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Disney's Kim Possible in
Sometimes There Isn't A Point
By Adam Leigh
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3. Overtime
Ron sighed and sat down against a tree beside Kim, laying his modified tranquilizer weapon on his backpack and pulling out a canteen. Kim had her nose almost up against her virtual datapad. It was showing her the recent recon reports they'd downloaded at noon during their scheduled GJ contact. With so many people watching them, they couldn't afford to have the constant contact they'd planned on.
Ron sipped down some of his warm water and wiped his mouth on his hand, noticing the rough feeling as his wrist rubbed against his face. He half smiled. "Never thought I'd grow a beard," he said, nostalgically.
Kim looked up from the screen and smiled. Her hair had been cropped short early in their assignment but had started to grow out again such that she almost looked like a younger version of her mother. "You had to reach puberty at some point, Ron."
"Hey!" said Ron. "That wasn't what I meant."
Kim giggled. "I know." She put down the pad and took Ron's canteen for a swig. "Bleh, I can't even remember what filtered water tastes like."
"Probably less like moss and dried leaves," said Ron, replacing the canteen in his back. "Anything in there noteworthy?" He gestured towards the pad.
"Not really," said Kim. "We'll have to get close again tonight and try the transceiver one more time. Gotta get Will and the technicians a way into Monty's system. Otherwise just the standard verbage."
"'Good luck, thanks for sticking it out, we hope to have an extraction ready next month, you didn't have lives you wanted to get back to did you?'" mocked Ron.
Kim couldn't help but nod in agreement. "I would have liked something a little more personal since we're on month five of a three-week assignment. But I guess we're not the only ones under pressure."
"Yah, I'm sure they're feeling the heat while safely in the US in their air conditioned facility and water that doesn't taste like monkey ass," griped Ron. He folded his arms and stared up at the canopy. "You know, Yori and I got lost in the mountains by Yamanouchi once, spent almost a week surviving on snow and the bark of some editable tree."
Kim nodded. "I remember you telling me."
"The funny part was," continued Ron. "After the initial days of nervousness and fear of death passed, it really was quite a beautiful place. It wasn't until then that I mastered the spirit exercises Sensei had me on for so long." He laughed. "I've always wondered if we were really lost or Yori was just trying to get me to detach myself from my worries."
"Knowing Yori, I wouldn't put it past her."
Ron nodded. "Yeah..."
Kim looked at Ron, lost in the memories, and felt a little nostalgic herself. "I'm sorry it didn't work out between you two."
"Hmm?" he said. "Oh, don't be. It happens. Just like you and me, sometimes the desire is there but the ends never line up. I've never really blamed Yori for taking that trip to China where she met Lian and I don't blame you for breaking up with me. We fit together in a particular way and it's just not a romantic one."
"I know," said Kim. "Still, it would have been awfully convenient."
"Which is, of course, the primary reason two people should marry," joked Ron. The two of them laughed and, for a moment, forgot they were sitting in an enemy jungle on the wrong side of the world.
"Approaching!" came a voice entering the clearing Kim and Ron were sitting in. They looked up in time to see the recon team returning. They looked about as disheveled as Kim and Ron, all wearing the same black uniform that had been modified on the spot to become jungle camouflage.
They came in and collapsed on the floor, rubbing sore shoulders as they dropped their packs. Kim looked at the leader of the team of three. "Ames, what's the sitch?"
"We've been around the eastern perimeter and got pictures of the 1430 shipments out of the facility. Still no observable breach in security and they're expanding their active sensor area." The man, several years older than Kim with short dirty blonde hair and the same stubble/beard all the men in the team had, rubbed some of the dirt off his face and dumped a few drops of his canteen on his head. "They keep that up and we'll have to be outside of visual range to keep from being caught again."
"Seems like Monty is taking security more seriously after our last scuffle," commented Ron.
"Any indication on who arranged all this?" asked Kim, making notes on her datapad. "I really refuse to believe it's Monty. Any new cars in or out? Heliocopters?"
"Nothing today," shrugged Ames. "What did the afternoon report say?"
"Good luck, keep your head down, etc. etc..." said Ron.
"Feh, figures," grumbled Ames.
"The Director must be taking some heat on this," surmised Kim. "If she has more to tell us, we're going to have to set up another means of communicating that isn't monitored by the OLC." Kim rubbed her chin. "Edison, any chance we can tap into Monty's network?"
"We'd have to be on the property," said Agent Edison, shrugging. He was younger than Ames but still older than Kim, with longer brown hair and faint blue eyes. "They have a satellite uplink that I think they use for network traffic, and everything is hard wired into the building."
"What about the security sensors?"
"Not likely. It's all one-way traffic."
"It's not worth the risk," said Ames. "They all think we're dead right now, which is the best position to be in if we're going to return intel about who else is in on this operation and what they're doing. Going in there to use a computer isn't worth compromising their belief that we're gone."
Kim considered Ames' opinion for a moment. Ames was the oldest member of the team, and had the most field experiences in GJ. He would have been the commander of the operation if Kim hadn't been placed there by Dr. Director. He was incredibly bitter at first but after Kim saved his life during the first gorilla attack, he started to reign back his disrespect.
"You're right," nodded Kim, finally. "Still, we're going to be out here until the end of days if we don't make some move. Orders from GJ or not, we know what needs to be done. This trifecta of Monty, Senior, and DNAmy has to be stopped and five months out here of watching hasn't revealed any other players. It's probably safe to assume this is it."
"Then, what?" asked Ames. "Barge in, guns blazing, hoping we catch them all?"
"I was thinking something more subtle, actually," said Kim grinning. She pushed herself to her feet and held out her datapad. "Something like this," she said.
Ames stared at the screen and looked thoughtful. "Balls-on crazy," he announced firmly. "I like it."
"I thought you would," smiled Kim.
She began discussing her strategy, which, as Ames implied, caused most of the team to look at her as if she were crazy. But they were her team, and in the last five months she had more than proven she was worthy of their respect.
It was late into the night before they were prepared to make their strike. Kim and Ron crouched in a tree just outside the security perimeter watching the goings on of the complex through binoculars.
"Hey, KP," asked Ron while checking out the west side of the grounds.
"Hmm?" uttered Kim as her attention was directed towards the single road heading into the tall walls that marked the boundaries of the facility.
"Did Dr. Director give you this plan?"
Kim paused, then said, "Not really, no. I came up with it, like I said before."
Ron moved his view around to the south side of the grounds, the closest area to their position in the tree. "Then what made you decide to attack now?"
"Ron, I explained all this--" Kim lowered her binoculars to look at Ron.
"You told the team a story that would get them to move," he interrupted, continued to look out over the jungle. "But you didn't give them the whole story."
Kim frowned, but Ron continued. "I know when you're hiding something Kim, you're a terrible liar." He finally turned to her.
Kim wilted slightly in response but quickly regained her composure. "There were some signs," she explained. "That Betty and I decided on before we left, so that she could pass messages to me if our transmissions were ever believed to be non-secure. She sent me one today."
"What did she say?" asked Ron.
"It's not a complicated system, just some key words that were emphasized in the report. 'Hurry' 'time' 'short' 'action' 'immediate' and so forth." She repositioned herself and brought her binoculars to her face. "Enough to let me know we have to make our move now or we might not get a chance later. I was hoping we could get more detailed intel through a uplink but, as Edison said, not going to happen."
Ron nodded. "It must be tough," he said turning back to the facility.
"What must be?"
"Always being the leader."
Kim hesitated, then lowered her hands again. She picked up her radio. "Ames, check?"
"Check," said a voice back.
"Edison, Check?"
"Check-check," another voice returned.
"Bell, check?"
"Check, boss," the last voice reported.
"All set," Kim said back to Ron. "What do you think?"
"We'll either nab the trifecta or get killed." He paused. "I'd give even odds right now."
"Your support is unfaltering, Ron," Kim said dryly. She held her radio to her face. "Ames? Fire."
A sound like a small cannon echoed through the valley of the jungle, sending a whore of bats flying from the tree tops. Kim kept her binoculars trained on the small shed on the west side of the facility as it was suddenly impacted with something and began to catch fire. It was only a moment later when the guards at the facility noticed the flames and began rushing towards the fire.
"Cut it now, Edison," Kim calmly called into the radio.
A few moments later a voice said, "We're black."
"All right everyone, that's the word," Kim announced. "Move in!"
Clipping her radio to her belt Kim and Ron leapt to the ground, rolling with the fall, then breaking immediately into a run towards the facility. With the fire disrupting the power shed and the security grid cut by Edison, they would have a clear way right up to the walls. What happened after that was in the hands of god.
Despite running through the trees at the speed they were traveling, Kim and Ron were barely making a noise. Both had spent many years of their life training their bodies to be able to perfectly move their weight and travel without a sound. Kim had her acrobatics training and the martial arts she'd learned after getting into the hero-biz. Ron had his mystical monkey power and the intensive training provided by the Yamanouchi Ninja School after receiving the lotus blade. Neither was an expert the likes of which would make Yori, the agile ninja from Yamanouchi, look twice, but both knew well how to pass without a trace.
Which is why the sudden snap of a twig made Kim stop dead in her tracks.
"What is it, K--" said Ron as he came around.
"Shhh," silenced Kim with a hand up. She blinked to adjust her eyes to the darkness and peered out with all her senses. Smelling the drifting air, listening for any sound, feeling the movement around her, she took in the entire scene and separated each element in her mind.
Moving without a sound, she reached for her pistol, a specialized silenced tranquilizer she had her whole team equipped with. Raising it up she sweeped it across the jungle floor, training her eyes where it pointed. The pressure of time was acute in her mind, knowing that if she didn't move soon her team would be going in without her. Without coordination, the whole plan might as well be dead.
Kim raised her other hand behind her back and motioned to Ron. He nodded and then leapt, almost completely vanishing behind her. With careful steps, she moved silently backwards, listening for that sound, whatever sound was out of place, so she could target it.
After several excruciating moments, the scrape of something against bark caught Kim's attention and she whirled on her foot and pointed her gun in the direction it came from. Almost immediately Ron descended from the canopy and landed in the shadows exactly where she had pointed her weapon. A dull thud and a squawk from someone who definitely wasn't Ron gave Kim the reprieve to release her breath.
Kim moved quickly over to where Ron had landed and stared in shock.
Lying on the floor was Ron, his face being pushed into the dirt while his leg and arm were wrapped behind him and being held against his back by a woman with long black hair and a catsuit. She looked up from the pinned man and turned her emerald eyes to Kim.
"I'm a little rusty," Shego admitted. "But, seriously? Stoppable? Give me a break." She flicked her hair behind her shoulders as Kim raised her gun.
"Let him go, Shego," Kim said, seriously. Shego stepped back immediately and held up her hands.
"No need to get testy," the black-catsuited woman said. "You remember what I said: 'Nothing to get me arrested again.'"
Ron got back to his feet, looking a little embarrassed, and stepped beside Kim again. "Then what are you doing here? How much did Senior Senior Senior pay you?"
"Senior Senior Senior?" questioned Shego. "I'm not sure he knows I'm out of jail, let alone in South America. I'm just here looking for you."
Kim deflated and put a hand to her head. "Dammit, Shego, this torment thing is getting really--"
"Annoying?" asked Shego, eagerly.
Kim narrowed her eyes at the thief and said nothing.
"Kim," said Ron. "Are we going to capture her or not? We really need to join the rest of the team."
"Hah, like you could capture me," scoffed Shego.
"Leave her," Kim said, holstering her weapon again. "Lets move."
Kim and Ron started running again and were surprised only moments later to see Shego keeping pace. Kim nearly boiled over. "Shego! Get out of here!"
"No way," said Shego with a smile. "Besides, you're going to need me."
"I do not need you, I have a team that actually listens to orders."
"A team of what? Five?" asked Shego. "One more makes you sixteen percent more effective."
"You don't know the plan!" yelled Kim. They were nearing the walls and Kim chided herself for speaking so loudly.
"So just point me where to fight people and I'll do it."
"Why?" said Kim, quieter but complete exasperated. "Why are you HERE?"
Shego ran closer to Kim. "Because if you die, the torment will end."
Kim looked shocked at Shego.
"I'm going to make sure you live a very long life, Princess," she smiled back evilly.
Kim blanched, just before she heard the fire from the wall screaming down around them.