The next morning saw a very awkward breakfast.
Their kitchen was actually pretty normal, if a little too mad science-y. A sterile-looking fridge with components and accessories that Kim didn't recognize sat in one corner of the room, while a stainless steel something stove - she couldn't figure out if it was convection or something else from the design - sat nestled in the middle of a generous counter space. The counters were made of either marble or quartz. An island sat in the middle of the room, where a smorgasbord of food sat for the three to partake of. To complete the look, a nice oak table - looked to be almost a family heirloom - sat with solid oak seats and placements for three.
Drakken and Shego, for their parts, were dressed in their usual outfits. The redhead would've bet that if she hadn't been there they would've been in pajamas of their own.
Kim looked at the eggs, bacon, pancakes, French toast, sausage, grits, a small collection of fruit, and, oddly, some steak and felt a twinge of guilt. Did they get all this food for her? "This is… A lot."
"I didn't know what you'd like, so I made a bit of everything," Drakken said with a shrug.
"You cooked all of this?" Kim asked, boggling. She'd expected it to be a team effort or take-out of some sort, not a one-man army.
"I don't joke around with my breakfast," Drakken said snippily. "It's the most important meal in my opinion! Gets you ready for the day."
"Yeah, Doc may be a disaster in the lab, but he's a wizard in the kitchen," Shego noted, filling her plate with a selection of steak, pancakes, and eggs. To Kim's consternation, she took all but a small pile of the eggs and all of the steak.
"Baking is science for hungry people," he nodded, ignoring Shego's barb. "So it's not a stretch for me to know what I'm doing…" Twiddling his fingers, he asked, "So, ah, food…"
"Right…" Kim grabbed one of the plates from the table and filled it up. She took most of the fruit, some grits, and a pancake.
"No protein?" Drakken asked, surprised and, strangely, a little annoyed. "Protein in the morning really helps with energy."
"I don't like to eat bacon or sausage," she said. "Ron can't have them."
"Hmph!" He crossed his arms. "Your health is more important than some, some buffoon!"
"Are you worried about me?" Kim asked stupidly, the sudden idea and Drakken seemingly remembering Ron's name shocking her slightly.
"What do you-.. I mean, what does it matter if I am?!" he snarled, probably angrier than he meant to be.
"Lay off the doc, Kimmie," Shego said after she swallowed a mouthful of eggs. "He's just making sure his lil' princess is taken care of."
"Like you're one to talk!" Drakken shouted around Kim. "Mothering her yesterday about her classes…"
"Like I said, education is important," the green woman said with a careless shrug, filling her fork with more steak.
"Whatever…" he pouted, filling his plate with French toast, grits, and some bacon.
The next few minutes were filled with silence save for the sounds of cutlery on dishes. Kim considered asking for milk, but felt awkward enough as it was. She was eating breakfast, with Drakken and Shego, in their kitchen, after having spent the night in one of their spare bedrooms.
So weird.
"So, uh…" Kim swallowed the last bit of her fruit. She definitely did not see anything that happened last night. Nope, not a thing. "...how far did you get with the GJ data?"
Drakken perked up instantly. "Glad you asked!" He suddenly grabbed her dish and made for the sink.
"Hey! I wasn't done!" Kim complained.
"Too bad! Clear plate, clearly done," Drakken stated as he washed the plate.
The redhead growled. 'Clearly' her rear…
"Anyway, the GJ data…" he turned once he finished washing up. "I spent the night combing through the mix-and-match information that your tech guru gave me. It was in its raw form. Trust me…" Drakken shook his head, amusement laced in his voice. "Even if WEE hacked their systems, they would be hard pressed to find anything useful."
"Because it's layered in algorithms?" Kim asked.
"HA! No!" Drakken motioned for the two of them to follow him to the room with his computer. Shego and Kim shared a look, the green woman shrugging and getting up to follow the doctor. Kim tarried behind for a moment, debating on getting dressed, before deciding to just deal and trailing behind.
"What they would find when they tried would be gibberish for the most part!" Drakken pulled up some documents, all of them unrelated to each other. "Nothing is intelligently put together! Nothing! It's like some noobie computer type tried, and failed, to operate a basic computer when putting their archives together."
"That's…" Kim thought back to some of the silly things she'd witnessed from GJ. Cringing, she decided not to say anything.
"Stupid?" Shego supplied for her. "I would say that's stupid. How they manage to keep the place operational, let alone find criminals, is beyond me..."
"Luckily, I am a genius!" Drakken typed away for a few moments. "I put together that my personnel files were partly shoved into a 'Project Phoenix' and partly into their food menu section… Why the food, I don't know. BUT!" He tikka tapped for a second. "I did find out a few things…"
"First of all, I worked on this 'Project Phoenix' for about a year or so before I was kidnapped by WEE."
"Really? You, kidnapped by WEE?" Shego nearly laughed. "Why in the world would they bother with that?"
"Apparently they were after some other project, not realizing that I had nothing to do with it if the GJ intel is to be believed," Drakken supplied humorlessly. "Second, it lists my family. It includes my wife and our daughter." He pulled up more files, this time a couple of biographies which listed his wife as 'Sheila Lipsky' and the other as 'Kimberly Lipsky'.
"Wife?" Shego said it flatly, staring at the name. "Your wife?! Why would I marry-..?!"
"I don't know, Shego!" Drakken said, exasperated. "You're saying it like it would actually note that!"
"Was I even old enough to marry you?"
"I don't know! Maybe you got permission from your brothers or whatever legal guardian you had?"
"Yeah, and Hego never mentioned it since then? No way!" Shego barked a laugh. "Nah, I know I must've kept my trap shut and away from them while I was in school… It was all Hego could talk about for a while after I was attacked. 'Oh Shego, this is what happens when you leave and go off on your own'. You thought he was preachy about me leaving Team Go? College was ten times worse! Anyway..." She looked at her nails. "I'm willing to bet that I must've lied or something..."
"Anyway, Shego," Drakken said, trying to get them back on track, "apparently we're married, and the two of you are noted as 'MIA' in their official documents." He typed a few more times. "I managed to find our marriage certificate." He tilted his eyebrow at her. "Did you know you got your degree from Lowerton U? Because we got married there."
"Lowerton?" Shego shrugged. "Eh, I would've gone to Jupiter if it meant that I wouldn't have to go to school near my brothers."
"But… Lowerton?" Drakken scratched his head. "Why there?"
"You're saying that like I remember," the green woman said with a shrug. "All I know is that I got through school long enough to get an bachelor's in child development." She paused. "...actually, if they have a decent program for rushing a degree I probably took it."
"I would've probably taken it too; the delay from the MIST mess really would've ruined my timeline," Drakken noted. "Even with as small as Lowerton U is, it does have a fast track system in place if you have the willpower for it…"
"So we have that mystery solved, at least, for how in the world we would've met…" Shego crossed her arms. "What else does it say?"
"Erm, not too much else…" He typed away, pulling up a few more records. "I got paid a decent salary, had decent benefits for someone without a degree, made good progress on the project whatever-it-was-for - it was a failure after I was kidnapped, by the way, which just shows my genius! An entire project fell apart without me!" Drakken cackled.
"Yeah, yeah… And?" Shego rolled her hand in an attempt to get him to continue.
"Right! Uhm…" He pointed to a certain set of words which he zoomed in on. "It mentions that WEE had me for a few weeks, and that my family vanished shortly after I was taken…"
"Great." The tone was flat. "And?"
"They mention, erm, some of the, uhm, torture equipment that they found in where they assume I was kept…"
"Torture equipment?" The very idea made Kim's stomach queasy. She dealt with supervillains and regular villains on a normal basis, but torture? That was just plain criminal…
"Yes…" The idea seemed to squick him out too. Though, considering his scar and the blue… It turned what used to be amusing character quirks into something far more sinister. Kim didn't like it. At all. "Chemicals, racks, shocking equipment - equipment to shock with, not that it's shocking, a brain-tap machine, lasers, ta-.."
"Wait," Shego cut him off. "A brain-tap machine?"
"Yes…?" Drakken stopped listing the various implements. "What about it?"
"Does it say if it's anything like the one you had?" Kim asked, catching on to what Shego was thinking. If it was like the one Drakken had, then maybe…
"Hrnnn…" Drakken grunted and read one of the documents. "It looks like it's an older model - no surprise considering how long ago it was - that caused far more memory issues with use." He shrugged. "Besides that, it doesn't really list anything beyond the disposition."
"What did they do with it?" Shego asked intensely.
"Well, they put it in their evidence locker of course!"
Kim and Shego looked at each other.
"I think we need to go find it," Kim said.
"Why?" Drakken gawked. "It's locked up in the GJ vault! I don't think any favor in the world would get Dr Director to let the three of us look at it… Maybe if it was just Kimberly... But... She wouldn't really know what to do..."
"Then we'll just have to sneak in," Shego said simply.
"The three of us? Sneak in to Global Justice?" He played with his fingers and grunted a little bit. A ring of petals burst from his neck. "ACK!"
"It's no big," Kim said even with a knot in her stomach. Sneaking into GJ… But… She knew that Drakken was right. Dr Director would never let two known criminals anywhere near the doomsday devices that were probably in the lock-up. If they went about it the right way, no one would even know they were there.
"I'm not a sneaky type, if you haven't noticed!" Drakken noted snippily.
"Golly gee whiz, I actually didn't," Shego deadpanned.
Kim shook her head. Would these two ever stop their back-and-forth?
"Don't worry, Drakken," the redhead said, flexing an arm. "With me and Shego teaming up? This sitch'll be no problem."
"Okay Wade, you got us covered?"
The three of them were waiting on Wade's signal to go. They were in an alley, where a GJ chute which led straight down to the underground warehouse. This was one of the few entrances to it, likely to keep it isolated from their network in case it was compromised.
Her tech guru friend nodded. "I've got the cameras on loop, and most of the sensors deactivated. All you have to worry about is the pressure sensors in the ducts. Don't put too much weight on anything or else you'll trigger them."
"Thanks Wade! You rock!" Kim shut her Kimmunicator down and looked over at Shego. "You ready for this?"
"Please, Cupcake. I do this sort of thing as a hobby," Shego said, hand flapping.
"This is demeaning," Drakken complained from over Shego's shoulder where he was being fireman carried.
"Hey, you're the one afraid you'll mess up and trigger something," Kim said unapologetically.
"Hmph!" He crossed his arms and wordlessly grumbled.
"Ready?" Kim said, pulling out her hairdryer hookshot. She aimed above the duct that connected to the underground base and let loose. As expected, it perfectly arched over the lightpost above and down through the duct without touching the sides. Kim tied the hairdryer end off on a nearby dumpster.
"Impressive," Shego said, eyebrow raised.
"Thanks!" Kim smiled at the compliment. It was actually pretty nice getting one from the normally mean-spirited woman.
"Hold on, Doc," the green woman instructed. "Keep a tight grip on me, and don't let go."
"Okay, Shego."
"Let's go!"
Down the chute they went.