CHAPTER 23 – Thursday, one day before Prom Night
Tibet
Shego emerged from her bedroom with a suitcase and her precious personal force field. She did not trust the artificial men not to damage her possessions, meagre as they were. Manfred had persuaded her that there was little point in taking more than the bare minimum. There would be ample opportunity to stock up after Nemesis had taken place. She had arrived in Tibet with next to nothing, and would leave in the same way. Shego would be sharing the hoverplane with Drew while Manfred, Dementor, Bortel and the handful of henchmen left would travel in the second transport aircraft, the first already on-route to the US with half the synthodrones.
She made her way into the main hall of the lair. Three synthodrones were standing together awaiting instructions. Although she knew that they were programmed not to hurt her in any way, she still found the sight of these inhuman creatures a little unnerving. It was hard to reconcile these beasts with the hottie named Eric, made in exactly the same way except for the realistic form. She had to remember that these creatures were as intelligent as Eric – they might be subject to programs but they could act autonomously when they needed to. And unlike Eric, they had no induced delusions about being human.
Manfred had told her that they were no longer vulnerable to knives. Shego was in no doubt that the synthodrones would prove to be a fearsome weapon when unleashed against their enemies in Middleton. They were killing machines short and simple.
She looked over at the conference room as Manfred and Drakken emerged. Manfred acknowledged her with a nod, while Drakken looked expressionless. Shego felt a twinge of alarm at the gesture. Her absence seemed to have changed the dynamics of the team. Despite the briefing that Drakken had given her and Manfred yesterday, she felt subtly sidelined. Not for the first time she wondered just what Manfred was telling her boss. She had more than a suspicion that it was designed to make him look good and her look bad.
A cry came from the stairwell. Shego turned to see the source of the disturbance as Manfred left Drakken's side and walked round her, placing himself behind Shego's left shoulder. She turned her head to glare at him for invading her personal space but he ignored her.
Three more synthodrones emerged from the stairs, dragging with them a protesting Dementor. They frog-marched him in front of Drakken, who was holding in his hand a moodulator remote control.
"Ah, my dear Professor. I trust you had a good night?"
The pint-sized villain shook his shoulders angrily. "You kept me down there for two nights! I have not eaten since yesterday. And for what reason?"
Manfred spoke from behind Shego. "Professor, you were caught reprogramming the synthodrones. And you concealed the fact that their skins were now impermeable to knives. What for? Perhaps to try to overthrow Doctor Drakken? "
Dementor glared at Manfred. "You believe this moron over me?"
"Actually I do," responded Drakken, looking coolly at his rival. "And I believe that I made it clear when we first took over your lair that any attempt at treachery would be dealt with harshly."
He held out the remote control, his finger hovering over the red button.
"I could press this button and the synthodrones holding you would tear you limb from limb. A fitting end for the man who tried to subvert my synthodrones don't you think?"
Dementor looked alarmed but decided to play to Drakken's vanity. "Herr Doktor, you are right. I was foolish enough to think that I could trick you. I now realize the error of my ways. Let me serve you and assist you in defeating our common enemies."
Shego, engrossed in the conversation, was almost oblivious to a faint tickle on the back of her neck. She was unable to see the nod from Manfred to their boss.
Dementor sighed in relief as Drakken's finger moved away from the red button. The blue-skinned villain smiled coldly. "Nice try Dementor. But your show-trial-style confession is too little too late. And your part in our plans is over." Dementor paled.
Drakken continued. "However it will not be my synthodrones you should fear today. Instead it suits my purposes to kill two birds with a single stone. Shego!"
Shego's gaze switched from the frightened Dementor to her boss.
"Yes, Doctor D?" she asked.
"Kill Professor Dementor!"
Shego's jaw dropped. "Hey, I don't do killing, boss. You've always known that. But I'd be happy to hurt him. A lot."
Drakken looked at her deliberately. "I will only ask you once more, Shego. Prove your loyalty. Kill Dementor. Now."
The thief's eyes widened. I can't do this!
"Use your power, Shego!" She watched Drakken depress the red button.
"My plasma's not lethal," she cried, as she felt her comet force pushing further than it had ever done before. Her last coherent thought as she released white-hot plasma balls at the hapless Dementor was that it wasn't the synthodrones who were being controlled by Drakken's device, but the moodulator attached to her neck by that bastard Manfred.
Drakken sank to his knees, tears falling from his eyes. He was so sure that Shego would prove her loyalty and give the lie to Manfred's suspicions.
Mother, you were right. Even my sidekick turned against me!
The words of his mother echoed in his head.
They'll find a way to undo everything you achieve.
Unless you remove them … permanently.
He stood up with renewed purpose. Adjusting the remote control he depressed the programming button and addressed Shego.
"Shego, you feel no remorse for the death of Dementor. From now on you will do exactly as I say. You will execute your role in Nemesis unquestioningly and with enthusiasm. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Emperor Drakken."
"Now go and prepare for our departure. You too, Manfred. We must get to our new headquarters under cover of darkness and I have already wasted enough time on these traitors." Drakken started to walk away towards his office while Shego stood staring at the blackened corpse barely recognizable as Dementor. She seemed to be undergoing an internal struggle before she picked up her case and walked towards the hoverplane hangar.
Manfred followed her eyes and addressed Drakken. "What should I do with him," he asked.
Drakken sniffed irritably, the stench of burnt flesh hanging in the air. "Toss him out of the airlock. He's stinking the place out."
Drakken walked away dismissively from the remains of his long-time foe. He pulled out a phone and placed an encrypted call. "Andrew Drake here. We'll be headed your way shortly." The one-sided conversation continued for several minutes as he gave Hank Perkins his final instructions.
Now that's out of the way, we can get started on the main event, he thought.
Dementor was just the start. Project Nemesis was only hours away. Nobody would ever laugh at him again.
Global Justice HQ
Candace was feeling groggy with lack of sleep. Apart from a brief trip home to collect a change of clothes, she had not left the lab since speaking to Doctor Director three days earlier. She had managed to catch some rest but the HQ bunk beds were small and hard, intended for an overnight stay only. But her boss had impressed on her the urgency of deciphering the brain-wave generator that sat inside the Mark II moodulator remote control. This was proving to be a painstaking and slow process.
Wearing comfortable shoes and a track suit and suppressing a yawn, she sat opposite her team in the briefing room. She was well-acquainted with most of them – she had been heading up the GJ psychological team for a while now and had been able to handpick the cream of the new recruits to GJ's research facility. However, since Doctor Director had designated this a priority project, she had acquired several additional members from the IT department, one of whom sat directly opposite her.
"How are we doing, Brian?" She directed her question to the youngish, intense-looking man, who favored a neatly-trimmed beard and the characteristic sloganed T-shirt of a computer scientist, which read "There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who understand binary and those who don't" in black letters on a white background.
Brian Wave was supervising the systematic generation of waveforms by electrical stimulation of the remote control. Each output then had to be checked against known brainwave patterns by one of the neuroscientists or psychologists in order to understand the way in which the device generated particular brain stimulation.
"We're making steady progress," he reported. "But it's a slow process and there's no easy way of speeding it up. The trouble is we have no template for the receiving end of this controller. If we knew how that device was configured, we could eliminate a whole bunch of invalid inputs."
Can made a note to ask Doctor Director if she had any more information about the background to this device that might help. She turned to one of her most trusted associates who was sitting next to Brian.
"Mary, how's the wave analysis going?" The petite woman opened her briefcase and pulled out a folder. She put a printout on the table top, her hand pointing to one of the traces.
"We've isolated some wave patterns based on what we assume to be some of the core emotions. For example, we think that the red button is associated with anger, so we've been able to identify some aggression outputs that appear to be superimposed over underlying steady state patterns. We think that this device is being used to transmit instructions to the receiver as well as raw emotions."
Can considered. This confirmed her own interpretation of the capabilities of the device to create a myriad of responses. But analyzing the outputs, while essential, was only half of the battle.
"Okay everyone," she began. "You're all doing a great job. But let's not lose sight of the goal, to find a way of using this device to neutralize minds that have been infected with the device itself. Now that you've had time to get familiar with the device and you've made a start on how it creates waves, I want you to think about ways to use that information."
Mary raised her hand. Can looked quizzically at her.
"What if we did something like noise-cancelling headphones?" Mary ventured.
"Go on."
"If we could analyze the brainwave of an infected person, could we rebroadcast the same signal but exactly out of phase, to cancel out the programming?"
Can turned to her neighbor. "Brian, could that be achieved?"
The computer scientist looked at his colleagues. One spoke up.
"Yes, we could, ma'am but only if we knew what the receiving device was like. We could then tune the transmitter to interrupt the signal. But without that information we can't analyze the brainwave that the infected person has received."
Can tapped her fingers in frustration. So we need to know more about the receiving device in order to eliminate dead ends and to allow us to "noise-cancel" the signal?
It was time to speak with Doctor Director again. Her boss would not be happy to learn that they may have been going down a blind alley. The trouble was she didn't have any good ideas for a different direction.
Middleton High School
The school day over, the members of the Prom committee, now supplemented by their friends dragooned in to help, were hard at work in the gym putting up the last of the decorations. There would be no time the next day once school was over, as everyone would be disappearing to change into their Prom dresses and tuxes. Mr. Barkin had set a deadline of 5.30 tonight for the decorations to be complete. Tomorrow morning, tables and chairs would be arriving and contractors would set out the room and finish connecting up the lighting.
A stage had been constructed at the far end of the hall, and the school electrician was doing his best to avoid tripping excited juniors as he ran power and microphone cables to the plinth.
"Testing," came a shout as the room dimmed. An ooh resounded as a spotlight struck the mirror-ball that had just been installed. As the ball rotated, thousands of shards of light filled the room. There was scattered applause from the busy students as the main lights came back on.
Tara stood back from her efforts in order to admire the large hanging canvas that formed a backcloth to the stage and which illustrated this year's Prom theme Reach for the Stars. Josh was putting the finishing touches to the central theme of the painting, that of a beanstalk. The cheerleader could not help but appreciate her boyfriend's artistic talent and his willingness to give up several evenings this past week to help create this painting. His band would be playing a few numbers the following night too. Tara hadn't heard him perform yet and she was really looking forward to sharing in his big moment.
Josh saw her looking at him and smiled back, putting aside his paint-brush and picking up his guitar. She waved across the room and gave him a thumbs-up as he plugged his Fender into the PA system.
The sound of a battery-powered chair alerted her to the arrival of Felix and Monique. They paused to look around the room.
"It's really taking shape isn't it," Felix offered. He had volunteered to help Justine Flanner with the sound.
"Is that Josh's painting?" Monique wondered. Tara nodded proudly. "It's really good isn't it."
"The boy's got talent, Tara," the girl allowed. "You may want to hang onto this one. I reckon that the two of you will give Kim and Eric a run for their money tomorrow as Prom King and Queen!"
Tara blushed. She had assumed all week that the other pair would be elected.
Conversation was halted while the girls finished their decoration tasks. Felix spotted Justine and the two of them joined Josh down at the stage. Stairway to Heaven rang out from the PA as Josh played the opening bars of the guitar classic. "A touch more reverb," Felix suggested. Justine tweaked the sound from the desk until she was satisfied with the quality.
"Good to go, Josh," called Felix to the guitar player. "We can run a final sound check tomorrow."
Josh finished with a burst of Whole Lotta Love to the amusement of the students who had paused to listen.
The trio made their way back to their friends, laughing in anticipation of the following night.
Bueno Nacho HQ, Outside Middleton
Hank Perkins was finding it more and more difficult to keep his curiosity under wraps as he waited impatiently for the imminent arrival of Andrew Drake. The increasingly bizarre demands that had been made on him by his CEO had made it crystal clear that Tex-Mex food was not what Drake was really interested in.
He had only just finished dealing with a request to kit out the executive floor with what could only be described as a situation room. It looked as though Drake wanted to be connected across the world. Not in itself an unusual requirement for the CEO of a multinational business. But this felt more like mission control. Walls covered in video monitors, currently silent but apparently connected to global TV channels. Plus other monitors which appeared to be ready for connection to CCTV. Huge cables connecting a bank of computers to the recently-erected broadcasting tower on the roof. And an illuminated sign in the room that identified Phase 1, Phase 2 and Phase 3.
All this paled into insignificance when he got a call telling him to have a fleet of trucks ready to meet an incoming flight after dusk. They were to travel in twos and threes and vary their routes so as not to arouse suspicion. Suspicion of what? he thought. He guessed the answer would be revealed when the plane arrived.
As darkness fell, Hank drove to Middleton airport to find a transport plane already landed in the far corner of the field, surrounded by a team of men who looked suspiciously like some of Jack Hench's crew. The leader of the team informed Hank that he had been given instructions to wait here and guard the plane until a second transport aircraft arrived.
In the control tower, the air traffic controller noted from his manifest that the expected Bueno Nacho flight had arrived, bearing thousands of the toys that BN were giving away to kids. The fast food firm was one of the most regular customers of Middleton airport and its presence outside Middleton meant valuable revenue for the airport. Already, over a million of the Li'l Diablos had passed through the airport in the past seven days. He acknowledged the pilot, who confirmed that he was waiting for a second flight and trucks to collect the items.
It was almost pitch-black on the airfield when the unmistakable sound of a transporter jet could be heard approaching. Hank's pulse quickened. Perhaps at last the mystery would be revealed.
The plane taxied to a halt and, silhouetted in the glare of the runway floodlights, out stepped a man who called himself Drake's security officer. Hank's previously-received instructions had led him to expect Manfred and he walked over to shake hands.
"You have the trucks?" Manfred queried. Hank looked over his shoulder at the serried ranks of BN-liveried trucks. "One hundred, as requested," he replied.
"Ok, wait here." Hank watched as Manfred supervised the unloading not of Li'l Diablos but of hundreds of what looked like mechanical men lying in sarcophagi.
I know the fast food business is automating but this is ridiculous!
Manfred directed sixty-five of the trucks to head for BN's operation in Middleton and the rest to make their way to BN headquarters. He turned to Hank. "Time to head back. The boss will be arriving shortly, and I want to check that everything has been set up correctly before he gets here."
Hank was beginning to realize that despite his job title, he was destined to play a bit part in what was going to be happening at Bueno Nacho in the near future. Judging from the nature of the arrivals, fast food was the last thing on Andrew Drake's mind.
He sat silently in the last BN truck to depart as he listened to Manfred directing the henchmen who accompanied them. It sounded like Hank Perkins was going to be finding himself much closer to the heart of a villainous plot than the attorney was comfortable with. He shuddered at the thought of the level of unpleasantness that the army of artificial men implied.
ooOooOoo
The long flight from Tibet had given Drakken time to think about the events that preceded their departure from Dementor's lair. He was beginning to regret his hastiness in condemning Shego on the basis of Manfred's testimony. After all, he had known Shego for much longer than Manfred. On the other hand, there was no doubting that Shego had gone AWOL for three days at a critical time in the project planning. His head was spinning from the challenge of reconciling his feelings.
He needed Shego's absolute loyalty for this project to work. She had been helpful to a fault during the hoverplane journey, speaking only when spoken to, and anxious to comply with Drakken's instructions. But he felt rather guilty about mind-controlling her obedience. And he was concerned that in ensuring her compliance he had suppressed her creativity and critical thinking.
Drakken admitted to himself that he missed her snarkiness and even her insubordination. If anyone was going to spot flaws in the project, and come up with on-the-fly solutions in the heat of battle, it would be Shego. Was he risking cutting off his nose to spite his face?
He turned to his sidekick, who was piloting the hoverplane in stealth mode towards BN headquarters.
"Shego," he began. The woman turned her head towards him. "Yes, Emperor Drakken?" she replied.
Drakken cringed at the response, even though it had been he who had originally insisted on it.
"Shego," he started again, picking up the modulator control. How to word this?
"I want you to behave exactly as you did before except that you won't do me any harm or put at risk the project. And you won't worry about ramping up your plasma to lethal levels. Oh, and you will be completely unaware of the moodulator on your neck."
"Okay, Doctor D," came the response. "I'm sorry I didn't let you know why I'd gone off." Despite the words, Shego looked unrepentant.
"That's okay, Shego," the blue-skinned villain reassured her, a feeling of relief sweeping him as he heard her words. "Let's forget all about it and concentrate on Project Nemesis."
"Sure thing boss," she returned. "Little Miss Priss is going to get the prom night from hell."
And the two looked at each other gleefully as they contemplated the culmination of weeks of planning.
Global Justice HQ
"We're rather stuck without more information," Can confessed.
Elizabeth Director looked irritated. "What are you missing?"
"We can't narrow down valid waves or process them to cancel out brain waves without knowing more about the receiving device?" Can explained.
Elizabeth looked thunderstruck as she remembered a conversation that had taken place in her office a few weeks earlier.
"How do you know what this is, Kim?"
"Because I had the business end of this stuck to me for twenty-four hours, until Ron got it off me," the girl said bitterly.
She picked up the phone and hit a frequent number button. A tired-looking Wade answered, having recognized the emergency code Elizabeth had transmitted.
"Wade, what happened to the Moodulator that got attached to Kim?"
He seemed surprised. "I checked it and found that it was made by Bortel."
"Then what?" the GJ chief pressed.
Wade looked shifty. "Kim wanted me to destroy it, it had her freaked," he responded.
"But you didn't? Did you?" Elizabeth held her breath.
"No, I've been trying to reverse-engineer it," he confessed, fearing the reaction.
"Bring it to me right away," she demanded. "You may have just saved a project." Or more, she thought.
"But I can't leave my room," Wade pleaded.
"Just get it here." She put the phone down and turned back to Can who was looking puzzled.
"Can your team do anything with a Mark I receiver?"
Can was excited. "Yes I'm sure we can. The basic brain interface must be more or less the same as Mark II. Probably identical if Bortel was trying to save time and money."
"Right, I'll have it sent down as soon as it arrives."
Bueno Nacho HQ, Outside Middleton
Drakken? thought Hank Perkins as the man who called himself Andrew Drake was revealed. He resisted the urge to ask where Dementor was – it was after all the pint-sized villain's dark web account that had been used to recruit Hank in the first place.
His initial reaction when learning the identity of his CEO was to wonder if this was a particularly idiotic takeover-the-world plot by a man whose track record in such things was lamentable. At first sight this looked like a typical Drakken plan to corner the market in Tex-Mex and hold the world to ransom for nacos.
But that didn't explain the sophistication of the situation room, far less the army of mechanical men now lying immobile in metal pods (and why were so many of these sent to Middleton?). Not to mention the importance that his boss had placed on distributing kids toys far and wide.
No, there was something much more going on here. And Drakken seemed uncharacteristically organized: he had even managed to avoid ranting about his plan, whatever it was. Not that Hank was too bothered. One thing he had learned over the years of acting for various villains was that every plan they were able to come up with would be thwarted by Kim Possible, Team Go or Global Justice. Even if Drakken had for once come up with something that had those three beaten, there were just too many agencies of law enforcement out there. Not to mention the combined military might of hundreds of nations. One death-dealing gadget, however sophisticated, was just not going to defeat that lot.
No, this plan would fail like all the others. But he was well-insulated against failure with a very healthy Swiss bank account after his earlier work on Andrew Drake's behalf.
He looked up to see Drakken gesturing to him to follow the others into the main conference room.
ooOooOoo
Hank emerged from the briefing with a haunted look on his face. As Drakken shared what he described as need-to-know details of his Project Nemesis, he began to realize the scale of what Drakken was planning. Now he understood the reason for global television coverage. And like Manfred, he feared for the level of civilian casualties once the plan unfolded. Hank Perkins did not regard himself as a monster but he felt sick with apprehension when Drakken told him that his part in the project was to control the synthodrones who would capture all of Possible's allies in Middleton. And if they resisted arrest, no mercy was to be given.
And yet the element of the plan that most horrified him was not the bigger picture of destruction or even his own role. It was instead the time and effort devoted to the sadistic entrapment and crushing of the spirit of a seventeen year-old girl on what should be one of the happiest nights of her life.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. "You've done a great job for me, Hank," his boss said unctuously. "You'll get your reward, don't you worry. Tomorrow we complete the command center and activate it. Then take a breather and be ready to go with your team at 7pm sharp. It's going to be a long night."
Drakken paused. A coldness entered his eyes.
"You won't let me down now will you?" His tone made it clear this wasn't a question.
If this plan didn't succeed, Hank knew that he faced a life sentence. Or worse.
Were it not for the synthodrones who stood guarding the exits to the building, he would have been tempted to just flee this place and go hide somewhere where he couldn't be found.
Ever.
Author's note: And so we finally get to Prom Night Friday.