"No, seriously - I could have died!" Monique finished as she took a bite of her veggie burrito. "I mean, could you have pictured me in green and black?" Her friends, gathered around the table at Bueno Nacho, laughed appreciatively. Monique's fashion sense was legendary.
The little fast food restaurant was nearly empty, save for a couple of booths overflowing with teenagers. A bored assistant manager moved grease from one part of the counter to another with a rag. Outside the tall windows, night was finally upon the town, where second sunset had just begun to reveal stars and moons in the navy-blue sky. A few cars honked at a dog wandering across the road, but otherwise Middleton was quiet.
This was Ron's favorite time. He usually stayed out way too late, and ended up oversleeping long into the daylight hours. Which, admittedly, wasn't hard with an average of four hours of darkness each night.
Rufus polished off the remnants of Ron's naco, burped, and sat up expectantly, beady eyes boring into Ron. The sandy-haired teen looked at his pet and smiled. Somehow, he always expected Rufus to start talking, but that was crazy... without looking back, Ron called, "Ned, mi amigo, another naco for my pal, por favor!"
The assistant manager looked up and stopped his grease migration for a moment. "Who's Ned?"
Ron turned, looked at the familiar face behind the counter, and frowned. "Um, never mind." Why did he call the guy Ned? Jake had always been the assistant manager, hadn't he?
Kim looked at her boyfriend with a concerned frown. "You OK, Ron? That's the third time this week you've done that. You feeling all right?" She gently brushed a wayward lock of hair from Ron's eyes.
"Um, fine, no problems with the Ronster," he said with gusto. But Kim knew him well enough to tell when he hid behind a façade. She let it go when he obviously didn't want to talk about it. Keeping an eye on him, Kim turned back to the conversation with Felix, Monique, Wade, and Justine. Wade was starting in on another mission story.
"While Shego was fighting Kim, Monkeyfist activated this device he'd had made that created a monkey-shaped cloud that rained bananas... it was obviously created with subharmonic transmitters and reconstituted fruit. I don't know what he thought he was going to do, but you should've seen everybody slipping on banana peels! They had to close Middleton Mall for two days to clean it all up, and it still smells like a banana daquiri on the second floor!" Ron forced himself to laugh at the oft-remembered encounter. He still had a hard time walking into Club Banana after that particular mission, even after all this time.
Ron tried to remember how long ago that had been. It was a while, he was sure, but try as he might, he couldn't associate it with any other event and couldn't even recall the last time he'd encountered Monkeyfist. "Kimbo, how long ago was that, anyway?" he asked as the chuckling died down.
Kim shrugged. "I don't know, a while, I guess. Why?"
"It's just that I can't remember the last time we went on a mission."
Looking thoughtful, Kim slowly replied, "Yeah, our last mission was a while ago. It's been pretty quiet lately. Lucky us." But she quickly perked up and began chatting with Felix about something else.
Ron hated the thought that something weird was going on in his head. Why couldn't he remember? All he could recall was the daily routine of going to school, doing homework, community work around town, hanging with Kim and his friends, household chores, and other teenager stuff. The more he thought about it, the more it all blurred together. It was frustrating. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd been outside Middleton's city limits!
It was a warm night. "Hey, Kim, want to go for a walk by moonlight? Looks like a nice evening." He wanted to see something new for a change, maybe get a couple of miles outside of town.
Kim smiled, assuming he had male ulterior motives. "Why Mr. Stoppable, how forward of you," she replied. "Let's hope my father doesn't hear about this."
Ron stared at the deepening twilight and replied absently, "He can come too, that's fine..." He caught his girlfriend's arched eyebrows and realized how his invitation looked to her. "I mean, I'll be gentlemanly," he stammered. The others laughed, not unkindly, at Ron's discomfiture. He squirmed in his seat.
Extending her hand, Kim let Ron stand and help her up, and the two made their goodbyes to their friends. Hand in hand, they walked into the warm spring night and headed toward the outskirts of Middleton. "Where to?" Kim asked.
Ron shrugged and pointed with a nod of his chin to the nearby foothills just outside of town. "How about thataway?" Kim smiled and snuggled nearer.
"This is nice."
Ron had to agree. There was nothing better than having KP's attention all to himself. He woke up anticipating that feeling, and it was the last thing he thought of before falling asleep. He couldn't remember when he hadn't felt that way. Tonight, it was especially vivid to Ron, with her hand warm in his, the soft night breeze laden with a hint of acacia, the subdued lights of the town falling behind, the four crescent moons above... Ron noticed another had risen, and judging by its brightness and size of the disc, it was probably Europa, but he wasn't sure. He'd never done well in astronomy class.
Despite their intent to stroll casually, both found themselves picking up the pace. Ron wanted to see beyond the town borders, and he knew that Kim rarely did anything at half speed. In a short time the two had left the town behind and were following a gravel road up into the hills, then onto grass. They soon had a panoramic view of the little town's lights. Kim guided her boyfriend under a tall oak tree, pulled him to the ground, and sat on his lap.
"So. Now what should we do to occupy ourselves?" Kim asked. Her fingers tickled the back of his neck. "Any ideas, bright boy?"
Normally such an invitation would've burrowed straight past Ron's conscious thought processes and into his lizard brain, the one that said, "Kiss the girl." But to his surprise, Ron found himself remaining preoccupied with his faulty memory.
"Uh, yeah, KP, I was kinda hoping to..." He stopped at the puzzled look on Kim's face. "Look, there's something tickling the back of my brain and I need to put my finger on it." Seeing stormclouds start to pass behind Kim's green eyes, he continued quickly, "Not that I don't want to tongue wrestle, but I was kinda hoping to shake something loose in my head." At least that got a smile. "What isn't already loose, that is." He grinned back.
Kim leaned back and eyed her boyfriend in the dim moonslight. "All right, fine. Anything I can help with?" She wiggled a little.
"That's not helping!"
Sighing, the redhead climbed off her boyfriend's lap. "Well, now what?"
"I guess I just need some time to think."
Kim squatted next to Ron, kissed him gently on the nose. "Can do. Let me know if you need any help from me. You know I'm always here for you." She stood. "But don't take too long. I can't wait forever to kiss you, ya know."
Ron nodded and watched her turn and jog easily down the gentle, grassy slope. She was always there for him, he knew that. But somehow he also knew they weren't always together, even though they wanted to be... something had kept them apart for a time. A long time. But like quicksilver, the memories slipped away before they solidified.
He watched the lights twinkle out below, little by little, until only streetlights and a few night owls remained. Ron's eye found Middleton's only freeway, and traced the curved line of highway lights to the hills off to his right. He expected to see them continue over the hills and beyond, but they began petering out not far past where he sat, until the distance was locked in darkness.
That's strange.
Standing, Ron quickly descended to the gravel road and cut across to the deserted highway. No cars screamed by, and Ron began following the roadside. He knew this road led to Upperton, although he hadn't been there in... a while. Again, he couldn't pin down the last time he'd visited that town, and that annoyed him enough to pick up the pace. Half an hour's walking in the light of the moons brought him out of sight of Middleton, and he noticed something disturbing.
The asphalt began looking cracked, and the farther he walked, the less repaired it seemed. The lights were also working only intermittently, until Ron walked past the last working light pole. Weeds and small plants grew in large cracks in the road. Walking some more, Ron's eyes became used to the dim glow of the moons and he saw that up ahead the asphalt cracked and eventually became submerged in the countryside.
There was no sign of Upperton.
Worried, Ron turned around and walked back to Middleton. He stopped on the low bridge over Middle Creek, and looked down. Now this he remembered... jumping down to the shallow bank, Ron walked to a bend and stood looking at several trees that had been uprooted during a flash flood several years before. Walking slowly around the largest tree, which had begun decaying, his fingers found a heart shape and some words carved in the trunk, well up from the tangled roots.
Frowning, Ron continued to walk upstream until he reached a small concrete pad and door set next to the river. The door was made of silvery metal and had no keyhole or handle. But he knew it was a door. He also knew how to open it.
But he didn't know how he knew, and that worried him.
Slowly, Ron raised both hands and pressed one on each side of the narrow door, about three fourths of the way up. The door noiselessly slid back and to the side, a puff of stale air emerging. Dim lighting strips illuminated the walls, but they seemed bright after Ron's walk in the dim moonslight. It was very familiar, but Ron couldn't place why. He didn't associate it with any danger.
Knowing it was reckless, Ron walked past the door, which slid shut without a sound behind him.