KP – One Oh One : Part XXV – The Third Wheel
With a slight growl, Kim grabbed the Kimmunicator off the coffee table in the family room and hit the accept button. "Wade, this had better be good. Ron just proposed to me."
"Oh, congratulations, best wishes or whatever…uh, I thought he already did."
"Yeah, this was the formal proposal, where he asked Dad for my hand and all, in front of the whole family, as in the family sitting outside on the deck having Thanksgiving dinner, a dinner you were supposed to be at instead of ringing in on the Kimmunicator." She said, her voice dripping with tweak.
"Sorry, got tied up with some other stuff I was doing. I was about to head over there when the call came in."
Kim rolled her eyes and went through the motions. "Okay, Wade, what's the sitch?" She asked glumly.
"I really think you want to hear this. Meet me at your computer."
As she shut of the device, she noticed Ron and Joss pretty much hovering over her. "Come on." She motioned for them as she headed up the stairs. As quickly as Kim sat down at her terminal, Wade touched a key and an audio recording played.
"I'm not exactly sure if this is appropriate, calling you and all, but I'm worried about her. She's been gone for three days now and that's just not like her, well, at least since she's been pregnant. I know she's a big girl and normally can take care of herself, but, I'm worried. Please call me back."
Kim sat up, utterly perplexed. She looked at Ron, who was just as dumbstruck as she was. Only Joss, who had only heard that particular voice once, wasn't as affected by it.
"Wade, tell me that wasn't Doctor Drakken."
"Voice print confirms it, Kim. That was him. I assume he's talking about Shego…though the thought that she's pregnant by…him?"
Kim shook her head. "Drakken's not the father. If I remember correctly, she should be about six months by now. Okay, so that's most def him. How do we know he just didn't tick her off for good and she bugged out on him. It's happened before."
Wade shrugged. "I have no way of knowing. Somethings definitely got him bugged if he's willing to call you."
Kim nodded. "I agree. So, what do we have."
"He made the call using a cell-phone. I've got a lock on the position. It's about five miles from the Middleton Ski Lodge. You wanna take this one? Or should I just send it over to GJ?"
Everything, including her gut, told Kim that Shego and Drakken were just plain bad news, even if the former had verbally renounced her life of crime in order to protect her child. There was just too much history to think otherwise. "No. If we call in GJ, no matter if Shego is in trouble, all that's going to do is get both of them captured." She stopped, not believing what she was actually saying. By what strange circumstance did she believe Shego, or Sherry as she tried thinking of her now, deserve a second chance? Just because they had come to an understanding? Just because they had 'girl-bonded' during their shared adventure last summer?
Or was it that there really wasn't such deep hatred for the slightly older woman after all.
There was the child to consider too.
The father she knew and even though she had not really known him long, she considered him a friend, and it was his word alone that had forced Sherry into a truce, one that, for some odd reason she still honored even after his death. Was it simply because of him that she was so concerned about an unborn child?
There was something deeper at work. Even if both Drakken and Shego were arrested, the child would be well taken care of. In fact, it probably stood a better chance at life if it was adopted out, into some nice, normal family, where it didn't have to be on the run constantly with its mother. That was the most sensible approach.
Yet, perhaps it was some maternal instinct of her own growing inside her psyche. She understood, in some way, what the child would mean to a woman like Sherry. The thought of separating them was an almost painful feeling to her. At least she hoped that was what she was feeling. As far as she was concerned, raising a family with Ron was really a foregone conclusion and she knew when it came to her own spawn, she would be like a mother bear protecting her cubs.
There was perhaps a more selfish reason to consider as well. When she parted company with Sherry back in the summer, there was something between the women that, somehow, felt like friendship. It was such a strange feeling, considering how many times they had fought, seemingly to the death, at least from her opponent's perspective. But, if there were any chance she could make a friend of the mint-hued villainess and permanently turn her away from evil, that might be the greatest victory of her career.
"Do you want to take the flyer, or would you like me to call in another ride?" Wade was just about ready with their new transportation option. There were still some bugs to be worked out, but it was sufficient for the short hop up to the mountain.
"How long have you had this?"
Wade scratched the back of his neck. "About an hour. It's already about three hours old. I was kinda sitting on it, because I pretty much guessed what Ron was planning. I was watching on the monitors, that's why I didn't ring in while he was proposing."
"You're a good man." Ron said behind her. She glanced out of the corner of her eye and realized he was no longer wearing the dress shirt and slacks. Somehow he must have been picking up on her skills, since it hadn't taken him any more than two minutes to change into his mission gear.
That made her eyes pop open. Had he just changed right in front of Joss? Sure, the younger teen looked a lot like her, but she was, after all, a fifteen year old with a demonstrated attraction to him.
Kim let out a little sigh when Joss stepped from behind the changing screen. Then she realized her younger cousin had been changing as well. She was now dressed in one of her older sets of mission clothes, making her look all the more like her complete twin. She went and stood near Ron, giving her the odd feeling that she was looking at herself instead of the other girl.
She rolled her eyes, turning her attention back to Wade. "Okay, so if he hasn't been calling over and over, then it might not be so urgent. We'll just take the car this time." She grinned a little wickedly "Oh, and get your 'wide load' over here and get some of this food, or I'm going to have my mother get your mother to bring you in for a full physical."
Wade literally shuddered. If there was one person in the world who hated going to see doctors more than she did, it was he. "Okay, okay, I'll get Mom to drive me over there." The screen winked off and she turned to face the other two, meeting a pair of turquoise eyes specifically.
"What makes you think you're coming along with this?"
"Come on, Kim, it ain't like I haven't dealt with Drakken and Shego before. Besides, I've been doin the Joss thing for a while now. I can handle mah-self pretty dad-burned good, if you ask me."
"Except this time we don't know what we're up against. You saw what Shego was capable of. Now imagine what it would take to actually put her in danger."
"I dunno. You said she was 'spectin a colt of her own. Maybe she ain't on top of her game right now."
"I just want you to know what you might be getting into, Joss. You've been all about helping people, doing big-time rescues and such, you haven't really gone up against that many truly whack villains." Kim warned.
"Gotta start sometime." She grinned, confidently putting her hands on her hips.
Ron draped an arm casually around Joss' shoulders. "She is definitely a Possible."
"Ya got that right." She agreed.
Kim felt like she was cornered. There had been times in the past where, against her better judgment, other people had been brought along on missions. However, Joss really was better prepared than Felix was when they first went up against Motor Ed and, for all appearances, they were really only in the fact-finding phase of the mission.
It dawned on her they actually were taking it to be a mission. Really, if she sat down and thought about it, they were asked for help, and if Sherry really was in trouble, she would help, no matter whether she was an innocent civilian or one of the most dangerous women in the world. That's what she did. They could always sort out the rest later.
"Okay, you're in." Kim opened her hope chest, bringing out one of her older tool belts. "Do you know how to work this stuff?"
"Grappler hook, knockout gas, laser scalpel, check!" She hooked the belt around her waist, letting it hang on her hips a little more rakishly than Kim ever did. She also noted she was wearing the pants an good bit further down on her waist. She couldn't quite tell if that was because Joss had narrower hips, or had simply put them on that way. It certainly looked a lot more daring than she ever dressed.
Kim ducked behind the screen and changed into her own, newer, more snug fitting mission gear. "Rule number one, Joss. If Ron or I tell you to do something, you do it, no questions asked. It's not about showboating and we're not going to worry about any hurt feeling until this is all over. You got it?"
"Sure thing." The younger girl agreed readily.
Kim reached into her desk drawer, producing an older model Kimmunicator. "You know how to work this?"
Joss grinned from ear to ear. "I've studied every feature in a virtual Kimmunicator Wade sent me a while back."
"Okay. Just remember, the main call button connects you directly with Wade. My Kimmunicator is unit one, Ron's is number two. Three and four are Jim and Tim…don't ask me exactly which is which, I forget. They're not coming on this, simply because I usually keep them in reserve. They do mostly rescue and assistance missions, and they're on the same rules as you. That unit, I've assigned number five."
Kim clipped her own unit off of her belt and put it in the more secure pocket strapped to her leg. Instead of relying on the hand-held, she clipped her new bracelet style Kimmunicator to her wrist. It looked like a miniature of the original with a plastic watch style band. It didn't have the sophisticated sensor suit the larger unit had, but it was more convenient for simply keeping in touch.
Ron touched Kim's shoulder as they headed down the stairs. "Be right back KP."
She watched him head out to the deck, returning moments later with a plastic grocery bag.
"Ron, tell me you're not going still hungry after all you ate?"
He had a slightly wounded expression. "Okay, forget I asked that." She said, smiling and taking his free hand as they went to the garage.
"Actually, this is for something else. You'll see."
They must have driven past the house several times, though mostly by that point it had been on the bus from Middleton High. It was set back a little ways from the road and really wasn't all that visible save for a rustic stick rail protecting the steep staircase leading upwards from the small gravel driveway.
Kim spoke into her bracelet. "You sure this is the place, Wade?"
"That's where the cell phone he used is. I can't get a reading on how many people are inside at the moment, and get this, the place is rented in the name of one Sheila Drake."
"Oh cute." She grimaced, hoping it was only the two of them pretending to live in some kind of wedded bliss. Months ago she confronted Drakken, who swore all he was going to do was look after Shego. If she was going to do something about him, that would have been the time, though somehow it still seemed like it had been the right thing to do.
They were halfway up the steps when the front door swung open. Both Kim and Ron gasped, not prepared for what they saw.
Drakken might have been a bumbling idiot at heart, but he always struck an imposing figure before, all dressed in his dark blue lab coat and boots. The sight of him now was so different, if he were not blue, she would wonder if she was actually looking at the real Drew Lipsky. His hair looked disheveled and that wasn't the only thing. He was dressed in a shabby sweatshirt, jeans with one knee crudely stitched together and his ponytail was loose, making him look more like a skinnier version of his younger cousin, Motor Ed. It was also clear he hadn't shaved in days, and as they approached, they crinkled their noses as it was obvious that wasn't the only thing he hadn't done in that time.
His expression they had seen before, when they loaded him onto the police wagon after the Diablo incident. He looked utterly and totally defeated and, considering the reason they were there in the first place, seriously worried.
"Okay, Doctor Drakken, we're here. What's the sitch?"
For perhaps the first time in her life, Sherry Lipsky was frightened. Fear was nothing new to her. People in her line of work simply did not live that long unless they were sometimes afraid. Fear, in the proper doses, warned you when it was time to fight of flee.
This was different. Being afraid of a certain situation did not mean she was not in control of it. If there was one thing that mattered most in her life it was being in control.
That was the problem. She wasn't in control. In fact, she had utterly no idea what she was going to do to get herself out of her current jam.
One moment she had been lying on the couch in the little house she was renting, Field Marshall Furball curled up on her expanding belly. She felt like crap, so she simply decided to take it easy. Her back was hurting and she was feeling nauseous again, even though the morning sickness had only actually lasted the first couple months of her pregnancy. She put it down to nerves and the fact she really wasn't eating right, in direct defiance of what Doctor Possible had told her. She felt that way from time to time and knew it was just her body telling her to rest, and she fully intended to listen to it.
The next thing she knew, her cat suddenly leapt up, disappearing wherever it was she got to when something frightened her. She wasn't as skittish as some felines, but she was still just a cat and that meant if there were something she didn't like, she was going to beat it.
Generally speaking, that meant Drakken was home. She considered the cat to be a good judge of character and every time he appeared, she would slink away. The mutual feelings between the disgraced former mad scientist and the solid black Maine coon were becoming the stuff of legend.
Looking at her watch, she wondered if she had dozed off and hadn't realized it. Drew had only been gone about forty five minutes, meaning, if he followed directions and went straight to the Smarty Mart, he only just be getting there. Maybe he got confused about something and had to come back.
She was just getting up, her back complaining angrily when a hand wrapped around her mouth. Her first instinct was to flare up her power and throw whoever was grabbing her into the nearest wall. She only half completed the thought when she remembered, she wasn't going to use the power under any circumstances. There was little choice early in her pregnancy. It wasn't until several weeks after she found out that she learned how to switch the effects of her power off. In fact, she hadn't 'gone green' since then. Her "Glow Power" was a form of mutagenic radiation and she didn't want to expose her daughter to that any more until she was born. There was no telling what else the power was doing to her physically, and she didn't want to take that chance.
But what if that meant surviving? What good would it do her and her child if she were killed?
In the time it took to consider that possibility, it was already too late. The hand was holding a cloth soaked with some kind of soporific. The next thing she knew, she was in a dark, windowless room.
At least whoever had her wanted her to be reasonably comfortable. She was lying in a soft, bed, covered up, her head propped with several pillows. There was a bad moment as she considered what may have happened while she was out, but she discovered she was still wearing the same sweat pants and nurse's scrub she had on when she was taken, save for the fact somebody had taken her tennis shoes off and laid them beside the bed.
The door was locked, though that really didn't worry her overly much. There must be something in the room she could use to defeat it. Even so, locks were no problem for her. Even the door, which felt fairly stout to her wouldn't last long with some well placed blasts of her green glow. She pondered the possibility of using it while she checked out the rest of the room.
Save for the fact it was hewn from rock and had no exterior window, it looked for all the world like somebody's bedroom. There was a dresser, a nightstand and off to one side a small bathroom with a stand-up shower. The drawers were empty a the moment, making her think all of this had been recently assembled in the small room.
The furniture was modern and cheap, composed mostly of plastic laminated molded particle board, made to look like it was actually made of wood. She knew the type quite well, to save as much money as possible, that is how she had furnished her home. It was her intention to stay there as long as possible, even after Amethyst came. She wanted to do everything in her power to give the child as stable a home as she possibly could. The fact she was living with Drew and was a former villain notwithstanding.
The problem with the furnishings, there were no nails or anything she could pry out of them to pick the locks. She didn't know if that was intentional on the part of her captors, or just a lucky happenstance.
Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she summoned her power from deep within herself. She didn't know what was on the other side of that door, but she was going to find out. She pointed her hand at the door to fire a concentrated beam at the lock mechanism.
Nothing happened.
Frowning, she looked at her hands. They should have been wreathed in glowing green energy. For some reason, her powers simply were not working. Not only that, but her hands, which should have turned a pale mint-green, were simply pale flesh colored.
She went back to the dresser, looking in the attached mirror. That's when she noticed the collar around her neck. It looked a lot like the choker Kimmie wore from time to time, but there was no hook or Velcro to take it off. It was made of some kind of unyielding plastic, and there was no obvious connecting mechanism. Watching herself in the mirror, she tried summoning the power once more. The metal disk in the center glowed slightly, then winked out.
Whatever the collar was, it was blocking her abilities.
It wasn't long before she realized her watch was taken as well. Without any means of seeing the outside world, she lost all track of time. Eventually, she dozed off, sitting on the floor, leaning against the foot of the bed.
She woke up some time later, to find a plate of steaming food sitting on a folding stand. She carefully inspected it, but finally gave into her hunger. At any other time in her life she would have starved before giving in like that, but she knew it would not be healthy for her child. Whoever had he was obviously counting on her attitude. They even seemed to know she would not physically try battering down the door, for the same reason.
That didn't mean she wasn't going to try. There was always the bed frame, and the parts of the furniture. She might end up sitting in a room full of smashed particle board, but that was better than doing nothing.
However, the time for that had not yet come. She could be patient. It was time to learn what she was up against, and that meant letting it come to her.
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