CHAPTER 3 – Dazed and Confused
Des Moines
"So why are we here, Doctor D?"
Drakken and his dark-haired companion had just arrived at Des Moines airport on a scheduled flight from Geneva. They were travelling incognito as Wanda and Eugene Crumholtz. "Heck, it worked for the Possibles," Drew Lipsky explained to his sidekick when she objected to her alias. Drakken had frustratingly refused to elaborate on his cryptic remarks back in Switzerland and Shego had struggled to contain her curiosity.
They had packed what few possessions remained in the smoking lair before Global Justice arrived. Drakken had found a second Personal Force-Field device, slightly blackened from the flames but still workable. They had managed to slip away just as the sound of GJ's helicopters reached them from the mountaintops.
"Don't call me Doctor D in public, Shego," he hissed to her. "I mean Eugene," he corrected. "Nooo, I meant Wanda. Gah, why is this secret stuff so difficult?" Shego smirked.
During the flight, Drakken's newly-rediscovered confidence had started to wane. Everything seemed so obvious when he was standing in the lair, but now the doubts were setting in. Would it still be there? Would he still be there? Would it even work properly? Shego, sensing his hesitation, had ramped up the snarkiness. When he took the last packet of peanuts, leaving Shego with the crisps which she hated, her annoyance boiled over. The slight tremor of turbulence that hit the plane when the attendant was leaning over her to pass a cup of coco moo to her boss was amplified by a nudge to the hapless girl's back, resulting in the hot chocolate milk pouring into Drakken's lap. The look on his face was priceless and Shego sniggered to herself as the young woman apologized profusely to her fellow passenger.
However, he had seemed to revive as the flight commenced its descent over the cornfields of Iowa. And once they had been waved through the immigration check and were safely in the arrivals lounge, he had visibly relaxed. Somehow, being back in the United States felt right. And his precious PFFs had made it safely into the baggage collection area.
Maybe I'll base my new operation in Middleton? Bet the annoying teen wouldn't think of looking for them so close to home! And I can get to see mother occasionally. She's hasn't forgiven me for forgetting Mother's Day this year.
"All in good time, Shego," her companion assured her. "We must get going now. Project Phoebus awaits. And it's essential that we don't let anyone know that we are here."
For this I am delaying my vacation?
They hailed a cab, which took them downtown to a nondescript warehouse adjoining an obvious military establishment. The latter was heavily guarded, with marines posted at intervals along the visible wall. Undoubtedly, the other walls were equally well guarded. Except that on the left hand side, the wall adjoined the building they were now standing outside.
"So where are we?" Shego was itching for some explanation and action after a ten-hour flight cooped up with her annoying companion.
"Don't you remember, Shego? We paid this place a visit a couple of years ago." She looked blank. Drakken had raided so many "secret labs" that they all tended to blend into one. It was not as if any one of the raids had led to anything useful. But she wouldn't admit to not recalling this particular place.
"And how are we supposed to get in without being detected?" All their high-tech equipment had been lost in Switzerland. Apart from some clothes and a bit of cash, the only useful things they possessed were two PFFs. And those would only be useful if they were discovered, which would invalidate the whole exercise. Likewise she could hardly use her plasma to blast her way in – there would be no better way to attract unwanted attention.
Drakken beckoned her towards the entrance of the warehouse. Quietly, they made their way through the door, which though locked yielded easily to a pulse of plasma that weakened the metal enough to allow them to push the lock ajar. While this might raise some suspicions if subsequently discovered, the effect was similar to what a standard Hench lock-buster would have produced.
The nefarious pair walked through the unoccupied warehouse to the far wall, which abutted the military laboratory. Stopping at the wall, Drakken indicated to Shego that she should put on the PFF.
"This is our way into the lab, Shego. Through this wall."
Shego looked puzzled. "How does this gizmo help us get through the wall?"
Drakken gave her a smug grin. "I haven't told you everything about the PFF," he admitted. "How do you think it works?"
"Don't know and don't care." Shego was getting increasingly frustrated with Drakken's temporizing. "Just get on with it and tell me how we are going to use this thing to get through that," pointing to the wall of the warehouse.
"Patience, Shego. When I invented the PFF I was looking for something that would increase the strength of the van der Waals forces between oxygen molecules. That's the force field effect. The strengthened inter-molecular force prevents anything from penetrating the field. As you know, I was entirely successful with this."
Shego resigned herself to listening to a rant from Drakken about how brilliant he was.
"However, I also discovered the reverse effect. I could so weaken the inter-molecular forces that the molecules within the field created by the PFF would slip through any substance they encountered." The black-haired beauty waited for the explanation.
"In other words," he concluded, "in reverse mode, anyone wearing the PFF and anything they carry inside the field can phase through any obstacle as if it weren't there." He looked pleased with himself.
Shego was stunned. This was even better than the force-field protection.
"So we're gonna just walk through that wall into the lab?"
"Exactly so."
Shego smiled. This was going to be fun!
Middleton
Ron Stoppable was not having a good day. It had started off on the wrong footing and gotten worse. Arriving early morning at the Possibles to collect Kim for their customary walk to school, he had been surprised and disappointed to find that she had already left, and according to her mother, was not going to school straight away. Something about an appointment with Global Justice.
Ron said goodbye to Anne Possible and she watched his back as he walked away from her, his shoulders drooping. She felt some concern at the demeanor of what she considered as her third son and wondered if something had happened between the two teens the previous night. Kim had rushed off before even having breakfast, saying that Betty needed to see her before she could go into school. Her mother had noted the girl's tired eyes.
Ron was accustomed to being the junior partner in their long-standing activities, but recently he was finding this status irksome. He would never be a Kim Possible of course. Her complete disregard for her own safety coupled with confidence that she would never get into a sitch that she couldn't get out of, contrasted starkly with his own awareness of his inadequacies and his fear for her when she took on yet another maniac in his lair. And then of course there were their relative talents. Kim's acrobatic skills, honed by years of cheerleader practice as well as her own natural agility, her expertise in sixteen types of Kung Fu, while maintaining an A average in class. While he, her sidekick, had only mastered the art of distracting the henchmen and less-dangerous villains, and was as likely to fall flat on his face during the middle of a fight as he was to take out his opponent (though he had an excellent track record in the latter, even if most of the time it felt more like luck than planning.)
Nevertheless, they were a team, and he felt strongly that both halves of the team needed each other. He had made a solemn promise to Kim's parents when they first started taking on missions that he would always have her back, and he was very proud that she had never been seriously hurt on his watch, even if she had to save him more than her saved her. Indeed, the thought of her getting badly hurt during a mission was what kept his own fears at bay when they dropped into yet another lair.
He passed the corner of the road that the two friends lived in and started up the main street of their part of Middleton.
He thought back to when they were younger. There was a time when she looked up to him as her hero. Maybe only for that first day at Pre-K when he saw off the bullies, but he treasured the memory. And for many years after that, through pre-teen and early teens, they were inseparable. The many photos in their parents' albums attested to that. And they were equals. Their first worm-digging expedition together, enjoying the swings in the playground, choosing Rufus, their first day at High School, a shared loathing of Bonnie Rockwaller, days spent shopping in the mall or lying on the beach of Lake Middleton, meals at Bueno Nacho, talking about the future when a month apart at Camp Wannaweep seemed like a lifetime.
Then came their early missions. That first mission where Kim deactivated the lasers, and he, Ron, talked Kim into doing this more seriously. Laughing together in Bueno Nacho as they recounted to each other the idiocy of their most recent opponent, Kim exuding an aura of invincibility that energized her sidekick. Those days he didn't care about anything other than seeing the excitement in her face when she related their latest success to her parents.
The one thing they truly shared – that feeling of being fully alive when on a mission. His normal life – the poor grades, the bullies in D-Hall, the chaotic home life with his parents perennially travelling – faded into the background when he was fighting the good fight. At times like that, Ron Stoppable felt good about himself, and the crazy unlikelihood of the most popular girl in school being his best friend didn't seem as unbelievable as it did when he was lying in his bed at night, contemplating his life.
Things had started to change, he realized, when the hormones started kicking in. Suddenly, the girl who feared nothing became a pool of slush when approached by a cute boy like Josh Mankey. His status as Best Friend Forever was no longer enough. Kim was looking for a Boyfriend as well, someone who would make her feel feminine and desirable. The incident at the Spirit Dance still rankled, though he had always been careful to play down his hurt. Ron was still her regular companion, but their relationship had subtly morphed into something closer to that of brother and sister. These days it was Monique she confided in more than him. Maybe that was a girl-thing but he couldn't help but be unhappy about the shifting sands of their long relationship.
Best friend status these days seemed to be mostly about missions.
And these were beginning to get a bit uncomfortable for him. Crawling along behind her in the air-conditioning vents, he couldn't help but notice that she had a very cute butt. He was not immune to hormones either, and sometimes wondered if there was any chance that Kim might see him in BF terms. Not that she'd ever given any signs of encouragement on that score. In any event, his crush was focused elsewhere at the moment.
So when Kim got upset with him, or something happened that emphasized his junior status in the team – like Kim being invited to a GJ meeting without him – he felt worse than unhappy, he felt unsettled. He could not imagine life if something happened to restrict their missions. And his deepest fear – that Kim would one day come to realize that he was a liability and exclude him from Team Possible, or worse still, withhold her friendship from the boy at the bottom of the food chain – was starting to keep him awake at night.
Maybe I need to get out more?
The events of the previous night had hardly helped. He cursed his uncanny ability to trip up at precisely the wrong moment, even if sometimes it turned out by fluke to be exactly what was needed. The Ron Factor, GJ had labelled it once – they actually believed that it was an asset. Kim had been so dismissive of the possibility and rather superior – at least for a few minutes – when GJ realized their error.
Kim had been really pissed on the way home. But come on, it was only a case of blowing up the lair! GJ would realize that blowing up lairs was what he did, and it at least kept the bad guys off-balance when their lairs kept going up in flames. And why do they always put self-destruct buttons in anyway?
I wonder what Kim is telling GJ about last night? I bet she's blaming me for the explosion. I mean, I know it was my fault, but Kim could at least take my side!
Heck, it was my fault. And I should man up and accept it.
Approaching the school, his thoughts turned to his classmates, and one particular cheerleader. The cheer team, with the exception of Bonnie, were among the few people in Middleton High who gave him the time of day. For the most part, he only had this level of acceptance provisionally, while he maintained his position as the team mascot. But one bubbly, blonde, blue-eyed girl had never failed to greet him with a smile when she came across him in the corridors. He had decided that Tara King was just about the sweetest girl he had ever met, and beautiful with it. If he was honest with himself, he would have to say that he had developed a huge crush on the unattainable goddess. At cheer practice, he often found himself day-dreaming about what it would be like to date Tara. Little did Bonnie know that much of the time the reason he was able to ignore her snarky comments was because he hadn't even heard them.
As Ron rounded the bend into the school playing field, he found himself walking a few paces behind Tara and Josh Mankey who were apparently engaged in deep conversation. Josh's body language was unmistakably that of an interested male. He was nodding furiously as Tara spoke, the girl gesturing with her hands. He saw her face in profile. She was smiling, but a frown appeared to cross her face at something Josh was saying, before settling back into her characteristic repose.
Ron felt deflated at the sight of the pair and slowed down, not wanting them to notice him. He watched as Tara responded to Josh. This time it was Josh's turn to frown. He caught sight of Ron at that moment, and flashed a tight smile at him before walking away, leaving Tara to enter the school by herself.
What does Josh Mankey have that makes all the girls swoon? I mean, apart from good looks, charm, artistic talent and the reputation of being the only boy to have managed to date Kim Possible?
He looked forlornly at the back of his crush as she disappeared into the school.
ooOooOoo
Tara was feeling awkward as she crossed the threshold into the school hall. She hadn't meant to come on to Josh Mankey like that as they walked to school together. She had thought that she was just being friendly to a fellow classmate, albeit a particularly cute one. She liked Josh and they often shared the last half-mile of the walk to school together as they lived on the same side of town.
And they were getting on famously today, until Josh asked her to accompany him to the Middleton Days parade that weekend as his date. And he hadn't taken her rejection too well. How was she supposed to know that he had a crush on her? He'd never shown it before. If anything, she assumed that he still carried a torch for Kim.
She – and the rest of the school – never did get to the bottom of why Josh suddenly broke it off with Kim and neither was telling. Her friend, Bonnie, of course had a simple answer. "It's obvious, Tara," she had said superciliously, tossing her dark hair to one side. "Josh realized that K was making him look a fool. After all, the stupid girl was hanging around with that loser Stoppable and letting down the reputation of the cheer squad. What self-respecting cheerleader would allow that to happen?"
She looked at Tara closely as if to dare her to disagree.
Why does she despise Ron so much? If she could only see him as I do. Bonnie, you're so hard to be a friend with sometimes.
"I don't know, Bonnie," Tara said nervously. "Josh is a nice guy. He wouldn't just dump Kim for no good reason."
"No good reason?" the brown-haired girl dismissed Tara's explanation. "I just gave you a good reason."
You're wrong, Bonnie, Tara thought, but kept the view to herself. I don't believe that Josh thought that way about Kim. I saw him the day after they had broken up. If anything, he had seemed more upset about it than she. As if she had done the breaking up.
Bonnie had seen the look of doubt on Tara's face and sniffed. "Why don't you go for Josh yourself, T? I know he's a bit of a geek, but he is cute, and he's high enough on the food chain not to harm your reputation as a cheerleader if you were to date him a few times. So long as he keeps his hands to himself – after all, he's no jock and you don't want the rest of the geek brigade thinking they've got a chance with you, do you?"
If only you knew, Bonnie, who I really want to date? But I daren't tell you – you'd laugh at me and I really don't want that. I'd hate to have to choose between my friend and my crush. If only you would give him a chance …
Tara had been crushing on the school outcast for what seemed like forever. She often wished that she had met Ron earlier, before he became joined at the hip to the teen hero. Perhaps he might have noticed her.
Shaking her head, Tara collected her textbooks from her locker and headed for her first lesson of the day.
Des Moines
Drakken and Shego emerged from the wall and found themselves in a corridor with wooden doors on either side, each with a window in the top half. He signalled to her to shut off the PFF.
That was a very strange sensation – like walking through water but as if you could feel the water inside you as well as around you. But Drakken's crazy idea actually works!
Drakken started down the corridor with Shego in tow. He looked carefully at the names on the front of each door, stopping outside the door marked Dr. T Zaruda. Looking through the glass he could see movement.
"Okay, Shego, it's time for action. Dr. Zaruda in there is going to give us something I need."
Shego grinned at him. "I hope he's not too quick to comply," as her hands glowed.
Not bothering to knock, the two villains burst through the door, taking by surprise the sole occupant. Dr. Zaruda was an archetypal scientist, with receding hairline and thick-lensed glasses topping an ill-fitting suit that had known better days. He was sitting at his desk and looked up with alarm at the pair.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" he demanded, though the effect was rather spoilt by the fearful look on his face as Shego ignited her plasma.
"Project Phoebus," Drakken demanded of the scientist. "Where is it?"
Oh god, I thought that was dead and buried.
"I ... I don't know what you mean," the hapless man stammered.
"Yes you do, you invented it." The blue-skinned villain was losing his patience. "Seat, helmet, electricity, turned a rodent into a genius. Coming back to you now?"
The frightened scientist looked between the two villains, like a rat in a trap.
"We stopped Phoebus a long time ago," he confessed.
And I wish we'd never started it!
"Why?" Shego demanded.
Zaruda looked uncomfortable. "It didn't work properly."
"Seemed alright when that annoying rodent went into it. That's good enough for me. Where is it now?" Drakken snapped.
"I don't know," the scientist pleaded.
"Shego," ordered Drakken. "Help the good doctor to remember."
"Only too pleased to help, Doctor D" she smirked, bringing her plasma ball close to the terrified man's face. "You heard what my boss said. Now spill!"
Zaruda sighed. If he was to escape serious injury he knew he had no choice but to comply.
"They were all dismantled … except for one which was hidden away in the storeroom."
"Take us there," ordered the blue-skinned man. "And no tricks. Shego has an itchy hand."
ooOooOoo
Drew Lipsky looked delightedly at the device in front of him. It looked like a cross between a salon hairdryer and an electric chair. A helmet hung from the top, ready to be pulled down over the head of the occupant who would be seated. It had been stashed in the far corner of the large storeroom in the basement of the building but Shego had dragged it into the center of the room adjacent to a power-point. It was plugged in and ready to be activated.
"Remember this, Shego?" he asked.
It had not been until they set eyes on the device that she had recalled what Project Phoebus was all about, and Drakken's references to a genius rodent had suddenly made sense. Something about the brain-waves of a collection of geniuses being stored in the device and transferred to anyone who used it. It had raised a naked mole-rat to an IQ of 184. What would it do to a man who was already brilliant, albeit in a crazy way? And what did this sniveling little man mean about it not working?
A frisson of fear for her boss went through her.
"Doctor D, you're not thinking of using this device are you?" she asked warily.
"I most certainly am, Shego. In fact it was you that suggested it."
"What?"
"Yes, when you told me back in the lair to get smart. That is exactly what I intend to do!"
Shego looked at her boss. "But you're smart already."
"No, Shego. I have the brains, but I know that I'm missing a certain oomph to actually make things work out. This device will give me that."
Drakken struck a pose. "And then I will be invincible!"
He turned to the scientist. "Did you solve the problem that the effect wore off after a few days?"
"No," Dr. Zaruda answered. "That was one of the reasons that the project was discontinued."
"And the other?" Shego challenged.
The man looked furtive. "It didn't work consistently," he admitted.
He dare not reveal the real reason why the project was terminated. And why all reference to the program and the unfortunate volunteer prisoners had been struck from the records. No-one else knew that Global Justice had kept a single device intact, for purposes never disclosed.
Drakken appeared not to have noticed the man's hesitation. He walked over to the device and sat down in the seat, strapping himself in. He lowered the helmet over his head and called to Shego to activate the mechanism. Shego remained motionless.
"Are you sure you know what you're doing, Doctor D?" she asked him, feeling an unnamed fear flood through her.
"Yes, yes, Shego. Now go ahead." The villain was impatient to proceed with his plan. For once, he would not be interrupted by any annoying teen heroes.
Here goes nothing, she thought as she depressed the button.
Apart from a flashing light on the top of the helmet, there was no sign that anything was happening. Drakken's face remained in the same manic pose that it had been when he sat down.
"How long?" she demanded.
"It takes about two minutes," the scientist responded.
And then, please just leave. I swear I'll never say anything to anyone about this!
As she watched, the light stopped flashing and Shego looked closely at her boss. Was she imagining things or did his eyes look brighter? She went forward to assist him in getting out of the chair.
Drakken looked around him as if seeing the room for the first time.
"Are you feeling alright, Doctor D?" Shego asked carefully.
He didn't respond initially, looking out into the room, his eyes unfocused.
"Of course!" He paused. "Why did I never see that before?" Another pause. "But that was so obvious! If I'd only known!"
A look of glee crossed Drakken's face as he returned his gaze to his sidekick. "Yes, Shego. I am absolutely fine. No, I'm better than fine! Everything makes sense now." He grinned manically. "It worked!"
Shego smiled uncertainly. Drakken sounded different. More confident.
"You know it's going to wear off in a few days, don't you?" she asked.
"Ah Shego, but I have worked out how to make the effect permanent, and as soon as I get to a new lair I'll get that sorted." he smiled. "These stupid scientists didn't realize that using the machine itself gives the ability to figure out how to solve the problems. If they'd only tried it on themselves, they'd have had all the answers."
"Okaaay, Doctor D," Shego said doubtfully.
She pointed to Zaruda, whose expression was one of dread.
"Er, Doctor D. What are we going to do about this moron? You want me to fry him?"
The scientist looked horrified. His eyes pleaded for mercy.
"Shego, we can't let anyone know this place was compromised. So give him a plasma burst to his frontal lobes."
Dr. Zaruda screeched as he found himself firmly held by Shego, who placed a glowing fist to his forehead. He found himself praying as a flash of light burst through his head and everything went black.
When he woke up an hour later in his empty office with a pounding headache, all he could recall was having fallen asleep.
"What next, Doctor D?" Shego asked as they drove away from the laboratory in a car which Shego had purloined from outside the warehouse. The theft would eventually be reported, but they would be far away by then and there was nothing to connect them to the stolen vehicle.
"First off, we need a new lair," Drakken said. "And I know just the way to get one."
"Oh, and Shego, when we do, the first thing I want you to do is booby-trap the air-conditioning units. I can't believe we never thought of that before. The last thing we want is some snooping teenager surprising us."
Another thought struck him. "And I want you to disconnect any self-destruct mechanisms. Much too easy to have them set off unintentionally."
Shego stared at him in disbelief.
Author's note: Project Phoebus, and the names Wanda and Eugene Crumholtz are taken from the episode Naked Genius (Season 2).
Ron is finding it hard to come to terms with his changing relationship with Kim, and he and Tara are unaware that they are crushing on each other. And Drakken starts to look ominously competent less than six weeks before Junior Prom.
Hope you're enjoying the story so far!