Disclaimer: if it was on TV, it's not mine. Otherwise, yeah, I own it. Soundtrack for this chapter: Les Espaces Inquiets and Phase IV by Art Zoyd; Univers Zero Live by Univers Zero.
Shego had finally finished filling her husband in on the gazuntite heist. "So that's the sitch." She realized what she'd said, her expression not unlike that of someone who'd swallowed a bug. "I'm never going to use that word again."
"A wise decision, I'm sure." The blue man began checking satellite feeds, top-secret government communications, news broadcasts and cell-phone conversations, all the millions of ways the world transmitted information. "There was a time," he said, entering a web address with one hand and adjusting some sliders with the other, "that this would have been impossible. The demise of hand-written letters was the epiphany of the electronic eavesdropper."
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, whatever. So long as we can find the gazuntite before Friday. I promised Median we'd do it in seven days. I'd like to get it this evening. So we could take a few days off." A little smile played across her lips. "Maybe go up to the mountain cabin –"
"We've got trouble." He spun in his chair, clicked the huge wall screen on. Live coverage from KXKVI. Mayhem in lower Upperton. Cars sliced in half, storefronts smashed. "This looks very unpleasant."
Reporter Gregg Greatman's face filled the screen; Drakken turned up the volume. "—scene in Upperton this evening. Destruction run rampant. The villains responsible have eluded the police thus far. By a miracle, there was no loss of life, but several people were victims of Zodiac Gas."
As if on cue, a policeman went by on all fours, chewing on what appeared to be the label of a tomato can, butting and kicking the officers who tried to help him.
Drakken's expression was grave. "Capricorn."
"It's more humiliating than life-threatening," Greatman needlessly explained.
Shego looked on in dismay. "Aah, no. No! I just fought those maniacs last week! They can't be out already!"
"Looks like the cabin's not happenin'." He sounded as disheartened as she was. "You might as well suit back up. And let me check out the gloves. The last time you used them there was some generation lag."
"Not so I noticed."
"I noticed. That's what I do."
"So we spend the evening waiting for those idiots to turn up?"
"They'll reappear sooner or later. We'll just monitor communications until they do."
"What if they wait a day or two? We can't just sit here. Maybe you could, I don't know, track the frequency of their cybernetic implants or something?" She was trying to be more tactful in suggesting things to him, especially elementary things. It had been so much easier to be a snarky sidekick than it was to be a supportive partner. "Any chance of something like that?" she added, to further soften the blow. Maybe, if she did this enough, he'd learn to try it without prompting.
Maybe.
Excitedly, he turned back to his instruments, began adjusting knobs, watching oscilloscope waves slide in and out of phase. She sighed, went back to the bedroom to put on the costume. Might be a long night.
"If this is about that tank giveaway," Jack Hench drawled, "there was a disclaimer printed on the entry form:'Many will enter, few will win.' Few won. You weren't one of the few. Their names are confidential. Also on the entry form. Next question."
They were in Hench's palatial multi-story mansion, considered one of the seven wonders of the modern world by Humans magazine. Whatever that was worth. Hench was on a floating recliner in the middle of his climate-controlled indoor swimming facility; Kim and Ron were reduced to standing on the edge of the football-field-sized pool, hardly optimum conditions for piercing interrogation. A small flying servobot, little more than a camera, two arms and a propeller, buzzed over their heads with a pitcher of something, refilled Hench's glass, buzzed off.
He didn't offer them any.
"Not here about the tank, Mr. Hench." Kim had to shout to be heard above the music; some sort of dreadful surf-rock from the 1960s. It was painfully clear that Hench had only admitted them for his own twisted amusement.
"Well, since he brought it up –"
"Not here about the tank, Ron!"
"Aw, man…" Her husband fell sullenly silent.
Kim pressed on. "As I was saying, your company's branching out in some interesting directions."
"Don't know what you're talking about. Don't care." He took a sip from his drink. The music's volume automatically dropped whenever Hench had something to say. "I sold HenchCo two years ago."
"Sold it? Why? I thought the supervillain equipment trade was a lucrative business!"
"Operative word: was." Hench clapped his hands twice; the music stopped. He paddled a little closer to the crimefighters. "Ever since your boyfriend there –"
"Ah, wait, 'husband'-" Ron interjected.
"Boyfriend, husband, whatever. Since he went Blue Light Special on us, all the villains that kept HenchCo solvent got out of the business. Pronto. I mean, you watch him pulverize Mr. and Mrs. Close Encounters, you realize you're better off trading the bad-guy routine for a job at Smarty Mart."
"Nothing wrong with a job at Smarty Mart." Ron was offended. "A lot of good people have been tempered by fire at Smarty Mart."
"Be that as it may," Hench continued, "the only villains still in the business don't need HenchCo. Mad scientists like Dementor and Electronique can make their own earthquake capsules and underwater howitzers. In fact, they prefer to. And then you've got people like that crook Shego, who have powers of their own."
"Maybe you don' t know it," Kim interrupted, " but Shego's back on the hero circuit. Brought Phobos and Deimos in when Global Justice couldn't."
Hench shrugged, unimpressed. "I could bring in those two lunatics. They're just a couple of failed cheerleaders with ideas above their station."
Ron counted their weapons off on his fingers as he spoke: "And Zodiac Gas. And cyberlasers. And subsonic disruptors." Neither he nor Kim had ever battled the twins, but what he'd seen of their work troubled him. Not because they were so powerful: they weren't. Because they were so random. That was the sort of thing that scared him.
He could deal with powerful. Insanity was another story.
Hench was still talking. "Shego's a phony. I know a con game when I see one. Ever see A Wind-up Kumquat?
"No." Kim was puzzled. "What's a wind-up kumquat? Some sort of gag gift? Practical joke?"
"It's a movie. A very artsy and prestigious movie about violence. See, the hero is a villain. Leader of a gang of villains. He bumps off this old lady, gets betrayed by his gang and thrown in the slammer. While he's there, the government brainwashes him to be a good guy. So everything looks peachy-keen. But down inside, he's still rotten." Hench had seen the picture as a teenager; it was one of the inspirations that led to HenchCo. "That's Shego. And probably Drakken too. Down inside, they're still rotten."
"You should read the novel," Ron said, surprising both Hench and Kim. "The movie left out the last chapter. The one where the villain reforms. On his own. Without brainwashing or coercion. That's Shego. And Drakken. They've had enough evil. They're trying to do something better with their lives."
Hench favored Ron with some savagely sarcastic applause. "Hoo-ray. Huzz-ah. I'm afraid I'm not much on reading. Or noble oratory. Agony County: The Next Generation's on in ten. It's about time for you two to go."
Kim threw one final question at him. "Who bought HenchCo?"
"Who knows? It was all done through channels. Somebody with money."
"Have a good day, Mr. Hench."
A silent glare. Another sip of his drink. "Don't step on any mines on your way out."
A servobot saw them to the door.
They hadn't been gone five minutes before Hench pulled out his cell-phone. "Yeah, this is Jack Hench. You took that bankrupt company off my hands, so I'm doin' ya a favor. Kim Possible and that ninja punk she married are back. Asking questions. It's never a good thing when crimefighters are asking questions. Even ex-crimefighters."
"What's that to me?" The nasally voice on the other end seemed unconcerned. "I'm not doing anything illegal."
In the background someone yelled "Hey, boss, are we gonna need the dynamite? 'Cause it won't fit in the case with the sulphuric acid."
"Wait just a minute," said the voice. A second later Hench overheard "Can't you see I'm on the phone? Deal with it."
Another second passed. "OK, I'm back. Thanks for the info, Hench." There was the dull thump of a distant explosion. "Gotta run."
Hench put the phone away. In twenty minutes he'd forgotten all about the incident, entranced by the sad tale of America's favorite soap opera characters.
Until the laser beam seared his earlobe and destroyed the TV. He spun around, drew his stungun. The laser flared again; he flung the red-hot weapon away with a yowl of pain.
Two young women stood in the doorway. "Hello –"
"Jack. Remember-"
"us?"
"How'd you get in here? Guards! Guards!"
"No guardbots, Jack. We destroyed the –"
"- central computer –"
"- on the way up."
"Whaddaya want? Money? I got money. Let's talk."
"Who won –"
"-the tank, Jack?"
"Ah, names are confidential. It was on the entry form."
"A tank would be fun."
"We don't think you ever gave anyone a tank."
"You're a spoilsport, Jack."
"A cheater."
They came closer.
Hench backed up, his fists clenched, ready to brawl. "Come on, then. You think I won't hit a girl?"
"You won't hit these girls."
"What are ya gonna do, Zodiac me? Forty-eight hours as a virgin." Even in jeopardy, the idea made him chuckle. "Big deal. You're not super-criminals. You're jokes."
"We're out of Zodiac Gas."
"We had a lot of fun in Upperton."
"But the gas isn't our only weapon. Just our favorite weapon."
"Because it's funny."
"Lasers aren't funny. Neither are subsonics."
"One cuts you into hamburger –"
"—the other leaves you a bag of boneless mush."
"Nothing funny about that," they chanted in unison.
Hench had backed up against the wall.
"You think we're stupid, Jack. We're not stupid."
"We're crazy. Big difference. We want our tank, Jack."
Looking into their slightly unfocused eyes, noting their lopsided smiles, Jack Hench couldn't shake that scene in A Wind-Up Kumquat. The one where the gang of hoodlums has the old drunk cornered under the bridge. And he starts to sing. Maybe singing makes the pain hurt less.
"My country tis of thee," Jack Hench tunelessly bellowed, "Sweet land of liberty –" He swung at the nearest twin.
A deep thrum shook the building. Windows burst in a rain of glass.
And then there was silence.