The Trinity Sitch – Book 1: They Say Everyone Has a Twin
Chapter 5
Forewarned is forearmed usually is a wise policy. That is, in theory.
In practice it would have been wise to include Kim's twin little brothers in one teensy bit of information. They were the first to the door when the motley group arrived, only to run screaming through the house that their sister had once again brought Shego home at their first glimpse of Dona.
"Is that going to happen with everyone I meet?" Dona asked.
"Well, it doesn't help that you're also wearing her exact color scheme." Kim supplied, indicating Dona's emerald blouse and black slacks. Earlier she had shown her a series of pictures on the Kimmunicator of the villainess in her trademark jumpsuit.
"This Shego's got bigger hips." Murky remarked, looking at a shot of the woman on a security recording.
"Murky, I think it'll be easier to tell us apart with skin color than looking at my butt." Dona remarked coldly as they walked to the house. "And not one word about you liking looking at my butt or I'll tell your wife." She waved a slender finger at the tall man. In all the year she had known him, he never made it any secret he was attracted to her. He'd never done one thing about it though.
Kim's father, a man whose graying temples made him look older than his apparent mid-forties age was eyeing her suspiciously as he shook Murky and Tinker's hands. "I am sure glad Wade assures us that Shego is still safely locked up in a special federal prison, or I wouldn't know what to think. Ma'am, you are the spitting image of my Kimmie-cub's arch foe."
"So I've seen." She said. He kept staring at her until she shot him a quick look. Then he finally turned his attention to the tallest visitor.
Murky had his hands in his pockets, eyeing the house. "Very Write-esque." He said before taking a seat on the long couch.
"Very good eye." The elder Possible said. "The architect was a follower of his." He took the man by the shoulder, pointing out several features of the unusual, multi-level home.
Ignoring the small talk going on around him, Tinker closed the screen on his communicator, shaking his head. "That is so weird."
"What's that?" Murky asked.
"I finally got Gary to pick up on his comm. and all he could do was stare blankly at me and mumble something about them flying to someplace called 'Go City'"
"Huh? Where the heck is that? I've never heard of Go City." Dona said. She felt some relief that they had finally reached the other two. It wasn't unusual for Jimmy to keep his mental connection to her silent and she didn't want to worry him about the mistaken identity incident.
"You've never heard of Chicago?" Ron asked, taking a seat on the couch beside Kim.
"I've never heard it called that before." She shrugged.
"Okay, here she is." Kim laid a scrapbook on the coffee table, open to a picture of a dark haired woman holding a number card. It was an arrest photo.
Dona studied the picture for what seemed like an eternity. She finally set it down. "Wow." She said quietly. "Your little video-phone didn't do her justice. I guess it is true when they say everyone has a twin somewhere."
"See why we thought she was you? I mean, I'm looking right at you and the only difference I can see is in skin and eye color, and both of those could be faked." Kim explained.
"I think Shego's backside is a leeeeeetle bit bigger." Ron said, holding his hands out just so, mirroring Murky's earlier comment. Kim elbowed him in the ribs. Dona suddenly realized the teen had obviously been checking her out and she blushed, just slightly. Ron elbowed Kim back, the two of them almost getting into a tickle fight.
Throughout the early evening Dona had been getting the impression the two were more than friends. The way they touched wasn't a total giveaway, but the way they looked at each other from time to time was. That made all the rest seem to fall into place. The little touches here and there and she was almost certain the two of them had been playing footsie at Bueno Nacho.
The thought made her smile. Ron was a pleasant looking boy, though a little on the short side, standing just a couple inches taller than Kim. The redhead, on the other hand, was a knockout. The fact she was with the boy said a lot about her, that she was able to see beyond mere looks.
Once they settled down, she noticed they were holding hands, bringing an even bigger smile to her face.
"So why am I here tonight?" asked a rather thin teenage girl who was sitting in one of the living room chairs after being shown in.
"Justine, this is Dona, Murky and Tinker. They're from a parallel universe!"
When that didn't illicit any kind of response from the scowling girl, Murky leaned over to Tinker, whispering "Either this bunch has some really weird stuff happening to them all the time or we're really in trouble."
"Or both" the smaller man whispered back.
Justine simply raised an eyebrow. "Parallel timeline or parallel dimension?"
"Um, we're not really sure. What has that got to do with it?" Tinker said.
The rail-thin blonde continued as if she was lecturing a college science class. "If we are talking about divergent timelines then there is no hope of you getting back where you came from. I think that's and important point."
"I don't get it." Dona admitted.
Justine Flanner went on. "Time keeps dividing, from every moment, branching into uncounted new timelines, all based on just what happens in that moment. For instance, you pull up to a fork in the road. In one timeline you take the middle, in another the left. From that moment on those timelines diverge, just like the roads the cars are taking. If you somehow jumped from one timeline to another, there is no way of telling which one is yours that you would be going back to. It may look like yours, but there may be some small detail that is different in the past making it a truly alien world for you. If you jumped dimensions then it's just a simple matter of figuring out what caused you to get here and duplicating it in reverse."
"That simple, huh?" Murky said.
"If you call quantum chronometric harmonics simple." She replied.
As the conversation turned to things he was an expert in, Tinker chimed in. "Well, understanding QCH is one thing, but balancing string particle flow when opening a hyperspace porthole is…"
And they were off. In moments Justine and Tinker were chattering away about quantum mechanics, string theory and a host of practical applications about that knowledge. Amazed, Dona finally asked Kim.
"You understand any of this?"
"A little, but I have to look up a bunch of it."
Both of them shook their heads as Wade joined in over the little screen on Kim's little device, the three of them speaking in high-techno-babble.
The sight of Murky and Tinker in Jim's and Tim's bedroom was actually a riot, not so much because of the latter, who had a more average build and stature, but Murky's legs hung so far off the end of the bed it wasn't funny. Though, being an old soldier, he could sleep anywhere, so he didn't complain. The two boys had been banished to a tent in the back yard while a temporary bed was made for Dona on Kim's floor.
I'm way, way too old for a sleepover, aren't I? Dona thought to herself. This has got to be the world's weirdest pajama party!
At least she was out of that green top. After seeing more pictures of Shego on Kim's computer, along with a live feed from the prison she understood just how much she looked like the younger woman.
Kim was sitting on the edge of her bed, brushing out her auburn red hair. Dona had a moment of wistfulness thinking how wonderful it would be to have her long black hair brushed out like that. No, don't even think about it. You didn't go in for all that girly stuff like that when you were a teen, you're not going to start now.
"How long have you and Ron been together?" She winced. She was doing it anyway.
Kim got a dreamy look in her eyes. "Since our Junior Prom, last May."
"Cool." Dona said. Okay, she knows you're older than you look, don't try to play it too cool, it'll just come off as pathetic.
"What about you and your Jimmy?"
"I first met him when my Mom rented a house his father owned. I was fourteen at the time." Dona help up her left hand, palm down. She touched a control on her gold wristwatch and a three dimensional headshot of Jimmy appeared. At first it was a picture of him made up to look his true age but she touched another control and it resolved to how he looked without the disguise. He was just barely smiling, his face an expression of confident contentment.
"Why did it do that?" Kim asked. "Is that a picture of him when he was younger? I didn't figure you to be married to an older man."
"You weren't listening to me earlier. We were both born in 1982. Almost exactly two months apart."
"But that first picture made him look older than my Dad."
"Honey, I am older than your Dad."
Kim sat up on the bed, looking more confused than ever.
"Kim, I am fifty six years old. Murky is sixty one, Tinker a couple years older still. Because of a time travel mix-up, Jimmy is two years older than me now."
"I just thought, wow, that you were like twenty-five, tops. More like twenty two or three."
"Well, we're not quite normal folk. About eight years ago we got involved in a fight on a planet called Arkonia. I was nearly killed but as I was dying, this old guy who was something like a wizard told Jimmy that he had the power to heal my wounds. He did it, but he was so close to the source of his powers that he did it too well. He healed me and everyone nearby so well that it cause our ages to regress to our prime. So, in effect, I look just like I did when I was in my mid twenties. Jimmy looks a little older than me, but because of my petite figure people have always thought he looked older than me."
"Wow, so, let me guess, you have to wear disguises so people won't know you've got super-powers."
"You got it."
"So, tell me something. You mentioned you were from Boston, but you sound more like you're from the South than anything."
"I was born in Boston, but my father passed away when I was three and my mother and I ended up moving all over the place. We finally settled in North Carolina and that's where I met Jimmy. He was born there, so I guess my accent mirrors his a little bit."
"Well, good, I was beginning to think you picked it up from Murky."
"Lord no. But he's kind of amping up his accent a little. It's usually not so noticeable, or at least I'm used to it."
Kim rolled her eyes just a little. "Um, exactly how does somebody get the name 'Murky' anyway?"
Dona looked at the door, then the window, then leaned closer to Kim "If I told you he'd have to kill me!" She watched Kim process the deliberately mangled joke until her face started to show shock. "I'm kidding, just kidding. His middle name is Murqford. His wife calls him by his first name, but then again she calls everyone by their first name. It took years to get her to call my husband Jimmy instead of James."
"There's nothing wrong with the name James." Kim said, smiling and pointing to a picture of her father.
"No, but Jimmy is Jimmy. He barely turns his head unless you say his whole name…James Neil Argus!"
"Wow, you've been together since you were a teenager and you still say it like that." Kim scrunched her own shoulders thinking about Ron.
"Say his name out loud, just like I did."
"Ronald Eugene Stoppable!"
Dona sighed listening to the younger woman saying the name of her boyfriend. Despite the fact they had not kissed or even held hands until later it was clear as day the two were a couple, so much so that she had to ask, "Somehow I think the two of you have been together a whole lot longer than just a couple months."
"Everybody is saying that! I've known him since Pre-K and we've worked together as a team since my very first mission. I was twelve at the time. We were rock solid as best friends first, it just took more time to realize how much more we meant to each other."
"Okay, Kim, let me switch gears here a bit and show my age. I know you two have been together for a long time and you feel like you've taken the natural step…"
Oh boy, here it comes Kim thought.
"My oldest daughter just turned thirty eight. I have a grandson in college. Do the math."
Kim had already done so. "Jimmy?"
"We weren't quite eighteen when we got married. Right after we found that ship that took us to the future all the time we spent waiting was gone in an instant. A few days later we found out I was pregnant and the commander of the starship that found us performed our wedding. We got married on the observation deck of a old destroyer, Jimmy wearing a suit made out of a spare uniform and me wearing a white mini-dress one of the crew happened to have. Now, I can tell you, I don't regret any of it for an instant, but we ended up in a world that accepted young parents. That's not the case for you."
Kim's blush slowly faded "Yes ma'am. Ron is the perfect gentleman." She said solemnly. Kim knew there was a lot more to it than Ron being a gentleman, but so far the effect had been the same.
"So was Jimmy, until we were in a situation of severe emotional distress. I was the one who asked him." In all the years it had only just now occurred to her to think of it that way. She saw so much of herself at that age in Kim. She saw even more of Jimmy in her. She was the hero, just like her Jimmy.
The Kimmunicator beeped its insistent four tone beep and she answered it instantly "What's the sitch, Wade?"
The boy sounded frantic. Dona wondered exactly how a kid who was just about to turn twelve got involved in the likes of this. "Kim, I just got word from the federal prison! There was an accident there and Drakken got hurt!"
"Is he alright?" Enemy aside, she didn't want to see the man injured like that.
"No, he's not! He was attacked by another inmate and stabbed."
"Ow. Is he expected to live?" She asked, worry written across her face.
"It's not like that. Kim, when he got stabbed, he melted into a pile of green goo!"
"Oh no, please no." Her green eyes told Dona everything. Somehow whatever this implied had just ripped her whole world down.
"It gets worse. They checked on Shego and she was a synthodrone too."
"Wade, get Ron, now!" She was already off the bed, pulling out fresh mission gear.
"What's going on?" Dona asked, on her feet as Kim ducked behind her privacy screen.
"Have you been able to get in touch with your husband?" She asked, stepping out once again in her black top and olive pants.
"No, I figured he was still off to Chicago, or Go City or whatever you called it."
"Does that ship of yours have weapons?"
"Well, yeah, some pretty heavy ones. It was built as a warship." Dona's eyes started getting wide. She was calling and calling with her mind, and Jimmy wasn't answering. Their connection defied all distance. He could be on the far side of the galaxy and she could contact him instantly. "What's going on? Who is this Drakken?"
"He's Shego's boss, and if they're both out, he's going to try to get his hands on the most powerful weapons possible."
Dona's hands went to her mouth.
The Valkyrie had weapons the people of this time hadn't even dreamed of.
Kim Possible and all related characters © Disney. All Intergalax Characters © Nelson Binch
A/N Revised 2-24-06