CHAPTER 14 – No, Mister Bond, I expect you to die!
The story so far
Drakken is piecing together the several strands of his plot, though he has barely shared with his team. The good guys are off their game at just the wrong time, though Ron's intuition is sound. Global Justice is trying to figure out the Mk II remote control. And neither member of TP has a date, with Junior Prom looming in less than three weeks.
Last time …
Hank wondered briefly which villain had five billion dollars to spend on a takeover. And why?
As a sign of good faith, one million dollars has already been paid into your personal account in Zurich. Please check this now and confirm your acceptance of our proposal.
Not unduly surprised by the admission that his supposedly secret account details were known to the caller, he quickly checked online to find that indeed his balance had just increased by seven figures.
He typed assent to the proposal.
The screen went blank. A final message appeared.
He looked at the screen and frowned.
Why would a villain want to take control of a fast food chain?
Drakken's Lair. Noon Tibet time.
"Why do you want to take control of a fast food chain?" Shego demanded.
Drakken had called his key lieutenants to the library where he had disappeared after breakfast. Manfred, Shego and Dementor were sitting opposite Drakken, who had a computer on the table in front of him, on which he continued to type out ideas as they flowed from him. Next to the computer were several manila files that appeared to hold print-outs, together with a newspaper. Shego tried to read upside down but apart from a poorly-drawn sketch of some toy with a grinning face she could not make any sense of what she was seeing.
He had just dropped the first bombshell with his revelation that his plan required a secret buyout of the Bueno Nacho chain.
Drakken looked across at the agitated green-skinned woman.
"All in good time, Shego. This is just the first step. We have several others to go before this plan is ready to click into action." He looked around the room, noting the skeptical faces. "But I can assure all of you that I know exactly what we need to do to defeat Possible and Global Justice and take over the world."
His dark-haired sidekick was unmollified.
"Doctor D, this is whack." Shego's frustration was boiling over. "What possible point is there in us buying up some junk food joint that even Miss Perfect barely tolerates. What are you going to do, tempt her in with curly straws and a poisoned salad?" She scowled at her boss, daring him to explain but he remained silent.
"Tell me what's going on." The other members of the group stared at the exasperated woman as she slammed the table, her voice rising in anger.
But Drakken only smirked back at her. "Oh, Shego …"
"What the snap is going on? Give me a frikkin' answer already," she challenged. "Your 'plan' so far consists of some plastic soldiers who go pop when you prick them, some stupid mind-control chip that needs to be physically attached to someone's neck, and now a crazy idea about buying Bueno Nacho."
Shego glared at Drakken, a green glow forming around her fists. To her surprise, Drakken showed no sign of panic or discomfort. She looked chastened as he laughed at her.
Drakken gave her a sly glance. "You're cleverer than Kim Possible, aren't you?" he queried.
Shego was taken by surprise but nodded her head. Possible might be smart too, but the thief was street-wise in addition.
"And you can't work out my plot, can you?"
Shego glowered, but said nothing.
"So if you can't …" he left his words hanging.
Suddenly, Shego got it.
"Then neither can she!" she exclaimed.
Drakken smiled like a proud father watching his daughter take her first steps.
"Exactly, Shego. And I intend to keep it that way, until the last possible moment, if you'll forgive the expression."
The smile disappeared from his face and he stared at Shego.
"So from now on, you do what I ask, and trust me." Turning to the others, who had sensibly kept quiet during the previous exchange, he added "And that goes for you too." They nodded under his stare.
Doctor Drakken pulled himself to his full height, his three colleagues feeling the power of his presence as his face broke into a look of supreme confidence. "We will be risking breaking cover of some of our activities in the next few days, so caution and indirection will be critical. But let me assure you all that if everyone plays their part, this plan is unstoppable. It will bring us the victory that we have all longed for. I have thought it through all ways and there are no flaws."
Shego had heard speeches like this many times from Drakken, but this time she truly listened. Never before had he seemed so charismatic. For the first time ever she contemplated an ending that wasn't the old story of a blown up lair and a prison sentence. Even though Drakken had revealed next to nothing of his plot, his words and in particular his manner inspired her in a way that she scarcely credited as possible. A feeling of anticipation rose in her as she considered the real possibility of a world in which she could do what she liked, take what she wanted, and torment her foes with no fear of retribution.
Suddenly she came down to earth with a bump. Something fairly fatal had occurred to her. She was almost too afraid to raise it.
"Er, Doc …" she spoke haltingly.
"What is it, Shego?" His irritation at hearing something less than full enthusiasm was evident in his voice.
"How are we going to find the money to pay for Bueno Nacho? We're going to need …"
"Four billion dollars at least," he finished for her, looking down at the copy of the Wall Street Journal in front of him. "Yes, I know. And I know exactly how to get it!"
Highway 31W exit for US Army Human Resources Center of Excellence, Kentucky. 2pm (3am the following day Tibet time).
Concealed in the undergrowth by the side of the road, Manfred peered through a pair of binoculars at the approaching traffic turning off the highway towards the military base two miles up the road to his right. With the sun close to its zenith, he was grateful for the anti-reflective coating so there was no tell-tale glint to give away his position. This was the least-popular access road to the base and vehicles passed his hiding place only every five or ten minutes.
Manfred ignored those cars that did come his way as he waited patiently for a particular vehicle, as he had been doing so for the last hour since he had driven up from Indianapolis airport on the motorcycle he had acquired on arrival. It was unlikely that he had been recognized on the trans-continental flight from Tibet but he was making sure that his tracks were covered. After his mission was over, he would head west towards St Louis, Missouri where he would abandon the bike and rendezvous with Shego for their overnight return to Tibet in Dementor's hoverplane.
He raised the glasses to sweep the highway. An olive-colored jeep appeared in view about a mile away, signaling to change from the central to the rightmost lane, clearly preparing to leave the highway. Manfred focused on the vehicle, recognizing the distinctive AHRCOE symbol painted on its side. As far as he could ascertain, there was only one occupant.
He had found his quarry.
ooOoo
Corporal George Manning, Iraq War veteran and now leadership development manager at the AHRCOE, was whistling a jaunty air to himself as he turned off Highway 31W and approached the military base after his short furlough. Although he enjoyed his job teaching future army leaders the skills of man-management, he welcomed time out for himself. He had been able to complete his chores in Louisville in good time, and had managed to spend a couple of hours with his mother, who passed on the message that his father was returning to Kentucky next week from a business trip and would make time to see his son on his next furlough.
Manning's thoughts turned to his fiancée, with whom he would be spending a week when his current semester came to an end in July. Janine had accepted his proposal last fall and they were planning a Kentucky-style wedding next spring after his hoped-for tenure came through. An unbidden smile broke out on his face as he recalled the day she said "yes" to him.
He was abruptly brought out of his reverie at the totally unexpected sight of something in the road ahead of him. He slammed on the brakes and skidded to a halt. Looking more closely, he could see that a man laid motionless, face-down and wearing a black hoodie that concealed his features, revealing only a crown of lustrous black hair.
His first instinct was to rush over to see what help he could give the apparent accident victim. As he climbed out of the jeep cabin his military training cut in and he was suddenly reminded of IEDs and suicide bombers in Iraq. His right hand went to his handgun and he looked around cautiously before walking slowly to the stricken man. As Manning approached the prostrate figure he could see that his eyes were shut and his legs splayed out. One arm lay on the road while the other was bent under him. It looked as though the victim had been caught a glancing blow and sent spinning to the ground.
Cursing himself for his paranoia – this was Kentucky for heaven's sake, not Baghdad – he bent down and reached out gently to feel for a pulse in the man's neck. He recoiled as the victim's eyes shot open. An arm reached up and grabbed the soldier by the neck, taking him completely by surprise. Struggling to free his gun from its holster, the hapless corporal found himself staring into a pair of grinning brown eyes. As he started to open his mouth to yell for assistance, a second arm appeared from under the victim's body, now revealed to be holding a small aerosol canister.
The last thing that Corporal Manning heard before darkness descended was the hiss of escaping gas sprayed into his face.
His assailant dragged the limp body across the tarmac into the wooded expanse that ran alongside the road until they were both hidden from view. Quickly he stripped the unconscious soldier of his uniform and, discarding his own jacket and trousers, he put on the corporal's uniform. He walked over to the thick undergrowth, which was concealing the motorcycle with two large panniers on the back. He stuffed his jacket and trousers into the right hand pannier. From the left hand one he removed four cable ties, a rope, a large handkerchief and a pair of mirror shades. Returning to the prostrate figure, he used the cable ties to secure the soldier's hands behind his back and his feet together. Finally, he knotted the handkerchief around Manning's mouth and the back of his head, securing it in place with the remaining cable tie. The rope he wrapped around the helpless man, tying him to a tree, facing away from the highway. Returning to the cycle, he retrieved a khaki backpack.
The soldier was now completely neutralized, and in the unlikely circumstance that he woke before his assailant completed his task, there was no chance that he could free or draw attention to himself. However, Manfred was not a cruel man. He would return to free the corporal's hands before he departed.
Manfred smiled grimly as he checked the road for any traces of a struggle. Finding nothing, he climbed into the abandoned jeep, flinging the backpack onto the rear seat. Releasing the handbrake, he continued in the direction of the military base, mirror shades reflecting the mid-day sun as it burned down from a clear blue sky.
Five minutes later, he slowed to a halt at the checkpoint barrier on the chain-linked perimeter fence surrounding the military base.
Private Morris looked up at the sound of an approaching vehicle. Even from 50 yards away, he could recognize the insignia of the AHRCOE.
Darn, just at the good bit too! He reluctantly turned the television down as he stepped out of the sentry post to meet the stationary jeep. He looked at the driver, seeing his own face in the sunglasses. "Pass please, sir" he ordered, and scrutinized the card that was handed to him. As expected, it belonged to Corporal Manning who had left the base earlier that morning.
"Welcome back, sir," he greeted mechanically, raising the barrier. The driver nodded as he drove into the base. The sentry returned to his post and turned up the television set that a previous occupant had cunningly secreted there. This was one military secret that had escaped the notice of the top brass for the last eighteen months. On the screen, Pussy Galore was finally submitting to the irresistible charms of the British spy James Bond. With a sigh of satisfaction, Morris settled down to watch the end of Goldfinger.
As the jeep left the perimeter road and headed for the heart of the base, Manfred grinned as he passed a sign reading:
"Welcome to Fort Knox. Home of the United States Army Human Resource Command and the United States Bullion Depository."
Drakken's Lair.
Dementor looked between Drakken and Shego with astonishment.
"Ver will you get four billion dollars from?"
Drakken grinned at the pint-sized villain.
"Actually, we'll need a little over five billion to be sure, and to cover some other expenses I have in mind. You know what the markets are like." The blue-skinned villain was enjoying himself.
Dementor was getting annoyed.
"So ver will you get five billion dollars from, then?"
Drakken looked at the questioning faces of his team and smiled silkily.
"We are – actually, Manfred is – going to rob Fort Knox."
He was greeted by a look of disbelief by all three of his companions.
Shego felt sick with apprehension. She had just got used to the idea that her boss had a real plan, and now it appeared to be nothing but wishful thinking, or pure insanity.
Oh god! What has that infernal machine done to him?
Manfred was the first to regain his senses.
"But surely this is impossible? Five billion dollars in gold must weigh a fortune, no?" he questioned.
"Indeed," Drakken responded, with an amused look in his eye. "Around ten thousand ingots, weighing roughly one hundred and forty tons."
There was a long silence.
"So how …" Shego's voice trailed away.
Drakken relished the look of bewilderment on his sidekick's face. The thought popped into his head, "She is a crawling insect compared to my genius."
Where did that come from?
Shego saw her boss blanch before his face settled.
"What spooked Doctor D?" she asked herself, before returning to her question.
"How do we get ten thousand gold ingots out of the most heavily guarded vault in the United States?"
Drakken turned to face her, shaking his head.
"We need to get into the vault. But we don't need to remove the gold in order to steal the money."
The silence was eloquent testimony to the confusion of his colleagues.
Shego had had enough.
"So tell us already! How are we going to steal five billion dollars from Fort Knox?"
And Drakken began to explain.
Fort Knox, Kentucky.
As Manfred drove the jeep down Bullion Boulevard toward the intersection with Gold Vault Road, he could see in the distance the imposing fortress-like structure that sat over the vault containing the United States official gold reserves, representing almost one-thirtieth of all the gold ever mined throughout history, and with an estimated value of 400 billion dollars.
The vault was well-nigh impregnable. Encased in 16,000 cubic feet of granite and 4,200 cubic yards of cement, with a door weighing 22 tons and 21 inches thick, the vault had a bomb-proof roof, video cameras, minefields, barbed wire, electric fences, and heavily-armed guards. Not to mention helicopter gunships on constant standby and thirty thousand soldiers within five miles, with tanks, APCs and artillery.
In short, impossible for anyone to get into. Even Shego.
Except for one weakness, that no-one in the world but Drakken could exploit.
Manfred turned off the Boulevard and drove up a road that led to the office building housing the United States Army HR Center of Excellence, the Army's main training operation for senior staff and brass. He pulled into a parking bay and stepped out of the vehicle, retrieving his backpack from the rear seat. Approaching the reception desk, he waved his pass at the marine and was waved through the barrier into the heart of the building.
He found himself alone in an elevator lobby. Manfred opened a side pocket in his backpack and pulled out a notepad, filled with instructions that had been dictated to him by Drakken before he left Tibet. He nodded to himself and entered the first car to arrive.
"Turn right when you leave the elevator – you'll find a small door with no handle or keypad set into the wall about fifty yards down the corridor."
Manfred reached into the backpack and retrieved a metallic-looking belt that he secured to his body. Drakken's Personal Force Field was a bit small for him, but it was manageable. As the elevator came to a halt, he stepped out of the car and looked around. There was no-one in sight. He smiled. Drakken had spent his morning wisely, finding schematics of this building on the Web. He wondered how many other military secrets were no more than a web search away.
"The door is designed to be capable only of being opened from the inside. No-one has ever entered from the outside."
Manfred switched on the PFF and walked toward the door. He hesitated as he reached it. He tentatively pushed at the solid door, surprised by the sensation as his arm slid into the entrance. Taking a deep breath, he strode forward as his body disappeared into the door. He held his breath as his face breached the surface, but almost immediately he found himself on the other side of the door. In front of him a flight of stairs led down to the lower level.
"Do not switch off your PFF. The rest of your route will be lined with motion and acoustic detectors."
Manfred smiled as he recalled Drakken's description of a further feature of the PFF. The mad scientist had explained that the device would be as invaluable when walking through air as through a wall. The field effect allowed the user to pass through atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen molecules without disturbing them, just as effectively as through solid matter. The resulting absence of any disturbance of the air, and the inability of any sound waves to propagate meant that the wearer would be invisible to motion and acoustic detectors.
He descended the stairs and found himself standing in front of a massive steel vault door.
Manfred phased through the gateway, feeling a wave of claustrophobia as at one point his entire body was within the 21-inch thickness of the secondary entrance. As he recovered his equilibrium he looked about him.
Stretching in front of him as far as the eye could see was a tunnel, some eight feet wide and high and dimly illuminated by emergency lighting situated along the walls at thirty or forty feet intervals. The bare walls exposed the bedrock underlying the site.
"Fort Knox is impossible to get into. Even you, Shego, could not manage such a feat."
The impatient sidekick grunted but did not dispute the comment.
"Except that I have discovered a way in."
Dementor, Shego and Manfred stared as they took in the audacious comment.
Concealed by the PFF, Manfred made short work of the mile-long corridor, until he approached yet another metallic vault door blocking the width and height of the tunnel. By now he was acclimated to the PFF and he quickly passed through the obstruction before emerging on the other side. "Emergency Exit" read the red and green signs on either side of the corridor, now covered with brick and tiling, looking for all the world like a passageway in a subway station.
"It's amazing what Googleplex can tell you," Drakken continued. "The builders of this vault in 1936 were worried that someone might get accidentally locked in. So they built an escape tunnel from the lower level. Naturally they were concerned that it could be used to circumvent the security surrounding the rest of the building. They extended the tunnel almost a mile and built an office block over the end to conceal the tunnel exit. Three doors, openable only from the inside and made of similar material to the vault itself, and motion and sound detectors along its length completed the defense.
Impenetrable from the outside … unless you have a personal force field!"
His companions considered this in silence. Until Shego asked the question that was on all their minds.
"Sooo, maybe we can get in. But we still have no way of getting the gold out! So why are we going in?"
At the end of the corridor, Manfred stepped into a vast cavern, cut out of the bedrock itself. He stopped for a moment, dazzled by the impressive sight of pile after pile of shiny gold ingots. But his instructions were clear, as he made his way around the 'room' towards a reinforced steel bunker set into the wall, with a viewing window and door. He could see a solitary computer monitor through the window, as he phased through the adjoining wall and approached the terminal.
"Once upon a time," Drakken started, "financial transactions were conducted by physically transferring gold between buyer and the seller. When this got too cumbersome, someone hit upon the idea of keeping the gold in one place but shifting the ownership labels."
Manfred inserted a memory key into the device's USB port. It was similar to the one that Shego had used to gain access to the HenchCo computer, but far more powerful. Dementor had purloined it from the Mathter – its prime number factorization algorithm was faster than anything the NSA used.
"Today, those labels are represented by entries stored in a secure computer, which holds the record of ownership of every ingot of gold in the vault. Every night, central bank computers around the world access Fort Knox via a unidirectional up-link, and update their own records. These are electronically disseminated to every other bank in the world."
It still took Manfred twenty nerve-wracking minutes before the display indicated that he had gained access. He started searching for a suitable "donor" – someone worth at least five billion dollars who would not immediately report a theft.
"With no down-link connection, no external computer or hacker can change the records – even Possible's techie cannot access this computer. Instead, all ownership changes are sent to Fort Knox and entered manually through the keyboard."
One name stood out. A familiar name on the international playboy circuit, his money obtained from wholesale corruption and theft from his hapless countrymen, apparently untouchable by virtue of his country's oil wealth.
"The system is on the face of it foolproof. But with someone on the spot with access to the terminal … ".
Drakken paused for effect. "Change the entries and you change the owner. No need to steal a single ingot."
A few keystrokes later, the Sheikh of Aman was five and a half billion dollars to the poorer and a certain Swiss numbered bank account was the same amount to the richer. Less than ninety minutes after he shut down the program and slipped out of the vault, Manfred was cruising west on Interstate 64 en route to St Louis and a rendezvous with Shego, while a confused corporal with a jeep but no key was trying to flag down a car dressed only in his shirt and underpants, with no recollection of how he found himself in that state.
Shego and Manfred looked at each other. Finally Shego turned to Drakken.
"Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to just to get a free burrito."
Drakken glared at her. "Very amusing, Shego. Just keep your eye on the ball, please. Now, while Manfred is doing all that, I have a task for you.
You are to go to Middleton and pay a visit to my old friend James Possible. He has something I need. Oh, and take with you that brain-tap machine that Bortel has been using to access emotions for his Mark II Moodulator. I have a feeling that it will come in handy in persuading him to cooperate. Take the hoverplane and return with Manfred."
Shego's face lit up at the prospect of messing with the Possibles again.
Middleton Space Center, Middleton, Colorado 7pm the same night.
Doctor James Timothy Possible – rocket scientist, over-protective father and devoted husband – sat at his bench in the high-security laboratory of the Space Center, the area reserved for dangerous experiments, or experiments funded by the Department of Defense (most of which also fell into the former category).
He was peering down a microscope, through which could be seen nanites twisting and turning like microorganisms in a drop of rainwater. Their gyrations were clearly more than the mere jostling of Brownian motion, and every now and then a pair of nanites would come together and adhere for a second or so before breaking apart. Meanwhile other nanites were breaking up into fragments, the number of active nanites diminishing until all motion had ceased.
James hissed in frustration as he watched the mating dance repeat itself time and again without any further development, the rejected suitors crashing and burning. It reminded him of his college days at Upperton University. At least until Anne Morrow crossed his path. To this day he still found it incredible that the popular and attractive medical student had chosen him over all her many suitors – him the geeky physicist with an IQ of 160. It had not taken him long to realize that she was not only beautiful but his intellectual match as well, and with a gentle, caring nature. Falling for her was as natural as breathing, and they had been married shortly after she graduated.
James stepped away from his microscope and stared at the apparatus to his left. The Hephaestus Project had a lot in common with the search for a sustainable fusion reactor. Both required a complex and expensive piece of equipment. Both had the potential for great human good if the techniques could be perfected. And in both cases, little progress had been made after decades of effort. The prototype reactors were able to produce heat from fusion, but only for a tiny fraction of a second, and since they required greater energy input than was provided as output they were not viable energy sources. In a similar way, the Hephaestus generator could produce programmable nanites but they seemed unable to replicate and began to decay within minutes of their formation.
Wearily he picked up his notebook for one last effort before giving up for the day. It was, after all, pizza night at home, and Anne would be sending out for his favorite bacon pizza shortly. James looked at the figures, and a novel thought occurred to him.
I've been assuming that the nanite soup needs to be kept at room temperature for the nanites to survive and thrive. But maybe they would actually benefit from being put under stress?
With renewed energy he adjusted the temperature on the Hephaestus generator to twenty degrees above ambient temperature. After five minutes he extracted a drop and placed it on a microscope slide. Not entirely to his surprise, he could see no independent motion whatsoever.
Okay, so twenty degrees kills them. What I need to do is gradually reduce the temperature degree by degree to see if anything interesting happens somewhere between zero and twenty.
Forty minutes later, the bacon pizza long forgotten, James Possible was examining a sample that was twelve degrees above room temperature. At thirteen degrees the nanites had moved sluggishly for several minutes, gradually succumbing to the heat. But the twelve degree sample was much more interesting. The nanites were moving with vigor, pairs forming much more frequently than at room temperature. He looked more closely at a couple of nanites that seemed to be sticking together longer than normal. Was that a bud forming between them?
Come on, come on. Daddy needs to see some cybertronic replication!
He held his breath as the bud grew, only to exhale when it burst and the two nanites separated.
Darn, I'm really close to something here. Let's try 12.5 degrees.
And five minutes later, an observer would have seen the normally sober James T Possible fling his arms in the air, screaming "Eureka, the Hephaestus Project is a go!"
And stop abruptly as a green-skinned woman slid through the wall beside his bench.
ooOoo
James stared suspiciously at the intruder. "You're not show people are you?"
Shego looked bemused. "Why are all you Possibles so annoying?"
James took in the woman's green and black body suit.
"I know you, you're my daughter's worst enemy!" he declared.
"Worst enemy?" Shego responded indignantly. "I'm her best enemy."
He looked down his nose at the sidekick. "That's not what Kimmie-cub says. She says that you never get near her in a fight."
Shego turned puce.
"Anyhow, Kimmie's not here. It's pizza night and she's at home."
"Snap," he thought as he realized that he'd missed most of the evening.
"Look, I've got to go home, so why don't you come back tomorrow if you're looking for my daughter." He stood up to leave.
"Uh uh uh …," the villain warned as she took a step towards him. "It's not Miss Priss I'm here for. It's you. You have something I want."
"What could you possibly want from me?" the scientist asked, looking puzzled.
Shego pointed to the apparatus set up on the desk next to him.
"We want to know everything about the Hephaestus Project."
"We? You're working with Drew aren't you?" James was outraged. "Well you can tell Lipsky that I am the one who solved the replication problem, and if he wants to know anything more he can read it in next month's edition of Eggstraordinary Eggheads like everyone else!"
He made a move towards his laptop but Shego forestalled him. "I'll take that," she stated.
A cunning smile crossed James' face. "Annie, delete the Hephaestus file," he announced.
"Recognizing Doctor James Possible," a melodious female voice responded from the computer. "Please confirm deletion of Hephaestus file."
"No," Shego shouted as she lunged for the computer.
"Confirmed," sang James smugly as the screen went blank, to be replaced by a counter that rapidly ran down from 100% to zero. A ping confirmed that the instruction had been executed.
James turned to Shego, grinning. "You won't get a thing out of this computer now. But I've still got all the Hephaustus knowledge in my head."
Shego looked up with a villainous gleam in her eye.
"So it's all up there, is it? Well isn't it just lucky that I happen to have a brain-tap machine with me!" She gave James a smirk as she took a helmet out of her rucksack.
His face fell. Should have kept my mouth shut.
James looked nervously at the brain-tap machine. "Is this going to hurt?" he said cautiously.
"Ooh, I do hope so," she responded sadistically. She chortled at the look on his face as she placed the helmet over his head. "But sadly, Doctor D said that you won't feel a thing."
James slumped in his seat as the brain-tap started to extract the Hephaestus secrets from his mind. After ten minutes, the program ended, to be replaced by a transmission in the other direction. A short post-hypnotic suggestion.
That would wait silently until activated by Doctor Drakken.
ooOoo
The scientist slumbered, in a comatose repose, oblivious to the ringing of the laboratory phone. The phone fell silent for a few minutes, then rang again. A mild groan was the only response. Gradually he fell into a natural slumber.
The insistent sound of a ringing telephone roused James from a deep sleep. "Wha …," he exclaimed muzzily as he reached his arm out tentatively towards the source of the sound. He fumbled for the receiver and put it up to his ear.
"James, you promised to get home in time for supper. And why didn't you pick up when I called you earlier?" Anne Possible's voice was filled with anger tinged with relief that he had responded this time.
"Did I? Did you?" the scientist responded in confusion. "What day is it?"
"You know it's pizza night," his wife responded crossly. "Kim was really looking forward to spending the evening with you. She's had a rough time recently and … well, you let her down."
"I'm sorry," he spoke in a low voice. "It's just … well it's just that I can't remember anything at the moment."
"James Timothy Possible, don't pull the old absentminded professor shtick on me! There's no excuse for letting your family down like this." Anne was tired and in no mood to give her husband the benefit of the doubt.
James looked up at the wall-clock and screwed up his eyes as he tried to recall what he was doing at ten pm on a Monday evening at his lab bench.
"No Annie, I mean I really can't remember anything about today." He paused, then confessed. "I haven't the faintest idea what I'm doing in the lab this evening."
The pleading tone in James' voice finally got through to his irritated wife.
Annie paused for thought. Perhaps there was more to this than mere forgetfulness? But her husband never drank, and he didn't sound inebriated. Just confused. She wondered if he had had a fugue state brought on by overwork. She came to a decision.
"James, leave the lab and wait in the car park. I will be there in fifteen minutes. You don't sound like you're in a fit state to be driving."
And five minutes later, James picked up his briefcase and walked towards the door. He never noticed that a complex and expensive piece of equipment that had sat next to his desk beside the microscope earlier that evening was no longer there.
Author's Note
I didn't make up the stuff about the Army HR Center of Excellence being on the same site as Fort Knox – at least if Wikipedia is to be believed. It was too good an opportunity to miss for some misdirection. But my description of the site is largely fanciful, except that there is indeed an escape tunnel. And the secure computer terminal – fiction (as far as I know!).
And thank you all so much for your kind reviews, follows and favorites, with a special shout-out to purplegirl761 for her constant encouragement and insightful reviews.