I do not own any Disney characters named herein and am only borrowing them to tell a nonprofit tale meant for entertainment purposes only.
Kim Possible: Vamped
By LJ58
41
Kim walked to the door after Shego shouted for her, and stood eyeing the two men in GJ uniforms as she stood sipping coffee from an oversized mug.
"What do you want now," she grumbled, looking like a vampire again since it was just before dawn, and she was still using that excuse her latest attempt at a cure had not fully ended her earlier transformation.
Only Shego knew that Kim refused to stay fully normal-looking at all times to support Dana who Kim felt might feel hurt if she was the only one apparently not able to look normal. Holo-mask notwithstanding.
"We need you to come with us," the balding man said, the younger, blonde man looked on sourly as if disgusted by the two women before him.
"No, I don't," Kim said and turned to go back into the house.
"Miss Possible, you don't seem to understand…"
"No, you don't understand. I'm at a critical point with my research, and you are interrupting me. Now leave, or should I ask Shego to show you the road."
"The road," the younger man frowned.
"Well, damned if I want my door damaged," she spat and walked down the hall.
"She's been working pretty hard in her lab. Makes her cranky when you drag her out when she doesn't want to come out," Shego drawled. "Now me? You are just lucky I was already up making coffee. Because I get cranky when unwanted guests in uniform show up playing games. So were I you, I'd leave. Now."
"Dr. Director wants her to come in to debrief…."
"Don't care. Tell her to call herself. Or not. Kimmie said she's done with you lot. Frankly, I don't blame her. Now, I give you five seconds to get off the porch, and then I activate the new house security drone," she smiled daringly as she forcibly closed the door on the men.
She heard them running the moment the door shut.
"Gotta admit, those gremlins do help with their reputation of late," she chortled and set the real security just in case.
Shego walked down the hall, descended the basement steps, and joined Kim where she was watching someone on a series of monitors in one corner of the lab that seemed to have grown from what had seemed just a few boxes of haphazardly scattered parts into a genuine technological maze of late.
"Having fun?"
"I definitely may have found a new prison for my prey," she smirked, Shego knowing her reasoning. The environment is safe. No apparent life forms beyond small mammals and the water and soil are safe enough. We haven't explored the seas yet, but even if there is amphibious life, it's not likely to interact with this bunch."
"Okay. Anyway, it sounds like Wade called it. They really want you down at HQ today for some reason. Maybe to take the fall?"
"Like that ploy in Upperton wasn't already obvious enough," Kim snorted. "I can't believe I was so blind before now."
"You trusted, Princess. Of late, let's be honest, you're not so trusting."
"I still trust. It's just that circle of those I do trust is….smaller," Kim declared and adjusted something on one of the monitors. "Okay, looks like the boys' drone just found a large body of water east of our primary egress. Time to launch an aquatic probe just to be certain," she said and tapped a few keys before one monitor lost the clear, blue sky it was fixed on and was suddenly filled with a darkening haze of bubbles as it apparently sank deeper and deeper.
"So, we know Wade and Ron guessed this one as if we couldn't," Kim turned to nod at Shego.
"Dana's tucked in, too, so they can't claim she is anywhere today."
"We have Amy covered, too, and the boys already know to watch their backs. It's coming down to the moment we begin," Kim said. "You still want to stay and risk being caught up in this one?"
"From what you learned, I was part of it from the start," Shego said. "Do I excuse Bets? Not for a single, damn second. Even if she was just another dupe, she should have been smart enough to figure it out herself, after all, this time, and all the….issues we've all had."
"She's likely more like Du than she wants to admit. Overly fond of regulations that only serve to ensure the status quo is protected and maintained. Even if that status quo favors the corrupt."
"Whatever. I know what I know. So, who is your first target?"
"They're obviously fielding Timms again. He's an assassin first, and if they bothered to send him, it's because they already have a target in mind. We just have to make sure he misses, and then they'll be wondering where he went we target him," Kim smiled.
"Good. Never liked that guy myself."
"You know him?"
"Knew him. Used to do some jobs with Jack, too. Funny how they call him a good guy, though," Shego sneered.
"I wonder if there is any such thing these days," Kim muttered as she reached for her mug again.
"Losing your taste for caffeine," Shego asked, noting the mug had barely been touched.
"Well…."
"I can make you some fresh tea?"
"Please, and thank you," Kim smiled, and held out the mostly untouched mug.
"Why did you even pour yourself coffee if….?"
"Had to make it look good for the posers," Kim grinned, borrowing her manner just then.
"Oy. I'm surrounded by loons," she said and headed for the stairs. "I'll make you tea, but damned if I'm delivering it," Shego shouted down the stairs as she departed.
Kim only smiled and went back to work.
~KP~
"Your instincts have proven valuable again, Ron-San," Yori murmured over her communicator as she touched her ear as she lay over the cell inside a certain ventilation shaft. "Four men just entered the detention block, and are demanding to see the prisoner."
"Describe them."
"One is Timms-San you were told about by Wade-San."
"So, are they there to get Paradox out, or kill him," Ron frowned. "Watch for now, but be ready to act. I'm watching our spy in Central Command."
"As you say. Do you wish the prisoner guarded, or sacrificed?"
"For now, it's best if he's protected. If they want him dead, there has to be a reason. Likely something he knows that they don't want to be revealed."
"Understood, Ron-San. The men are now pretending to check the security. I will alert you if the circumstances change."
"Guard your own back, Yori. You matter more to me than any of them."
"Hai, as do you, Ron-San."
He smiled and cut off the channel as he moved through the shadows, all but ignored in his current guise as a janitor in an oversized uniform, and pushing a mop and bucket.
"Someone call for a cleanup," he growled in an affected voice as he rolled the bucket of soapy water into the main center for operations in the GJ main headquarters.
"Carter again," someone pointed in disgust at a very pudgy man who had spilled a large cappuccino from a desk overflowing with snacks, drinks, and things best not identified. "Guy is a walking bio-hazard, I swear," the speaker complained.
"Guess I win that bet," Ron drawled as the man in question glowered at him.
"Just clean that up, and get out of my way," the agent huffed. "I got important stuff to do," the man huffed, which made half the room chortled.
Not in a very companionable fashion.
"Whatever, man," Ron drawled, and indolently slapped the mop down to wipe up the mess around the man's desk. Damn if I would spill that kind of money, though. What's that cup cost you? Seven…. Eight bucks? Couldn't afford that kind of loss very often. I'd make sure I had a sealed mug or something. I'm just saying…"
"Shut up, loser, and do your job."
"Doing my job," Ron went on, copying certain janitors he had known. "Only the loser here is you. As I said, you just lost seven or eight bucks, and I sure would hate…"
"Just go," Agent Carter fumed, and kicked out at the intruding mop.
"Stay. Go. Get here. Leave. Wish you folks would make up your damn minds. I tell you what," he muttered on as he slowly walked out of the room after plunging the mop back into the water to shove the bucket ahead of him.
"Janitors are the same wherever you go, aren't they," someone laughed.
Agent Carter just grumbled as he made a show of logging in the endless stream of reports that was his job.
In fact, every report he logged went not only to archives but to a certain server in a certain secure location that was accessible only to a select handful of a small group of men and women that made sure GJ didn't go where they didn't want them to go.
Ron, meanwhile, pushed his bucket into a janitor's closet, closed the door after entering himself, and stripped off his janitor's uniform, mask, and the rest of his disguised before climbing into the ventilation shaft overhead to head for his next stop.
"Wade," he murmured after activating his communicator. "I got a full download off Carter's PC, and left a bug behind as well. See what you find. I'm headed to back up Yori just in case. Timms just walked in with a team."
"He must be moving if he's up this morning after trying to undermine Dana."
"He may move on her, too, for thwarting him. You know his kind don't like to be duped."
"Kim knows. Focus on the now, Ron. We need to debrief Paradox before they silence him."
"Right. I'm on my way now."
"Stay in touch," Wade told him.
~KP~
The twins showed up just after school let out, and came down into the lab with an eagerness that was barely contained.
"Is it true?"
"Did you record….?"
"Look," Kim smiled, and gestured at a larger monitor she had set up.
"Wow," they both murmured, staring at the huge structures filmed underwater that seemed like massive growths of the coral. Only they were buildings and revealed artificial growth and design. And all around flitted amphibian humanoids that must be barely three or four feet at the largest. "Real ETs," Jim murmured.
"You don't think putting those jerks on that world will endanger them?"
"They're in the sea, and pretty far down. I've been watching them, and so far they show no indications of even trying to approach the surface."
"Incredible," Tim remarked. "It makes you wonder about our world. Is this what would have happened if life never crawled onto the shore, or is there still some kind of aquatic life down there, doing its best to avoid us?"
"Well, it stands to reason if there is still intelligent life in our oceans, they had no reason to allow us to find them. If anything, it's the reverse."
"Granted," Tim nodded, "Only that isn't the issue."
"We'll use the surface, for now. Only we'll keep an eye on them just to ensure they don't bother the natives," Kim declared. "Not that I expect it. Still, they are now our responsibility. I won't let these people we target hurt anyone else. Not even otherworldly life."
"Well, if you're sending them over empty-handed, they may not last long anyway," Tim declared. "I've been studying their records, and none of them are very intelligent, or impressive. Not in the ways that matter."
"Don't underestimate desperation," Jim told him.
"Exactly. We will watch it. For the indigenous people's sake. Now, Ron and Yori spotted a Council assassin in the same HQ where they wanted me and Dana dragged today. Something is about to go down, so head home, and get ready for trouble. I have the feeling things are definitely about to heat up."
"You have everything you need," Jim asked her now, sounding more than serious.
"Everything. And I'm ready. Tonight, whatever happens, I hunt."
"Good luck," Jim and Tim both told her.
"Just keep the parents safe," she said quietly.
"No big," they smiled. "You don't mind if we piggyback your monitors," Jim then added, holding out a small flash drive. "This is too big not to monitor ourselves."
"No one else sees it."
"This is just for us. Imagine the possibilities of discerning what kind of technology they use," Tim asked her as he looked more than gleeful.
"The possibilities of adapting their science is….
"Beyond belief," they both concluded.
"Go for it," Kim told them, and let Jim plug his adaptor into her main monitor.
"Might want to pull back the probe, too. Don't want to tip them off to our presence," Jim added.
"It's on stealth already, and I'm keeping it a distance since detecting this community," Kim told them.
"Good idea. Call us if you need us," Tim said, and they headed back up the stairs, but not as energetically as they had come down.
Of late, they had been spending a lot of time in her basement lab and didn't mind helping her build more than a few things.
Kim suspected they might actually like being around her again, which was a surprise in itself. Then again, they had thought she was dead for over a year. She sighed, sat back in her own chair, and stared at the monitor without actually seeing it.
Then she shut down everything and went up to see if her tea was ready.
She needed to relax, and rest. If she was going out tonight, she needed to refresh, and ready. Even she knew you could be sloppy if you weren't alert and aware. For this mission, she was going to have to be more than ready.
There was no room for mistakes. Not now.
She was already determined to bring down the corrupt backers that had targeted her and her friends, even if she had to take down all of GJ with them. Monique had died for them, and it was for nothing which was not right. Not to Kim's mind. And that, she felt, was a slap against her.
Something that Kimbera would never allow to stand.
To Be Continued….