?"
"They pulled out of here the moment they grabbed him. Somebody else made the call. That's how the three of us got out with our skins intact, for the moment."
"But why would they grab Neil?" Tears were now streaming down her mint colored features
"Oh, I don't know, why would somebody want to grab a former GJ agent who happens to have his own space-yacht who also might be some sort of celestial avatar. Who also happens to live under the same roof with a known criminal. So not the target." She finished, with a touch of sarcasm.
"Neil still has the spaceship?" Shego and Ron chorused.
"Safely hidden away." Kim replied. "Now, we've got to get out of this place."
"Why, I thought they got what they came for?" Ron asked.
"They did, but before too long they're going to figure our who else was here and they just might come looking for us. Gear up, people, we're motorin'!"
Moments later Kim and Ron were ready to go in their standard mission gear. They looked at Shego with puzzled eyes.
"What happened to your uniform?" Kim asked.
Shego was wearing black jeans and a black long sleeved mock turtleneck. Unlike Kim's, it wasn't bare at the midriff. She added black leather gloves and sunglasses, despite the fact the sun wasn't quite fully up yet. "I don't have one with me. Look, I was hoping to for once in my life at least look normal. The less stuff I had around that reminded me of that, the better, Okay? Can we just go?"
They piled out of the house, into the sandy sparse front lawn. Neil's green Ford Explorer was still parked there, with the PT Cruiser off to the side.
"We'll take my car." Kim said as the other two tried to make up their minds.
"What, is it full of your little tech guy's surprises?" Shego asked as she climbed into the back seat along with their hastily packed day bags. "Sheesh, this car just screams Kimmie!"
"No, it gets better mileage." She flicked her red hair almost disdainfully at the big-tired SUV. She finally climbed in and pulled out her keys.
"Hold up, KP." Ron said, holding up his left hand, his Kimmunicator in the other. He pressed the send button and waited a moment for the link to be re-established. Quicker than he expected, Wade's rounded features popped up on the screen. Before he could say a word, Ron said "Orkin!"
Blue light glowed from the back of the device. Slowly he passed the beam around the whole vehicle. Finally the unit chimed and he looked at Wade again.
"Good call, Ron. I've isolated three separate tracking devices and one listening device in the car. I'm substituting my own signal now until I can trace the receivers. What's going on?"
Kim punched up her own Kimmunicator. "Wade, have you got a fix on our position?"
"Yeah, and…KIM, LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU!"
"What?" She turned suddenly, only to see Shego's perpetually ticked off face staring back at her quizzically.
"Shego's right there, about three feet away from you!"
"Oh good grief!" Shego said.
"Wade, she's cool, for the moment." Kim said with hooded eyes.
"I'm not gonna ask, especially since they've got an all-points bulletin up about you at GJ."
"WHAT?"
"They've gotten a hold of some security tapes showing you working with Shego. I thought it was some kind of hoax, but now…I don't get it."
"It's a long story, Wade. Listen, we've got to get far away from here really quick. Can you line something up for us?"
"I'll see what I can do. With the alert, I don't think I'll be able to use the usually channels. For the moment, your car should be safe to drive. I'll get back with you as soon as I can. Oh, and Kim…"
"Yes, Wade?"
"I know you know what you're doing. Just be careful."
"Thank you, Wade. You rock." She said, as the screen winked off. She put her keys in the ignition and pulled out into the road.
There was only one way off the island and she prayed it wasn't being watched.
Doctor James Timothy Possible rubbed the bridge of his nose before turning his attention back to the diagram on his oversized PDA. Some of the things he was seeing there just didn't make sense. How could a magnetic field collect enough free ions to generate that much thrust without making itself into the biggest drag chute in the universe? All rocket scientists knew that a Broussard collector would act as if it were running into a more and more solid wall of particles as it approached relativistic speeds.
Yet, the engine diagram he was studying was supposed to do precisely that, and more! It was just a matter of figuring out exactly how it worked.
It helped that he knew first hand that it actually did work. It was just necessary, in his mind, that they understood how it worked before they started just plain copying the one they did have access too. If something went wrong with a copy or it just simply didn't work they would need to know why.
It was hard trying to unravel five hundred years of advances in just one.
Finally he realized it was getting close to six. He was supposed to get off at five and head home. Home had seemed strangely empty for the past week without Ronald and Kim there for at least part of the day. He thought for the fifteenth time that day about emailing his proto-son-in-law with (jokingly) dire warnings about keeping his promise. No, he told himself once more, he both loved and trusted him. The kids had earned that trust and deserved their time away. Time away to be eighteen year old kids and nothing more.
It was just that eighteen year old kids have eighteen year old hormones. It's a simple fact of nature.
Quit that! He told himself. For one thing it was hard enough to think of his Kimmie-cub as a legal adult. For another, he knew she was smart enough to rise above such things. Wasn't she?
His thoughts were interrupted when a pair of strangers entered his lab. At first he was concerned when the man and woman approached, but security would not have let them this deep into the center without proper authorization. Both of them had dark hair and wore nice, but not overly expensive business suits. The man spoke first, showing a wallet ID.
"Doctor Possible, I am FBI Special Agent Jahan Starler. My associate is Special Agent Yasmine Reth."
"Yes, Agents, what can I do for you?" He blanked the screen on his work pad and put it down.
"Doctor, when did you last see your daughter, Kimberly Possible?"
Huh? What is this about? "She has been out of town for just over five days now. She is on vacation with her boyfriend."
"I see. What is her relationship with the mercenary known as Shego?"
"Shego is my daughters mortal enemy. They've fought on numerous occasions." He saw no other way to put it. Kimmie-cub was a public figure and any FBI agent worth his or her salt should know about Kim and Shego.
"The why is it, you think, that she would aid and abet this Shego during an attempt to apprehend her?"
"What? I think you must be mistaken. There is no way my daughter would help Shego. She was the one who put her away a couple years ago after the Diablo fiasco!"
"Take a look at this, Doctor Possible." He held up his PDA, playing the helmet-cam video. It clearly showed Kim, dressed in pajamas, fighting alongside a similarly clad green woman."
"That…that has to be some trick. I just can't believe it."
"It's no trick, Doctor. That is a highly trained strike team attempting to apprehend a known criminal. We're speaking of duly authorized agents exercising their duty." He turned, as if to leave. "If you hear from her, Doctor, I want you to call us immediately." He turned back to Doctor Possible, handing him a card. "It would go better for her if you did. I'm sure she has her reasons. We're only after the real criminal here, but until we sort all of this out, we have to find your child." He then turned and strode out the door, Agent Reth close behind.
His mind was awhirl. Why would Kim help Shego? None of that made sense. It was one thing when she had cajoled the green woman into helping her brothers regain their powers from Aviarius, but to actually fight officers of the law trying to arrest her? No! That just didn't compute!
A navy blue sedan pulled up to an abandoned looking building not far from the now-defunct Naval station in Charleston South Carolina. The man, a middle aged gentleman with salt and pepper hair and a neat Vandyke closed the door and shrugged into a white lab-coat. He pulled a clip-on ID out of his pocket and attached it to an embroidered hole made just for that purpose. Without missing a step he strode up to a set of large cargo doors and waited. Hidden lasers sprang forth, sending their faint red beams to read the code printed on the ID card. A door opened beside the main one where they had only been plain, unbroken wall before. He stepped inside where a heavily muscled man in a dark blue jumpsuit waited to visually check the identification, despite the report of the automatic scanners.
"Doctor Arthur Oray, Global Justice Medical." He said. "I'm here to see the patient they brought in the night before."
"Right this way, Doctor. They are waiting for you."
"Thank you." He said, turning down the white corridor the guard indicated. A wry smile spread across his neat features as he walked.
Neil strained against the chains binding him to the floor of the cell. He remembered coming to in some sort of vehicle. The last thing he remembered was climbing into his bed about three in the morning after checking on his guests. The next thing he knew he was in a van of some sort, his hands bound with what felt like a zip tie. Duct tape or some similar material covered his mouth. What had happened to him?
Then he realized where he was. He was back in the same hidden facility where the FBI Special Unit had that young girl, Ava captive.
Training took over. He took down at least four of them when something stung his neck. His vision blurred for a moment as his balance wavered. Fighting the feeling off, he dropped back into his fighting stance.
There was another sting, this time in his chest. He looked down, seeing the feathered end of a tranquilizer dart. This time the fuzzy vision didn't fade. He could barely remain erect. Still, he only had one chance to get out of this alive.
A third sting, again in his broad chest, and everything faded away.
He didn't know how long he was out that time, but they were not taking any chances. He was now bound by heavy chains, the type used on trucks to drag things like logs. They had welded one end of the heavy chain to a full set of hand and foot shackles. The other end was attached to the floor. There wasn't enough slack in the chain for him to stand completely upright.
A man in a tan suit stepped into his cell. "So, I see Doctor Oray was correct. You are awake already."
"What the hell are you doing with me?" Neil growled, tugging again at the unyielding chain.
"My, aren't we the caged animal? My name is Tybor, and I work for the FBI, but I think you know that. I think you know the kind of trouble you are in. Stealing government property. Resisting arrest."
"I don't know what you're talking about." Neil snarled.
"Yes you do." He displayed a large PDA, a security video playing on it. The image was computer enhanced, to bring out the detail, but it was clearly a shot of Neil using a low-yield laser of some sort to cut the bonds of the blonde girl they had previously held captive."
"She is a human being, you have no right…"
"I'm afraid you're sadly mistaken, Mr. Argus. She is not a human being. Not in the least. Since she's not a human, she doesn't have any human rights. She is the property of the United States Government."
"You're full of…She's just a girl! What do you mean she's not human. If she's a clone, she has every right the same as any other human being. The courts have said so!"
"Don't play coy with me. You know she's part of a conspiracy by aliens to infiltrate the United States. She's part of the vanguard of an invasion force. Now, James, where is Max Evans, Michael Guerin, Elizabeth Parker and Isabel Evans?"
"First thing, my name is Neil. I don't answer to James. Secondly, I don't know who the hell you're talking about."
"You have to know where they are. Who else would send you to rescue their kinswoman?"
"You are certifiably out of your mind, dude. Read my lips; I've never heard of these people."
Tybor backhanded Neil with such force he would have slid into the wall if not arrested by the binding chains. He got back up on his feet, stooping at the limit of the slack. He didn't say anything, just glared at his captor.
"Doesn't matter. Doctor Oray will be back soon enough. Vee have vays of making you talk!' He sneered in a fake accent, laughing as if that were the funniest thing in the universe as he left the cell.
Neil's glare should have been able to cut through the metal door.
"What do you think?" Special Agent Reth asked her companion as they left the office section. There was a small crowd of tourists in the visitor center. Closing time was approaching and the last stragglers were finally making their way toward the exits.
"I think we rattled him a bit, but I have a feeling he's way more accustomed to weird things happening involving his daughter. I wouldn't get your hopes up about him calling us." He said with an air of confidence. It didn't matter if Doctor Possible called them, this was only one piece of a bigger puzzle.
"I'm willing to bet he's on the phone with Global Justice as we speak." Reth commented.
"Probably. Just as well, they're going to be pulling out the stops to bring the girl in. I'm sure they don't believe anything about the reports but they have to follow up on in none-the-less."
Starler stopped short was a tall teenager almost bumped into him. The boy offered an "excuse me" and quickly shuffled away, his head lowered as if trying to hide his true height. A much shorter girl followed close behind.
As soon as the boy passed, Starler grabbed Reth's arm and pulled her around the corner, producing a cell-phone from his pocket. He pressed a button, connecting directly to another similar phone in the possession of a nearby ready-team.
"Code Bravo, Code Bravo. Seal off the Middleton Space Center immediately. Subjects Max Evans and Elizabeth Parker are in the building. I repeat, seal the building. Nobody is to get out until I say so!"
For those who don't know - the sextet of characters I introduced in the last chapter are from 20th Century Fox's TV show "Roswell" In brief, Max, Michael and Isabel are human-alien hybrids, infused with the essenses of the royal family of the planet Antar. Despite this, they have been raised as humans. Liz, Max's new wife, is human, though she has taken on some alien powers after Max brought her back from the dead several years earlier. Maria is Michael's girlfriend. Kyle is the son of the former Sheriff of Roswell and was himself healed by Max and is Liz's former boyfriend. Hope this helps for the folks unfamiliar with the show (I've got all 3 seasons on DVD - great stuff!)