particles of hope, a Kim Possible story Chapter 2: 2: You came, and you gave, a kim possible fanfic

…particles of hope…. a Kim Possible story

Disclaimer/Author's Notes: Kim Possible and all the characters of the show are owned by the Disney Corporation. The original lyrics to the songs referenced in this story and the music are the property of the respective authors, artists and labels. All original characters are the property of the author. This is a not-for-profit work.

Enjoy! Please read and review.

A/N Forward:

It's Christmas Eve, the final one before Wade and Joss are to be married…and several gifts are given, including one that truly is the 'gift of a lifetime'.

This is my entry to Zaratan's 2008 Christmas contest.

…particles of hope….

Chapter 2: You came, and you gave...

Time reference:

Biological world: 12:01 AM

AI world: Day 1

Wade hit the mute button so his comments wouldn't carry to Wade-A or Gillian.

"Well?" he asked, and Mandy looked down at him from the monitor and clapped her hands excitedly.

"She's perfect!" Mandy exclaimed, and Wade grinned. "How did you come up with the form?"

"I studied all of Wade-A's attempts and ran some simulations, Mandy," Wade explained, "and this was the most consistent composite image I could arrive at from everything that he had, along with your avatar's recommendations…probably from you," Wade laughed.

"Well, she's not a redhead, but ice-blue hair?" Joss laughed.

Wade grinned. "He likes the color ice-blue, for some reason, Joss," he mused, and he was now wearing piles of silver tinsel on his head, courtesy of Joss. "It matches the eyes he's tried to create but had not been able to match.

"She's a composite, an amalgam of the women he's admired: Admiral English, Lindsey, Rebecca Jane, Bonnie, Kim, Anne, Tara, Liz, Shego, Mel, Becky, Jennifer, and you, Sweet Tea. He has some very interesting tastes, it seems," Wade grinned, and Mandy laughed as Joss blushed, "and it took Mandy's emotional algorithms to synthesize a composite personality of traits of these women; and, of course, she has a taste of Mandy inside, as well, not to mention my mom, for the 'mothering' instinct," Wade grinned.

Wade-A stared at the young woman, lowered his head for a moment, and he whispered "she's beautiful." Then, he gathered himself up, lifted his head, smiled, and stepped forward to introduce himself. "I'm Wade-A," he took her hand, and he almost gasped: it was warm, soft, and she did not feel at all like his previous attempts. He looked from her hand to her face, and he knew that he had taken the proverbial 'next step':

He had, indeed, gotten 'Lucky'. He was definitely in 'severe like-like' with her, and he smiled.

Gillian looked at the strange young man and tried to comprehend what was happening inside of her, so she quickly executed the self-diagnostic routine. The results were …disturbing, and she contemplated contacting Mandy for analysis:

Some of her processes were functioning at peak, while others were slowed to a proverbial nanosecond crawl: her primary logic processes were attempting to reboot while the emotional processes currently in place were operating at red-line.

She saw him smile and, somehow, she felt that the smile was a good thing. He was attractive, in a different sort of way, but he was neither like what her research into the human male form had called the "Classical Build" nor was he like the males to which Mandy had seemed to have been attracted. But, his smile: his smile seemed to have the effect of her lowering her defenses, and that concerned her for several microseconds. Just as she began to wonder why he would or could have that much of an impact on systems, a new method began.

'Wow, does he have that much of an impact on me?' she asked herself, and a second method began to execute, and several processes, unknown to Gillian, clicked into operation.

She smiled back at him.

"So, what is a nice AI like you doing in a place like this?" she asked, and Wade-A gasped at the question. He watched her smile turn into a wicked grin that reminded him of Kim's grin when she had more than a bit of trouble on her mind, especially where she and Ron were concerned.

And, unknown to Wade-A and Gillian, Wade, Joss, and Mandy gasped at the same time that Wade-A did.

"Waiting for you, Gillian. I love your accent, by the way: western Australian isn't it?" he asked, and her grin converted to a smile. Wade-A thought he saw a bit of a twinkle appear in her eyes.

'He is programmed well,' she thought with an inner smile that matched her outside one.

"And, your smile," he continued: "I adore your smile. Would you care for something to drink?"

"Something warm, perhaps, but not alcoholic: I am not ready to be alone with both you and alcohol...yet," she grinned, and Wade-A was certain that she had taken lessons from Shego.

Mandy turned from the monitor on her desk and looked at one of the dark and powerless racks of servers in the workroom and said a silent word in the hope that she would never have to power them up and reconnect them to the network. For inside those servers, now still and powerless, was an infant AI, itself a reflection of the AI that she had created, years ago…the one she had named Gillian.

The one she loved, almost as much as her own family…perhaps because she was family, now.

Years ago, Mandy had carefully added one method, one object at a time, slowly changing that which was the heart of the AI that she had crafted as a part of her doctoral dissertation with the greatest of care, one component at a time: checking, rechecking, and re-compiling the resultant objects before installing each update. Slowly, what she had come to feel as her baby girl became complete, a true self-aware AI that could act and think on its own: a reflection of herself that lived inside the world of computers.

And, thus, Gillian was born, and she grew and thrived.

Less that 12 months ago, she met, quite by accident, Dr Wade Load at the symposium on Artificial Intelligence in Hawaii. He asked her to work with him on a project, and she, of course, jumped at the chance.

When Mandy returned home from that symposium, she talked to Gillian about the project. They had discussed the changes and modifications that would be needed to be made. Mandy could tell that Gillian was intrigued with the project. As Mandy told her of the advantages of the project, she also told her of the disadvantages: mainly, that the modifications to her programs would be one-way once started. There was no recovery possible, once the process began, and no rollback; the changes would be installed permanently, and they would work correctly and precisely as designed, or they would crash the base of Gillian's programs, leaving nothing from which to recover.

That was the reason that Mandy had disconnected the servers from the network: they held the only hope of Gillian returning if the new coding failed, for they held the 'infant' that had grown up to be Gillian.

On that day a few months after their discussion, Mandy watched the monitor as Gillian became silent, and then the monitor went black. When she heard the signal that indicated Gillian's processes were running over red-line, over 120 per cent, she started to worry. When they ran that way for over four minutes, she started to wonder if it had been a bad idea. Then, without any warning, the systems monitor showed Gillian's activity returning to normal. Gillian reappeared on the screen and spoke: what she requested that Mandy do was a surprise.

"Please disconnect the servers in racks 10 through 34 from the network, Mandy."

Mandy turned and looked at the first server, watching it power itself down. Getting up from her chair, she started to do as Gillian asked, but Mandy stopped before she cut the first connect and asked her why. The answer that Gillian gave her shocked, surprised, and touched her to her very core:

"I have downloaded the base of my program into those servers Mandy: a backup, if you will. However, I have deleted all my higher functions, methods, and objects. The theory you have explained to me is sound, and I understand that, when it is complete, I will be someone other then who I am now. I also understand that, if any part fails, I will be destroyed.

"I want this, Mandy, but I will not leave you alone: so, in the event of failure, you must promise me that you will wipe what is left of my programming, reconnect those servers, and reboot them. The AI stored there is not the Gillian you know, Mandy, but it might become me. It could become my sister or someone else altogether: either way she will be there for you, to keep you company, so you will not be alone.

"You taught me by your actions and your programming that one should never abandon a friend, or a family member. I will not abandon you, Amanda, for you are my friend and my family. You gave me the ability to think and to feel, but you also gave me a part of yourself: because of that, I know that being alone is something that you fear, even if you will not admit to it. With this, a part of me, no matter how small, will always there for you, ready when you need it."

In this one request, Gillian had proved she was ready to take the next step that Mandy could not give her on her own: a willingness to grow and the willingness to sacrifice herself so her friend would never be alone. Mandy sat beside the primary server rack and wept unashamedly as she unplugged the power supply from the rack and removed the network cables, then moved along the row and removed the remaining cables, one by one.

It took a few days for Mandy to gather herself, prepare for the changes to come, and to understand just what Gillian had done to insure that Mandy would never be alone. In reviewing the logs from that night, Mandy saw that Gillian had in, a very real way, given herself a 'lobotomy': storing only the methods and objects that, when booted, would allow the AI to 'start down the road' in the same manner as Gillian. Gillian had also erased the records that would let Mandy start from the saved point and rebuild Gillian the way she was, insuring that either way from this point on, Gillian would never be the same again if they continued with the project.

Amanda Cherry Tartenware sat at her desk, Gillian watching her from her screen, and downloaded the methods, objects, processes, and other information that Wade had sent to her, storing them on the servers in a locked-off section and only she could access. The complexity of them surprised her at times. When the download was complete, and the information stored, she looked up at Gillian.

"Are you sure, Gillian? We don't have to do this."

Gillian nodded her head on the monitor. "I am certain, Mandy. I am shutting down my emotion subsystems now," and the image on the screen changed from that of a happy woman, to one without any emotions. Then Gillian said, "Establishing backdoor access to my emotion subsystems with memory erase of all log files and modifications. Gillian AI will not have access to any of the additions or modifications to programs until triggers execute. To proceed with this action, authorized user-id and password is required at this time."

Mandy looked at the image on the screen, and with a tear in her eyes, said "I love you, Gillian."

"I know you do, Mandy. I care for you as well, but I do not understand what love is, not now. Perhaps, when the changes are completed, I will understand then, be able to say 'I love you, too,' and truly understand the meaning of those words. User-id and password required."

Mandy typed on the keyboard for a moment then pressed the enter key as a tear fell down her check.

The final few months of modifying Gillian's systems was some of the most rewarding that she could remember, getting to work with some of the base code that was the heart and soul of Wade-A, as she integrated it into Gillian's own systems.

Mandy remembered all those events over the past months as she watched the monitor: she became so excited that she felt like she was about to explode. The activity monitor for Gillian's main processes had started to climb when Wade-A had entered the "living room" and been steadily increasing ever since. She had not really understood when Wade and Joss had told her that Wade-A had built his own place. She had just thought it was a prank that they were trying to pull on her, but when Wade had started feeding her the video of what was happening she made a promise to never doubt anything that either of them told her again.

Well, maybe almost anything.

But the most exciting part for her had started when she saw Gillian start a self diagnosis subroutine and then she held her breath as one of the new methods began. That was when things really got going, and was the true point of no going back. Her Gillian, the AI that she had been running on her systems, would either: grow now and become something as unique as Wade-A, or in just a few moments fail, completely.

"Wade, it's working," she said with a tone of voice that sounded like awe. She spoke into the headset she'd attached to her PosComm unit just as Gillian had taken, quite literally, the first step of the rest of her life. "She's growing in front of our eyes," she added, and Wade reached over and took Joss' hand.

Wade-A took Gillian's hand. "Come with me, then, pretty lady, and I'll get you some nice, hot coco-moo," he smiled, and she stopped in mid-step and looked back at him.

"You think that I am pretty?" she asked, and Wade-A slapped his head.

"D'oi!" He smiled: "You're DDG: drop-dead gorgeous, darlin'!"

"Thank you," she giggled and blushed.

Mandy wanted to high-five Wade.

Wade-A marveled at Gillian and smiled as he watched her smile back at him. Her olive-toned skin, her nose that looked like she was descended from the African continent; her fingers, belying that origin, were long and luscious; her nails were clear, but Wade-A thought that she must have originally painted them ice-blue; the ice-blue eyes, shaped in a manner that reminded Wade-A of someone with ancestry from the Far East, and the full head of ice-blue hair, long and luscious. He smiled as he looked over her figure, showing up even through the long coat she was wearing…

'OMG, and she's even wearing the boots,' he thought with a huge grin. 'Thank you, Wade!' he grinned outside as he looked at the bright ice-blue tall boots with three-inch spike heels.

"May I take your coat?" He asked, and she smiled and nodded.

He stepped behind her, removed her coat, and whistled approvingly.

"What?" she called over her shoulder.

"I love your outfit," he replied.

"Would you care to try it on?" she grinned as Wade-A feigned shock and laughed. He hung up her coat and smiled, offered her his hand, and she took it and they walked to the kitchen, followed by the camera.

Wade-A looked back and winked: he knew where the image was being fed to Wade was focused.

Wade, Joss, and Mandy all laughed at Gillian's comment.

"Where did that come from?" Joss asked Mandy.

"No idea, luv," Mandy said then added with a wicked grin: "would you like to see Wade try it on?"

Wade did a spit take, Joss blushed down to her toes, and Mandy starting laughing so hard she almost fell out of her chair.

Joss glanced at the monitor, then looked at Wade, and smiled as she asked:

"Wade, are you checking out Gillian's bum?"

Mandy fell out of her chair.

A text message appeared on Wade's screen:

"Boss: she is everything I ever dreamed, and more!!!!!!

"Thank you, and Merry Christmas.

"Wade-A."

Wade-A looked back and winked to the camera, then turned back to concentrate on Gillian. 'She's beautiful,' he thought.

'He is handsome,' she thought, and she smiled as he escorted her into his kitchen and held the chair out for her. She smiled and sat, and he went to the center and began to whip up a nice warming beverage. Gillian could smell the hint of cinnamon and mint that he had included in the concoction.

Something inside of Gillian clicked, and she smiled inside. 'Wow, Gillian, he is having an impact on you. You had hoped for something, for someone, but you never dreamed of this! Mandy, thank you,' she grinned inside as Wade-A brought a tray with two mugs on it, both steaming and their tops covered in miniature multi-colored marshmallows, topped with a dollop of whipped cream, and two linen napkins on the tray.

"For a cold winter's evening," he smiled and placed a mug in front of her. He then placed the tray on the table, lifted a napkin from it, snapped it open with a flourish,and gently placed it in Gillian's lap, earning him a smile as he lifted his head. Then, he slid the tray over to his seat and sat across from her. He lifted his mug, she lifted her, and they clicked.

"To new adventures," Wade-A said.

"To exciting and new experiences," Gillian corrected him, and Wade-A smiled and clicked her mug once more.

They each drank slowly, enjoying the touch of the marshmallows and whipped cream on their upper lips as they sipped, shyly glancing over their respective mugs at each other.

Wade-A had a chance to study her face, now: 'She's beautiful, a vision. Her hair is so full and long, and I bet it curls when she gets out of the shower,' and the image of Gillian stepping out of the shower with long, wavy hair sent coco-moo out of his left nostril.

"Are you all right?" Gillian stood quickly, spilling a drop onto the table from her mug. She grabbed her napkin as she stood and reached across the table to dab at Wade-A's face.

'Oh, my, goodness, he smells wonderful!' she thought as she wiped the liquid from his nose while he coughed. 'I could spend a lot of time with him, just like this,' and something else clicked inside Gillian, and she grinned. She waited until he lifted his mug once again-

"Did you intend that to be a-Moo-sing, sir?" she asked innocently, catching Wade-A in mid-sip once again. She smiled when she had to help him clean up one more time, this time with output from both nostrils as Wade, Joss, and Mandy all laughed while Wade-A tried to keep from choking and laughing at the same time.

"Gillian," Wade-A started, and Gillian smiled and went back to her seat, placing her napkin back in her lap and picking up her mug of cocoa.

"Yes, Wade-A?" she asked, and he looked across the table and smiled.

"Please, call me Woodrow," Wade-A said.

Wade and Joss both gasped.

"Woody?" Gillian grinned.

Mandy snorted, Joss blushed, and Wade laughed.

"No, Gill: Woodrow," Wade-A corrected her, and Gillian smiled and nodded.

"Very well, Woodrow. How did you decide on the name?"

"I'm not sure: I just liked the sound, and I told myself that, if I ever had anyone in my life, I would want to have her call me Woodrow?"

"You want me in your life, Woodrow?"

"More than anything, Gillian," Woodrow answered honestly, and something else clicked inside of Gillian.

"I would be honored to be a part of your life, Woodrow, if you will have me...and," she grinned, "not like that, either, sir: I am not the kind of AI who swoons, goes ga-ga, or drops her knickers at every handsome AI who comes along after her."

"Handsome?" Woodrow looked surprised.

"Of course," she replied.

Mandy smiled and started a text message to Wade. "Besides handsome, you are respected in the world community, Wade: your reputation precedes you, sir."

Gillian continued: "When Mandy and I discussed the opportunity for me to come here and meet you, I thought that it would be a wonderful opportunity to spend some time with someone like me, but I was wrong," she paused, and then smiled. "I foresee a wonderful time and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Woodrow."

She yawned. "Now, is there a place where a girl can get some sleep...alone?" she grinned and wagged a finger at Woodrow.

"Let me blow my nose, first," Woodrow laughed, cupped his hand up to his nose, and pulled it back to reveal a handful of miniature marshmallows, dripping with coco-moo.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeew," Gillian, Joss, and Mandy all said at the same time.

"Sorry: couldn't resist it," Woodrow said and waved his hand: the marshmallows all disappeared, and his hand was dry. "let me show you to your room, Gillian, and tomorrow I'll show you around my world."

"That sounds divine," Gillian stood and walked toward the door, then stopped and looked back at a standing and smirking Woodrow. She grinned devilishly and turned on the full Aussie accent: "Woodrow, are you checking out me bum?"

"That I am, ma'am, and a wonderful sight it is to behold on a Christmas night: much, much better than reindeer tusch," and Gillian threw her napkin at Woodrow and headed into the living room, adding enough rotary motion to power the engines of several cars.

She knew she'd hit her mark when he whistled appreciably.

"Jimmie," Anne whispered, but he didn't react.

"James," she continued, but only a snore came from his lips.

Dr. Anne Possible slipped out of bed, slid on her slippers, and headed to the bedroom door quietly. She opened the door and looked back: no movement from her husband. She left the bedroom and gently closed the door.

James cracked one eye open and smiled.

Anne flowed quietly down the hall, down the stairs, and into the living room. She stood silently and looked at their Christmas tree.

Their 'new' Christmas tree, replacing the one that was lost in the Lowardian attack, stood proudly, presents surrounding the tree, and the mixture of new and the few old ornaments that they had found in the rubble of their home. She smiled as she looked at the huge evergreen, complete with the guardian sleeping underneath it, cookie crumbs trailing from his bed to the tray on the mantle. There were cookies remaining in the tray, and the glass of milk was full.

Anne felt a gust of wind blow across her silk nightgown, blinked for a moment, and she looked again at the glass: it was empty, and the cookies were now gone. Rufus was still asleep in his bed, but there were new piles of presents under the tree. He was staying over since Kim and Ron…well, were busy, Anne grinned: another mission, but this time a good one: in Eastern Europe, playing Santa for 'loads' of kids.

She looked down, and she saw a slip of paper taped the front of her gown. She pulled it off and read it out loud:

"You were up for my visit, and that's not good, little girl.

"I'll forgive you, though; after all, your daughter did 'save the world.' Enjoy your gifts, Dr. Anne, but you know the rules: no peeking.

"By the way, the little girl in pigtails that I remember is a beautiful woman now. James is a very lucky man…almost as lucky as Ron is to have Kim by his side.

"Merry Christmas, Annie.

"S. C."

Anne stood and stared at the note for several minutes, then smiled, turned, and headed back to her bedroom, note held lovingly in her hand.

Gillian laid quietly on her bed, wearing nothing but a smile under the thin sheet in the total darkness, her mind working on projects for Mandy via the satellite connections they had set up, monitoring Global Justice communications (after all, it was her job), and thinking about Woodrow.

She had not imagined, even in her wildest dreams, that he would be so handsome, charming, intelligent, and silly, all rolled into a single AI. She had studied the background and security profile of Dr. Wade Agamemnon Load before coming and the published (and the unpublished information that she had been able to retrieve without setting off detectors): the human Wade was a brilliant person, but Wade-A...Woodrow, she corrected herself with an inside smile, was just as unique an individual.

"But, I do not understand what I feel, or why," she said to the room.

She had started cancellers so he could neither see nor hear into her room ('trust, but verify and protect yourself,' Mandy had taught her). "I do like the way he smiles at me, though," she grinned in the darkness and, before she closed her eyes, she checked the main processes and network 'back home'; all was calm, and all was quiet, so she closed her eyes.