Cross Country: Chapter 8
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kim's eyes snapped back to the road in front of them, rapidly apprising the sitch she found herself in. She was driving a new vehicle which she didn't know the full capabilities of and the roads were narrow, winding and very slightly wet from the mists. While she was certain the huge vehicle was capable of considerable speed, it was much higher off the ground than either her or Ron was used to. If she had been in her PT Cruiser, or even Ron's Trans Am, she would have already jammed down the accelerator, but she didn't know the terrain and she was worried she might flip the top-heavy seeming Glissade.
The strangest sensation was the sudden surge of adrenaline she was feeling. When she spotted the truck two days earlier, she had been an a passenger seat, unable to do anything. What's more, she was back with the kids. Then she only felt apprehension and worry. Now she was behind the wheel, in a position to actually do something instead of sitting powerless.
Having the kids with them was a double edged sword. If somebody were coming after them, then she would do everything in her power to keep them from coming to harm. She was the mother bear with her cubs when it came to her children, whether they were the product of her womb, the sister of her husband or a child entrusted to her. In that moment the exact nature of their relationship did not matter. Being their guardian meant more than just being the one to exercise authority over them, or be on hand when the school or day care called. That meant she was their protector as well.
The toughest part of the decision was whether she was going to risk their lives in a high-speed chase, or risk them simply hoping that nothing was about to happen. The latter seemed to be out of the question. If that truck had been following them the whole time, then it had been hanging back, waiting for the right moment to strike. Either that moment had come, or it simply was forced to reveal itself at the road-block. What mattered was that it was gaining on them, closing the gap between it and the tricked-out pickup immediately behind them.
Her thought process took all of about two seconds from the moment the truck pulled back into their lane. Her foot mashed down on the accelerator, sending the SUV surging forward.
"Ron, wake up." Kim said, as calmly as she could. If things got bad, there was no way she was going to keep the kids out of it, but as long as they could remain napping in the back, the better. "Baby, wake up." She risked taking one hand off the wheel, shaking his knee.
"Are we there yet?" He stretched in his seat, his eyes not quite willing to open. He wasn't going to be much use for driving any time soon, but at least she wanted him awake and aware of what was going on.
"Mission mode." She said softly. It had literally been years since those particular words had escaped her lips. That was a torch that had long been passed to her brothers and cousin. The world of being a wife, mother and business manager both of Team Possible and Chez Kimberly, all while being in a doctorate program did not lend itself to actively playing the hero any longer.
All the same, there was a surge of excitement that came with saying them that reminded her just how much she missed it. She would never have imagined that, by twenty-seven she would already be considering herself retired. Her life, Ron's life and the lives of the kids might have been in danger, but she would have been lying to herself if she said she wasn't actually looking forward to some action.
Double dose of a strong antihistamine notwithstanding, those words had a particularly powerful effect on Ron as well. He was instantly awake and alert, as if he was imagining himself back in his old three-quarter sleeved black turtleneck instead of an Aged Army US Flag t-shirt.
Kim nodded over her shoulder. "See who's behind us?"
He blinked twice, trying to fight off the lingering grogginess. "Um, okay, so there's a redneck driving a monster truck behind us. So?"
"Look behind him." She mashed on the accelerator again. As powerful as the four electric motors were supposed to be, she didn't seem to be gaining any ground on the huge semi.
Ron, to his credit, didn't scream when he saw the truck. If anything, he was by far the more paranoid of the two. He probably would have noticed it quicker than she did if he had been awake for the last twenty minutes.
Ron turned back to the front, checking out the gauges. "Uh, KP, you realize you're doing eighty?"
"I'm the one driving. Believe me, if I knew this thing better we'd be doing a hundred by now."
He looked back over his shoulder. If anything, the truck was even closer. Whoever was driving it had to be out of his mind, as wet at the roads were. The mists had most likely been coming down all night, and the conditions were steadily getting worse. If that truck lost it…
Then he noticed something.
"Uh, KP."
"Kinda busy here, Ron."
"It's pretty importante." He added, throwing in a bit of pigeon Spanish.
"Ron, it's all I can do to pay attention to the road at this speed."
"KP, Hit the gas!" He shouted finally.
Trust was not an issue between them. When he said something like that, she pretty much did. They had functioned as a team for too long to do otherwise. He was still prone to silliness, but when the sitch warranted, he could be just as deadly serious as she was.
The SUV lurched forward as she floored the pedal. The sound system wasn't designed to cover for that kind of performance, so it cut out when the needle topped one-hundred, making their ride eerily quiet. Kim finally risked a glance in the mirror as the road straightened out for a bit.
She was just in time to see the pickup, and not the semi only inches from their tailgate. Kim barely had time to get her eyes back onto the road as the SUV was jolted by the impact. If Ron hadn't warned her when he did, it would likely have caught up to them sooner.
It only took her a moment for it to register that the monster truck, and not the semi was attacking them. She had been so focused on the big truck that the smaller one simply did not register. Then it dawned on her that every time she had accelerated, the truck had done so as well, keeping itself between them and the semi.
Were they working as a team? Or were they just unlucky enough to have two completely different sets of bad guys after them.
If it had just been the two of them, and she wasn't heavily pregnant her next course of action would have been obvious. Kim Possible Stoppable wasn't one to run, she would take the baddies head on. Her foot would have come off the gas and she would have pulled right alongside the truck, blowing the passenger window out with her grappler, then following it into the cab to take out the driver. Just like…
…Kim flashed back to a time almost eleven years earlier. She had faced monster trucks then, and the ringleader of that particular band of nasties still held a grudge. Oh, it wasn't so much that she was responsible for sending him to prison, not once, but several times. No, the worst of it came because when he finally got convicted, he was sent to a prison where they exacted a punishment on him that was quite probably worse than death for him.
They cut off his beloved mullet.
She kept her foot down on the accelerator as they rounded a sharp curve, blessing the engineering skill of Wade for retaining the superior suspension qualities of their ride when he converted it to electric power. Miraculously, all four tires stayed in contact with the road as they sped through the turn. The needle bounced back up to one-hundred as the road straightened out.
Only this time they were headed into much hillier terrain. That was the big drawback of a flat map like their navigation system displayed. Curves were one thing. It never mentioned hills. They crested a rise at about one-ten, their tires finally leaving the pavement for just a moment.
Kim held her breath, trying to hold the wheel as rock-solid as she could until they were back down. Somehow she managed to keep the thing straight. Looking back, she growled under her breath, discovering that both their pursuers had managed to do the same.
"Ron, get on the Kimmunicator."
"It's just gonna be Joss."
"Don't care, just get her. Wade's checked her out on his system, she's better than nothing."
"Hey, Kim, what's the itch?" She laughed as the screen winked to life.
"Uh, ha-ha." Ron muttered.
"Ask her to run a search on the prisoner status of Edward Lipsky."
"Hold yer horses there for a minute, cousin." The younger Possible was nowhere near as quick as the man she was filling in for, but any port in a storm. "Got it. Says he was released six months ago for good behavior, but he's currently listed as wanting for skippin' out on his parole."
"Just great. So that means he's probably the one in the truck."
"Whoa! Yer tellin me ya got Motor Ed on your tail?"
Kim was ferociously glad the young woman hadn't said 'Spankin.' Several years spent as the lead field agent of Team Possible had done wonders for her professionalism, if not for her accent. "Looks like it. Have you got a GPS lock on us?"
"Yup. Had it runnin since I talked to ya yesterday."
"Okay, can you track the two vehicles behind us?"
"Lemme see. Okay, got a satellite lock on them."
"The semi should have a GPS antenna on it. Can you hack into it?"
"Uh. Hang in there Kim. Not like I'm the best at this kinda work. That's funny."
"What?"
"Like ya said, the truck's 'sposed to have a GPS antenna on it. That's federal law, but I'm not getting anything on it. If it wasn't for the visual I've got on it with the satellite…"
Kim glanced in the mirror again, only instead of seeing the two vehicles, she caught sight of three sets of eyes staring right back at her. Apparently, her driving had awakened the kids. They were either too excited or too scared to start screaming, for which she was thankful.
"They probably disabled it, whoever's driving that truck."
"Not just that, but they aren't broadcasting on anythin. No CB, no dispatch radio, I'm getting nothing on it, just like it was scrambled or something. If they were out of frame on the visual, I'd lose 'em completely. It's like their scrambling the signal or somethin."
"Everybody, hang on!" Kim shouted as she hit the brakes and cut the wheel. The SUV went sailing off the road, into the wet, muddy grass. Kim fought the wheel, trying to regain control as the vehicle spun around.
She hit the gas again, sending them rocketing back the other way. The Kimmunicator clattered to the floor as they sped along in the dirt. Ron spared a glance back, spotting the road-block that they had barely avoided. Half a dozen large men were waiting there, their monster trucks linked nose-to nose at a bottleneck, preventing them from getting past.
The only problem was they were then hurdling back in the direction of their pursuers, though off in the dirt. What was worse was that the truck, apparently driven by Motor Ed, was even better equipped than they were for off-roading. He simply veered into their path, coming at them head-on.
Kim cut the wheel again, sending up a spray of grass and mud as she headed for a gap in the trees. Their progress was slowed considerably, but at least they would lose the semi. There was no way in the world it would be able to follow them.
They weren't making good time on the narrow track. Perhaps at some distant point in the past it had been a dirt road, but the vegetation was just light enough they could charge through it. Every so often, she could feel the road-tires slipping, unable to get a proper purchase on the dirt, rock and battered down saplings.
They turned onto an honest dirt road, picking up speed just as the monster truck blasted through the woods behind them. It was quickly making up ground, it's wide, thickly studded tires much better suited for that particular type of terrain. Once more the grill, which was made to look like a giant fanged maw, roared up to their back window, slamming into their bumper.
Kim kept the SUV in control, but just barely. That was all it took for the kids to start losing it. CJ was first, letting loose what, under calmer conditions, Kim would have said sounded remarkably like her big brother when he was younger (though not quite as young as she was.) Little Gene was bouncing between thinking he was on some kind of amusement park ride and in utter terror. Ammie looked just as frightened, but if she was screaming, it couldn't be heard over the din the Stoppables were making.
Despite the wild bucking of their vehicle, Ron suddenly undid his harness, climbing between the two front seats toward the back. They went over an especially bad bump, slamming him into the roof, but he seemed unhurt. He climbed past the two girls, rooting around in their luggage for a moment.
"Ron! What on Earth!"
He climbed back into the front seats and held up his prize. It looked for all the world like a pistol, made completely of dark gray plastic. It wasn't a weapon, but a more advanced version of one of Team Possible's most useful pieces of equipment besides the Kimmunicator itself. Kim instantly realized what he was about to try.
"No way, Ron!"
"Somebody's got to do something. We can't keep this up." Another crash to their rear bumper punctuated his statement.
Kim swung them wide as the trail opened up, making a large U-turn, Ed's truck hot on their tail. As much as she hated to, she had to admit he was right. Still, it had been a very long time since either of them had tried anything like that. The most active thing he had done recently was to host a dinner party for a gathering of high-powered international businessmen at his restaurant.
Oddly enough, something like that could prove just as exciting as their current predicament.
Stuffing the Mark III grappler into his waist band, he turned to face her and pulled himself up through the open window. There was a complicated, tubular luggage rack on the roof, something she had wondered if they would ever use considering the internal cargo capacity of the oversized vehicle. At that moment she was glad it was actually there.
Kim knew many prayers, both from her faith and from Ron's, having gone to services for both for many years, even once entertaining the thought of converting to Judaism herself at one point before they got married. Just to be on the safe side, she silently said several of them as she lost sight of him as he climbed onto the roof.
She squared them up as best she could on the rough road, hoping there wouldn't be any more major bumps, at least until he tried what he was about to. There wasn't a tell-tale pop from the advanced device like in the old days, since it relied on a nearly silent magnetic rail assembly to cast the line.
On the ground, Ron Stoppable was always somewhat clumsy and ungainly, yet when he went into action, years of training at her side, coupled with other abilities he had acquired along the way, he was a study of grace. Back when they started out, a flying kick attack would have always ended up with him being embarrassed, or worse.
Kim turned off to the side and slammed on the brakes when she heard the crash. Moments later the monster truck veered off the gravel road, up and embankment, then finally slammed into a tree. It wasn't like in the movies when a wrecked vehicle burst into a great fireball, there was only a blast of steam as the radiator was fractured by the impact.
She set the brake, and piled out the door, hoping the kids had enough sense to stay in the SUV. She dropped into her familiar fighting stance, though she prayed she wouldn't need it, but if it came down to protecting the little ones with her, she would do anything.
Ron had done precisely what she would have if she wasn't in her condition. He had sailed into the cab through the passenger window, which fortunately, like his, was open. The reason the truck had lost control and crashed was instantly apparent.
A few hundred yards back, a large, blonde-haired man was struggling on the ground with a much smaller one. They had gone out the driver's side door, onto the side of the dirt track.
Ed got to his feet first, backing away from his opponent. "Man, you seriously cashed my ride…seriously!"
Ron sprang to his feet. In the past, he was always ready with some kind of response. Only this time, not only had Kim been threatened, but his children as well. There were no smart-mouthed quips, no jokes for that situation. All that mattered was that the threat was eliminated.
Ed seemed to sense this. He slowly backed away from the silent warrior stalking him. "Come on, Little skinny bro. No harm, no foul." He spared a glance at Kim. "Whoa! Didn't know you had Red all knocked up, seriously!"
Ron looked like he was about to attack, when a roaring sound announced the presence of something else on the road.
"No way!" Kim shrieked as the hulking machine bore down on the two combatants.
The black semi ground to a halt not twenty feet away from them. The wheels had somehow grown to twice their size, the whole vehicle sitting on some kind of extendable suspension. It was as if the builder of that truck had foreseen just that sort of circumstance.
The roof of the sleeper-cab popped open, revealing a huge weapon of some sort. The muzzle turned directly at the pair on the side of the road.
"Put your hands up." A no-nonsense voice ordered over a loudspeaker.
"S'ha! He did it!" Ed said, pointing at Ron, who just glared and growled.
"Edward Lipsky, you are under arrest." The voice repeated.
Kim almost blurted 'no way' again when she recognized the controlled, precise voice of the speaker. She was simply too shocked to do so.
Doors on either side of the cab sprung open, disgorging four well-armed men in blue-gray jumpsuits. In half an instant, Motor Ed was handcuffed and being led away.
"Man, this is so rank. I just wanted to play tag with Red and her skinny dude."
"Tell it to your parole officer, Lipsky." Said a golden skinned man as he climbed down from the cab of the modified semi.
Kim slowly rose from her crouch. She didn't know whether she wanted to kiss or slug the man as he approached them.
"Will Du." She finally said through clenched teeth. "You've been following us all this time?"
"Yes and no, Kimberly. In fact I was detailed to keep tabs on you as you made your trip. Doctor Director has had a protective detail near you for the last several years, especially since you have retired from active duty."
Her eyes narrowed. "Do you know how much you had me worried? I thought you were the one trying to catch us back there."
He allowed a slight, smug smile. "That was not our intention. It was only when we intercepted a radio transmission from Mr. Lipsky to the rest of his team that we realized they were setting a trap for you." He nodded back in the direction of the main road. "Perhaps if you had stayed on the main highway, he would not have had his opportunity."
Kim shot a glare at Ron, who just smiled sheepishly. He finally shrugged. "Hey, I thought it would save time."
At that moment, he just simply fell over.
Kim rushed to his side. "Ron! What's wrong? Ron!"
She tried to shake him, but there was no response.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kim Possible and all related characters © Disney