Kim Possible: The Darkness Without: redux Chapter 7, a kim possible fanfic

Kim Possible: The Darkness Without

Redux

Pt 6

By Eoraptor

Now, on with the Story...

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Wade blinked. He blinked again after a moment. By the third blink he was rubbing his eyes. Wraith Technologies…

Two weeks ago he'd received a simple request. Combine the work of two scientists with some he'd done on the side in the past, and then submit the results to "S.S." at Wraith Technologies. Nothing about that had bothered the hacker at the time. At the time it had been Kim Possible Day. He had a lot of other things on his mind.

Now, with his finger, virtual though it was, hovering over the send button; he wasn't so certain. Something was bugging the heck out of him. He'd been asked to contract the work. So he'd been issued a bank account with the company. Not highly unusual; Enron used to run the same kind of numbers. It was suspicious, but legally above board.

So Wade had purchased the licenses to some neuro tech from their old troublesome friend Dr. Bortel. Oh well, better to have anything like that out of the hands of a man who'd once turned Kim into an unstable vixen straight out of 'Single White Female.'

What made him blink, though, was the name of the other scientist Wraith wanted him to work with; Vivian Frances Porter, Robotacist. Wade knew Vivian from their days in Ultimate Robot Fighting. She was a genius with a body that just didn't stop. In fact, that was part of why Wade remembered her; not for her body, but for what it had caused her to do.

Vivian, or VF as she had gone by in those days, felt that she couldn't be taken seriously because she was a California blonde. To that end, she'd crafted her robotic 'boyfriend' Oliver. Oliver had been her cover during her days with URF. She worked as a lowly Lab Assistant by day, not showing her true potential, and at night Oliver was given credit for her unbeatable creations, no one knowing that he was in fact her masterwork.

Wade, Kim, and Ron had dealt with her and Oliver when she was accused of theft. In the end it was actually her lab supervisor who had stolen creations from her. Vivian finally owned up and started accepting the due credit for her work, and now was widely heralded in the field. She was also still a stone-cold babe in Wade's humble opinion, even if she was nearly a decade older than he.

Still, sexy robotacists aside, something didn't quite seem right. So his virtual finger hovered over the submit button. What did robotics, nano-technology (his own contribution), and neurology have to do with one another? Visions of a bad Star Trek episode came to mind at first, but he shoved those off. Maybe he needed to find out more about this Wraith Technologies.

The virtual hand moved away from the submit button, and a new sphere was opened. Windows was for chumps, he thought to himself. His three-dimensional GUI was so much easier to get around. The new globe, which overlapped with the previous like two conjoined bubbles, opened onto the interweb. He got the glossy professional looking homepage of Wraith almost instantly, and the physical address at the bottom of the page was noted by another program living inside that sphere.

"Hmmm… so what the heck do you actually do?" he mused to himself. The page was slick, and loaded with colorful animations and attention grabbing banners. It gleefully offered him an investor prospectus, a stock ticker quote, a 'letter from the chairman,' and various other fluff. The veteran hacker knew better to be taken in by the sizzle when he was after the steak.

With a few quick strokes, he'd meandered his way into more obscure sections of the company website. He wasn't as much concerned with what he found as what he didn't. Any corporation's website should have back-links to their own intranet; this website, however, did not. How was it being updated if it had no connection to corporate IT?

Sloppily maintained web sites should even have the occasional link to a product not released, or a page that wasn't quite ready to go live. Wade wasn't even finding links to old products or services that had once been offered but had since been stripped from the website. Either the webmaster was the most brilliant and efficient person in the history of the interweb; or this site was a fraud.

It was at that moment that his phone rang. Phone-sphere at least. The bubble floated to the top of his screen and showed him the number calling.

"Well, speak of the devil and he'll appear." Wade mused to himself. He picked up the virtual receiver in his virtual hand.

"Mr. Loade…" the voice on the other end was gravely, forced sounding even. "You seem to be fairly curious for a contractor. Enjoying your tour of our end-user website?"

Wade's face paled. He was routed through so many servers he wasn't even sure he existed in a virtual sense. How did this person know what he was up to? "Um… yeah. I am… Can't help but notice you don't offer any products."

"Indeed we don't. Any amateur could figure that out. I assume by your surfing, that you must be finished with your work." The voice went on. It sounded somehow falsetto now as it continued.

"Yeah… I'm done. You're not getting it until I get some answers though." This whole deal was just beginning to stink.

"Before we give you any answers, we have a question." 'we?' Wade thought to himself. This… person was referring to himself in the third person plural…well this just got better and better.

"Sure… Go ahead." The boy narrowed his eyes at the caller ID display suspiciously.

"How would you like a job. Your history working for Kim Possible shows that you are good under pressure. How are you about quasi-legal hacking?"

Wade blinked again. It wasn't exactly a state secret, what he did for Kim back in the day… but it was hardly common knowledge either. He rubbed his eyes, realizing he wasn't blinking nearly enough under the stress of the moment.

"What's it to you? I don't even know what you do yet. And what does Ki- Kim Possible have to do with any of this?" Wade was getting more defensive by the moment. He was about ready to pop the big red sphere on the screen that would sever all computer connections to the outside world.

There was a pause on the line, "She was good at what she did… therefore you must be good as well. Dr. Porter has already agreed. But if this will make you feel better…"

A link appeared in his email sphere. He clicked it and a new set of web pages opened up rapidly. Images of advanced robots, weapons models, helicopters, and other high-end items were displayed library style to him.

"Here are a few things that we don't think the owners should be in possession of." The voice continued. "We think you know this man…"

Senor Senior Senior appeared on his screen now. Wade nodded in spite of himself. He did indeed know the semi-retired multi-billionaire whose hobby was world domination.

"So what's 'quasi-legal' about that?" He asked the 'voice' after a moment.

"Senior bought these things legally, and he owns a private island in international waters, so no weapons laws apply. Taking them away would be theft."

"Fine…" he sighed after a long moment. "I'm in. What more do I need to do?"

"Nothing for now." The voice continued. "We'll contact you for more help when the time comes."

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Sara hung up the phone, smiling softly to herself. The smile grew eventually into a feral grin. Wade didn't need to know that he was helping her to steal gold and jewels. Sure, if she happened to come across some weapons she that could carry, she wouldn't pass it up… but Sara Smith was not in the magnanimous world saving game. This was all about profit.

She stood up, stretching her arm out over her head and standing on her toes to loosen tight muscles. If Triple S wanted the world, he was welcome to anything he could keep secured. Anything that wasn't nailed down though… was hers for the taking.

This led to her next order of business. She'd used Kim's memories to get some money, but that wouldn't last forever. That wasn't the limit of her problems. She needed work. Someone who knew what to steal and where to get it. Her knowledge here was limited. She'd already applied most of it in ratting out the owner of some of the world's rarest plush, and now in her plans for the Seniors' private island. Kim knew of a few other things like this, but most of what she was aware of from Possible's adventures was more in the vein of super science, and not as easily fenceable.

She needed contacts. To get contacts, she needed a reputation. To get a reputation, she needed success. To gain success, she needed contacts. What a vicious fucking cycle!

Or… she grinned again to herself… 'I could always use someone else's rep.'

This is why she'd paid Shego to come to near-by San Francisco. It was why she'd also been paying the woman, quietly, to stay put while she collected her facts. She knew, though, that Shego wasn't going to stay put for much longer.

So, her problem was simple, convince Shego to work for an unknown.

Shego was a mercenary, she knew. She played by her own rules and worked for the highest bidder, at least until she got bored. Then she too long vacations… spa-treatments, and side jobs. There must be a clue there to convince her to take jobs from Sara's unknown Wraith Industries.

The redhead pursed her lips, her brow furrowing. She thought hard for a few moments, trying to pull together all she could remember about the woman and her life. She was finding it harder and harder to access Kim's memories. It was almost like they were a commodity that could be used up. Even Kim's moral fortitude was rapidly fading away, no longer dredging up nightmares of the girl's old life and downfall to contest Sara's plotting.

She frowned harder, working her way through the last few encounters between the do-gooder and the mercenary. There was the tapioca incident, the international college in Middleton, that stupid pirate ship, the Sears Tower.

Suddenly she started coughing violently, and grasped her chest. The very memory of the explosion caused her to be racked with pain, as if she were once more inhaling raw flames. She fumbled about her desk, and finally felt her hand close on the inhaler. Inhaling deeply, Sara took in all the medicine she could, and finally felt her wounded lungs begin to relax.

"Damn it!" She cursed angrily and hurled the inhaler away when she felt she wouldn't have to take another hit from it. Her body continued to rebel against her will and vex her at every turn. Her pulse was raising, a fine sweat broken out across her scarred face, even beneath the black satin of her eye patch.

She'd escaped that damnable little convalescent ward in Illinois in July. It was now November. Despite months of rehabilitation that would make a Shao Lin monk weary, Sara Smith was still not close to being in the shape the girl that fell off of Sears Tower had been in.

"No, not fell, was blown off of." She grumbled to herself. Psychology, she was finding, was a funny thing. She clearly knew that Kim Possible, who had climbed up Sears Tower over year ago, had been killed in an explosion. Sara Smith, who'd woken up four months ago in Jefferson County, Illinois, was a completely different person.

Remembering the event that separated the two people was becoming tricky. As facets of Kim Possible's old life faded further from her day to day routine, it became easier to think of the previous girl as nothing more than a stranger with a similar life story. Some days it was as if they were not only two people mentally, but that they had two different bodies. It was as though Kim had ceased to exist; not only in spirit, but due to a new, less capable body.

'maybe that's not so far from the truth…' she thought to herself bitterly, looking at the print-out that just happened to be on her desk.

'COMPARATIVE DNA ANALYSIS' the sheet read across the top. Below that were four lines of A's, C's, G's, and T's. In front of each line was a name; Kim Possible, Anne Possible, James Possible, and Unknown Donor A.

Kim Possible, her mother, and one brother… and, according to the laboratory she had paid to interpret the results, an unknown fourth party who shared common genes with, but was not identical to, any of the three known subjects.

She was Unknown Donor A, she knew as she scowled at the paper with renewed consternation. This was why the hospital hadn't identified her. Something had changed Kim Possible's DNA. Or was it Sara Smith's DNA? She dragged her hand across her face and over her suddenly dry mouth. Drawing the palm away, she looked at her fingertips, the ones pockmarked with scars which made them as unreadable as her DNA.

"Leave the 'who am I' shit to the philosophers, Sara… You've got better problems to deal with." She spoke to herself as she poured a glass of brandy and took a large swallow.

After that swallow, she looked into the mirror that lined the wall across from her desk, here in this mansion her patron was keeping her in. The woman who looked back was definitely not the cover-girl pretty crime fighter Kim Possible. For one thing, Kim had two eyes and two arms, where as the woman looking back at her had only one of each. The woman looking back at Sara was also more slender. Her body had none of the taught muscles and firm lines that hinted at the rampant athleticism evident in Kim prior to the explosion.

This, Sara thought as she grimaced, was in direct contradiction to the weeks of toil she was putting in at the gym. Eight weeks now… Eight weeks of weights, gymnastics, and karate. She took another large pull from the brandy glass. And most days she definitely felt a lot older than a few months shy of twenty three.

So no, definitely not Kim Possible's body. Her face was slightly rounder as well. That quack doctor in Illinois had told her that her breathing problems caused her to 'retain fluid.' She snorted and finished the last of the brandy in her glass. Just what she needed, looking like she had a never-ending menstruation.

'Oh well…' she sighed heavily and thought to herself as she sat down behind her desk again, 'Questions for philosophers indeed. Now… what to do about shego?'

Suddenly the answer came to her, like the proverbial bolt from the blue... It happened to be a green bolt. She grinned slowly, eyeing the dark red alligator skin trench coat hanging on the coat rack. She remembered its green counterpart, the one Shego wore.

"Just as easy as changing your colors…" She didn't have to buy Shego and her reputation… if she could transfer that reputation to herself. After all, she now had in her employ one of the best hackers around.

So now she needed to convince the mercenary to willingly part with her reputation and past… or maybe just part of it.

She pulled up all the latest 'wanted' info about Shego.

"Assault and attempted murder." Hmmm… Shego did have a temper… who had she assaulted this time?

"Drew Lipsky." Hmmm again… and he was in a coma. Oh, this would be perfect. Shego would be off the hook, just as Sara had promised in her cryptic text message, and Sara would in turn get the reputation she wanted… now she just needed to call Wade back… and set up a little meeting with Kelly Gomez of course.

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A green glow flashed rapidly into and then out of existence. It was followed by a slower, steadier orange glow as the fire in the barrel grew. She was getting pretty damned tired of waiting. Five more minutes and she was gone… even sixty thousand dollars was not going to keep her in a cold late autumn San Francisco and at the whims of some eccentric who promised, but had yet to deliver, something that they had called a cover story.

The cashier's check had been waiting for her at the rather posh hotel she'd been told to go to upon landing in Frisco two weeks earlier. It had soothed her money worries considerably at the time. And whilst she had been cooling her heels, she'd even been able to deal with another GJE dog. This one had actually had the balls try to place her under arrest on some warrant. Not that he had use of them any longer, Global Justice really out to upgrade the quality of their athletic supporters.

"SSCA indeed." She snorted to herself. Her brothers may have been dumb enough to be taken in by such tripe… but they insisted on playing by the rules. They got what they deserved.

'Did they Shego? They are your family after all.' Shego groaned inwardly. Her Kim-conscious was back.

'Okay, maybe they didn't deserve it…' she admitted irritably to herself. 'but better them than me.' she added with a grin.

'and what about the other people who've been brought in on those warrants?'

The voice of her annoying conscious seemed to be changing these days. It was less and less Kim's as she remembered it, though it still had Kim's face.

'Motor Ed? He was pretty harmless... and he was sweet on you too. They took him in though.' The conscious went on despite her mental grumbles.

'That blonde monkey is…! is...' her flare of anger at the misogynistic mechanic faded as she realized the Kim-voice had a point. Ed was pretty harmless, he just wanted to be left alone to tinker with his toys and rev loud engines; and he was Drakken's cousin after all…

'yeah… and about drakken.' The Kim-conscious began again.

"Oh no!" Shego began to object aloud this time. "Doctor Dork'ken got what he deserved… pissing me off all the time! Every single day it was something! That annoying clown worked my every last nerve with his damned jar of pickles..."

'but he was my clown.' The Kim-conscious picked up the train of thought in that same odd voice.

Shit!

Shit shit shit! It was Shego's own voice the image of Kimmie was speaking with, she realized, kicking herself mentally. She kicked herself again for letting that little redheaded twerp make her feel guilty about something she hadn't even thought about in months.

'you almost killed him you know… I almost killed him.' The Kim-conscious was now quickly transforming in her mind, its hair growing dark and thick, its skin darkening… and finally, it was Shego.

And she loathed it for being Shego; because if it was Shego, it was her. Damn it, she had a conscious.

"But he deserved an ass kicking! He did!" She tried to object strongly, but her vehemence faded into an unsure whisper, "…he did."

"Who did?"

Chocolate eyes whirled around at the sound of a third voice. The voice was not her own, and it was not inside her head either.

The voice sounded odd, she realized. It took her a few seconds from having her internal dialogue-turned-monologue interrupted to realize that. Her eyes finally caught the source in the flickering firelight of the meeting-place she had been called to.

"Who deserved an ass kicking?" The voice definitely sounded off… as if the person speaking was trying to speak more deeply than they normally did. It was coming from a figure that wore a cloak of dark gray and stood at the edge of the fire light.

It was a cloak in the old sense, the sense of someone wearing a heavy cape and a hood. The hood was even tattered around the edges, allowing just enough firelight in to make out the speakers mouth. Obviously, with the money she was paying the mercenary, it didn't have to be worn and tattered.

"Shit, just what I need… another theatrical employer…" Shego mumbled to herself. She spoke up to the cloaked figure, "Everyone's ass needs to be kicked for making me stand around in the cold, that's who!"

The figure nodded slightly. "I thought you'd enjoy the night sky… Sorry."

"Yeah whatever," Shego responded in a flippant manner, "Can we get on with this? I'm cold, I'm bored, and I wanna go out and get laid."

She smirked. The last bit was thrown in for shock value; she wanted to get this dingus off balance after waiting on them for two weeks.

She couldn't tell if Cloaky was shocked… or just pausing for their own dramatic value. Either way; the pause ended after a protracted moment.

"Fine, here's the deal. You're wanted for beating the hell out of your last boss. I can get you out of that... make sure you stop being hunted for a while."

"What makes you think I wouldn't do the same to you… making me wait around in the damned cold." Shego grimaced, interrupting as she tried to study her gray-draped companion.

"Because I know why you'd do something like that… It's not normal for you. The Shego I know is not into gratuitous violence. I respect you for that."

She was about to retort, and ask how 'Cloaky' knew her at all. The last sentence, however, froze her to the spot. It was as if she'd just been impaled on a very cold pike. Only one other person had spoken those words to her, about thirty seconds before she'd been…

Shego's vision started to blur. She realized after a moment that it was because she was starting to do something she hadn't done since she was twelve years old. She was starting to cry. She dug her talons into the palms of her hands. They didn't penetrate the metallic fabric of her gloves, but the pain was enough to clear her thoughts for a moment.

"Yeah… fuck you. Now, how are you going to get me off the wrap?" She went on bitterly as the moment passed, still digging at her palm.

"It's no concern of yours… Just know that it will be done. You'll find another check back at your hotel. Lay low… visit your precious Doctor… get laid, I don't care. Just don't get caught."

Shego's irritation grew again, and was again snuffed in the same moment by the cloaked figure as they seemed to reach into her deepest thoughts. How had the figure known who she was thinking of?

She hated that. She ignited her hands and held them up as if to strike the figure, eyes flashing over to an ethereal green.

The figure turned, though, and walked away. As it did, its profile was briefly illuminated by the plasma fire in Shego's hands. Shego saw short hair and an eye patch beneath the cloak's hood.

"Betty Director?" Shego whispered to herself, not able to handle half of the emotions running through her at the moment. She was torn suddenly, something else she was having to get used to with this damned conscious.

One half of her wanted to rip out the throat of GJE's top dog. The other half, however, thought that this couldn't be the old spy. That half won eventually and Shego let Cloaky just walk away because the appearance didn't match the facts.

She knew Betty Director to be dead. Cancer, she'd heard.

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Once Sara was a few dozen yards away, safely round a corner and away from the alleyway meeting place, she lowered her hood, running her hand through her short, red, hair. She then reached a bit lower and tugged at her collar. The voice-alteration unit came away in her hand and she pocketed it. That had been slightly harder than she'd thought. Why the hell was that?

She replayed the exchange in her head as she walked now, the cloak flapping about her in the theatrical effect she had so carefully prepared it to.

'Everyone's ass needs to be kicked for making me stand around in the cold, that's who!'

'Yeah whatever,'

'Can we get on with this? I'm cold, I'm bored, and I wanna go out and get laid.'

She felt warmth in her cheeks as she replayed things. What the hell?! Was she blushing? She growled at

herself angrily. Kim Possible blushed at such talk… Sara did not.

She clenched her fist and smacked the wall she was passing firmly. Damn it! This body was betraying her again! Blushing when she shouldn't indeed!

She returned to her Lotus Esprit and angrily flipped the gull-wing door up, barely missing her own forehead in her smoldering irritation. She threw her cloak into the passenger seat irritably. Cloak shed, she unzipped the black unitard that had been beneath, exposing pale skin down to her belly button and shivering as cold autumn air hit bared flesh. She then turned, running her hand through her hair once more, sweeping it back with the sweat wearing that cloak had caused.

Examining herself in the reflection on the Lotus's black gloss paint job, she nodded approval at her own sexiness. Even her new prosthetic arm was well disguised under the sleek body suit and black gloves, and she approved the dangerously alluring mystery the eye patch lent. She then slid down into the driver's seat.

Some obnoxiously loud music and pretty boys should take care of this damned blushing problem. Tomorrow she could afford to laze about a bit, She'd sent the files Wade had given her on to the contractor working on her other new arm, and all she could do now was wait until the surgeon called her about scheduling the second implantation.

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Author's notes additional: I was going to alter this one more substantially before, but as I read through it, I came to decided that what it needed was not whole new scenes, but minor changes in the dialogue and a few random facts.