A/N: Sorry for the wait, ladies and gentlemen. The current chapters of LS and CW were harder to write than the last two, mainly because I wrote sections that didn't appeal to me. This is the revised version, sans fight sceen that I felt was unneeded. Introduced is the third main character in LS, behind just Kim and Shego, Janice. Next chapter will finally explain the setting for a majority of this fic, which many people seem to be confused about. My apologies on that. ~VLU
Edit: Before I forget, I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed my works thus far. Top among them is Demented Noodles, perhaps my biggest and only fan, as well as PoetHeather and Ken-Zero, all of whom have reviewed both fics, and multiple chapters at that. I'll attempt to reply to as many reviews as I can when I wake myself up. Once more, ~VLU
Standard Disclaimer: I do not claim to own Kim Possible, the character, or any characters from the series. All is copyrighted by Disney, I'm writing this without express permission, but am not making a profit at all.
Ron had been called in several hours later at the Possibles' request. When he arrived, he was ushered down into a different section of the mountainous prison, ending up in the intensive care unit rather than observation.
Kim was strapped down to a hospital bed when he arrived, her heavy shackles tethered to the ground to keep her in place. Despite the heavy restraints though, she was deathly still, though her breath was under her own power. Emergency equipment lay scattered across the room. Anne assured him it was just incase. It wasn't her body they were worried about, besides the lack of sleep Kim had been suffering from, her training regiment had become even more intense over the last three months, showing new skills every so often. Even her reflexes had practically doubled.
Her head, and brainwaves in specific, were the most worrisome part of the teen now. Since she had fallen asleep, the synthetic waves had doubled, and it was almost impossible to sift through them to find the slightest inkling their daughter was still alive at all.
"I should have known something was wrong," Ron muttered. Not being able to help was hardest on him, since everyone around him, besides Doctor Director, were experts at their field and doing whatever they could for her. Even James was looking up possible leads on the equipment inside of her. Ron was the only one without a fancy degree there, and felt like he was letting his best friend down when she needed him the most.
Anne came up behind him, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, much as her husband had done for her. "There was no way to know anything like this would happen, Ron. You just have to be ready, in case they find how what's causing this."
He nodded and gave her his best determined expression. "Of course, Doctor Missus P., I'm ready to roll out whenever."
"She's moving." Betty said from behind her, displaying none of the emotions of worry that was plaguing the rest of the crew.
Everyone in hearing range turned their heads, finding that Kim was in fact stirring in the bed. Anne did a quick checkup on the readouts, but frowned at the realization that the synthetic waves had practically erased her daughter's already. "Ron, go and stay with her. We need to keep working."
"You got it, Doc." He said, nodding again. Not even noticing the grumbling glower Betty shot his way, he slipped inside the adjoining room, taking one of the two seats next to Kim's bare hospital bed.
She had been cut out of her mission clothes some time ago, now dressed in plain hospital garbs. The sunken look to her face had eased somewhat during her rest though, but her brows were furrowed, and her expression was more distraught then ever. Whether it was that made Kim seem so bothered, or whatever was inside her head, was someone else's guess.
"KP?" Ron asked, gently touching her hand. "I know you probably can't hear me, but I'm here for you."
He got an unintelligible grumble as a response, at first. The teen bucked uncomfortable, arms tensing in their straps. Her mouth was open, as if to speak, but her eyes were still squeezed shut. Ron couldn't tell if she were waking up, or just having a bad dream.
"No…" He guessed bad dream though when she muttered her first word to him. He could see the slightest hint of tears springing forth from her eyelids as well. "I don't- I don't want to die…"
"KP? It's okay, I'm here. Nothing's going to happen," He assured her. Nothing seemed to be getting through to her though. She strained against the restraints once more, arms moving like she was fighting to get out.
He leaned in, face still full of worry, only to jump back suddenly as she shrieked at the top of her lungs, "I don't want to die! Not like this, Shego!" As soon as she'd started, and Anne and Betty both ended up in the doorway, her fit settled down. She rested back in her bed, eyes still closed, and continued to push against the restraints. "Shego… You said you'd catch me. You said so. I can't see, I can't move. It's so dark. Please…"
"Kim," Ron whispered, cutting through her whispered pleas, "It's okay. I'm here, I won't let you die. It's okay."
"It's okay?" The response caught him off guard. He opened his tear filled eyes to find hers staring right back at him, olive green eyes mirroring his brown. The slightly shimmering look to her eyes was full of hope, and Ron felt his heart swell at that. Even her lips had a slight upward tug to them, almost a tired smile.
"It's okay," Ron assured her once more.
And then her face fell, and she looked Ron over. "You're not Shego."
"It's me, Kim. It's Ron." She turned away as he spoke, ignoring him altogether. Her gaze, though extremely dazed still, crossed the entire room, finding it empty after Anne and Betty had left. "Um, I think someone should get in here." He called out the door, his instincts telling him something bad was about to happen. When he turned back, her hand arched through the air, coming just inches short of catching him by the windpipe.
"Where is she?!" She screamed as Ron jumped back. Her flailing grip came up just short of anything useful, even of the chair beside the bed. "Shego!" With little other options though, she settled for bucking wildly against the restraints, lifting her back all the way against the bed before slamming it down again. That caught the attention of everyone outside, who rushed in one by one.
"Kim, it's okay. Just calm down." Even as Ron tried to calm her, another one of her strikes just barely missed his head.
She arched her back once more, pulling as hard as she could against the restraints, not up, but parallel with the bed, towards her head. Her wrists seemed to contort, shrinking more and more to squeeze into the tiny cuffs and out the other side.
With little other options, Ron jumped on the bed with her, gripping her wrists with his own vice-like grip. Her muscles were like iron, but Ron was no pushover after years of fighting by her side. Her bucking increased with the weight on her though, and several times Ron found himself flying into the air.
"Kim, calm down!" He shouted as her knees drove into his back.
"Where is she? I need to find her," Growled Kim, her eyes locking his with a feral glare. Her mind was still sharp, despite the occasional grimace of pain from it, and she noticed two more figures entering the room before Ron did.
Zarkov headed immediately for the nitrous oxide machine in the back corner of the room, while Betty took her firm stance in the doorway. Both let Ron do his job without interfering, though Zarkov kept his eyes on the teen's head while he was prepping the 'happy gas'.
Kim, on the other hand, was quickly losing patience. She let out a frustrated growl, which turned almost to a whine. "Please, I need to help her." The tears in her eyes were getting to Ron more than her pleas. "If I don't do this, she'll die."
"It's okay, Kim," Ron whispered firmly, glancing up just momentarily as Zarkov brought the gas mask, complete with long collapsible tube, towards her. "She's okay, just calm down."
Her look was of quiet anger, frustrated to the point of tears. She kept her gaze on him, never glancing towards the scientist behind her, and shook her head. "Take me to Shego, or else…" She warned.
The gas mask clasped over her face, with the hand holding it well firm enough to allow for violent maneuvers. Zarkov was expecting her to rear at the suddenness of it, he wasn't expecting her to buck her hips hard enough to send Ron into the man's face though.
Her strength, well enough to take on men twice her size, had been reserved for a time to take down two birds with one stone. As both of them collapsed into a pile at the head of her bed, Kim quickly slipped her hands out of the cuffs, dislocating her thumbs for just seconds.
Betty never made it to the bed before she'd already detached the thick leather straps around her ankles. The older woman ended up clutching the bed sheets instead, while Kim had already slipped out and made it to the door in two strides. The one thing she hadn't expected was the woman standing behind the door, waiting for her to run past, with a needle full of sedatives.
Kim felt it as just a sharp prick against her arm, but knew full well that she'd been caught. Before the doctor who had ambushed her could so much as pull her arm back, Kim had her wrist in an iron grip.
"Kim, this is for your own good." Anne said, voice hushed against the backdrop of medical machines. She was afraid, and her expression stated that clearly. She'd never even thought she could be afraid of her own daughter, but the fear she felt when Kim turned that feral snarl on her was plain as day.
The needle clattered to the ground as her free arm flicked it away. The same arm riled back, ready to take the doctor, whom she couldn't seem to realize was her own mother, out in one shot.
It never made it to it's intended target though. Another, even firmer grip, covered it, while a second hand gripped her throat tightly. She was shoved roughly backwards, hitting the wall behind her hard enough to back a blackboard in the observation room clatter to the ground. A television, somewhere above her head, flicked on with a burst of static.
Kim let her free hand gingerly touch where her head had hit the wall, feeling a sharp sting as they came in contact with a fresh wound. Her vision had already blurred when the sedatives had flooded her bloodstream, and now crossed one over another. Looking up, she saw no less than four similar doctors standing inside each other.
The same determination that had got her here wouldn't let up though, and she gripped the hand over hers with her free one. She turned her glare towards her newest attacker and gasped, before the encroaching darkness that surrounded her vision claimed her.
Memories danced through the confines of her psyche, now empty of all waking thoughts, and still void of dreams. Many that lasted well past her lifetime, while others were so simple she was completely surprised she had forgotten them at all. The images were few at first, but as her mind finally bloomed, and the familiar pain of her headache assaulted her once more, they grew into a rising cascade of her life.
Her first memory, which appeared first as a fuzzy picture, before clearing bit by bit, was of nearly three months ago. The convertible top had been slid back on the Sloth, Kim's upgraded Roth SL Coupe, which was cruising through Middleton at a respectable forty-five. Ron and her had been informed of a mission just minutes ago, with Wade, thankfully and surprisingly, giving them the full details up front. The only problem was that their transportation was still being prepped, so neither of them were in any hurry to get there.
"I still can't believe your dad is letting you borrow a spaceship." Wade said from the dashboard sleeve the kimmunicator was plugged into.
Ron nodded in agreement. "Yeah, you want to explain how, exactly, you managed to talk him into this one?"
"Look, we're not borrowing a spaceship. My dad's assistant is just going to take it up, drop us off, then take us back down again." Her eyes were focused on the road, but her voice had a annoyed huff to it. The two of them had been asking her the same question since she got her father to agree. "And honestly, we don't have much choice. The Sloth isn't equipped to make it that far, and there's no way NASA's shuttles could get us there in that time."
Ron and Wade nodded this time, but it was Ron who spoke up first, "Why are we doing this, again?"
"You want me to give you a rundown on what's happening?" Wade asked. He received a nod from both people concerned. "Okay. Just thirty minutes ago, the International Space Station sent out a call for assistance, saying that an unidentified craft had just entered their radar."
"Doctor Drakken," Kim answered, lips pursed into a thin scowl.
"Yep. Drakken and Shego have since boarded, and are currently trying to break the locks on the station's labs. Inside is a prototype drive core-"
"Drive core?" This was from Ron, who looked rather confused.
"It's a prototype power generator that is supposed to be able to open holes in time and space. Kim's dad was working on it as a possibility for intergalactic travel." Wade explained.
Ron nodded and hmm'ed as he spoke. "And Drakken traveling to a different galaxy is bad, why?"
"Because if there really is enough power in that generator to tear a whole in space and time, it could potentially threaten all life as we know it."
"Yeah, Ron," Kim added, "If Drakken gets a hold of this, what's to say he won't send you to a different galaxy?"
"Point taken," Ron relented, before perking up. "Hey, there's the space center." He added, pointing up the bend in the road, and over the hill they were driving next to.
The little purple car drove along, finally revealing the massive structure that her father worked at during the weekdays. What was much more exciting than the building both occupants of the car had seen a hundred times over, was what was parked behind it. "And that must be the spaceship."
"That's not the rocket we rode last time," Was Ron's unneeded comment. He frowned as he looked at the shape of the spaceship, an oval hull shaped more like an egg, though flatter on the top and bottom, than any rocket he had ever seen. There was something familiar about it though, but he couldn't quite piece it together yet. Kim was more interested in where exactly the rocket was on it, since it didn't seem to have any thrusters she had ever seen before. Instead, the back was lined by several exhausts, with a quartet of larger rounded exhausts in the back, and perhaps dozens of smaller and flatter ones sticking out from along different points in the rest of the hull.
"Hey, awesome!" Ron shouted as they approached it. He finally seemed to have remember what it was he was thinking of. "We get to ride the ship from Lost in Space!"
"That must be the prototype ship Doctor Possible was working on with the European Agencies," Wade explained as they approached. Not only was its shape smooth and rounded though, as they got closer to it they got more of a feeling as to just how big it was. It practically dwarfed the first several buildings in the space center, seeming to be some four stories tall, and twice that long.
As the Sloth pulled up to the parking lot, several men, armed and wearing security uniforms, waved them through towards the employee gate. Kim pulled up, and stopped the car next to the first man.
"Miss Possible, I presume?" The guard asked.
She reached into her purse, pulling out the employee id her father had made for her. "Yep. My dad told me to meet someone named Harper here? Is he around?"
"Just inside, he'll be waiting under Janice." The guard informed them, nodding first to them, then his teammates. They weren't the only ones around, several more teams of guards, well over a dozen in all, stood about on opposite sides of the massive craft.
"They're pulling out all the stops for this one," Ron commented as they were buzzed through. "You notice the army truck parked down the road?"
"Mm-hmm, there are about twenty more guards waiting in the lobby there," Kim replied. Ron turned towards the building, but didn't see quite what Kim was talking about. She had a way with sizing up potential threats that he never understood though.
Kim pulled into the employee parking lot, parking well away from the ship that took up a majority of the lot. They exited the sloth, letting the top slide back up and the windows pull up and lock as it went into its lockdown mode. Waiting for the blonde and the redhead under the ship was a single man, standing about idly, though he occasionally shot weary glances at the guards mulling about. He was short, well shorter than Ron, with spiked blonde hair and a undistinguished lab coat. His slightly beady blue eyes lay low on his head, just above a slightly oversized nose and upturned mouth, which quirked sporadically as the two approached.
"Hi, Doctor Harper?" Kim asked, offering her hand to the odd little scientist.
Harper nodded. Instead of taking the hand, he pulled out a remote and pointed it up, pressing a button that commanded a tube to drop from the bottom of the craft. From inside, a ladder slid down, ending up just a foot off the ground at Harper's side.
"'Tis I. I'll just assume you've heard of me?" He said, sizing Ron up with one glance, then twitching back from Kim with another.
Ron and Kim shared a glance between each other, before turning their gaze back to the little man. "Yeah, my dad said you would be giving us a ride to the space station. He said you were his assistant on this project?"
That seemed to rile several of Harper's buttons, and he blustered visibly, no longer showing the nervous twitches but instead a cocky and insulted glare. "Assistant? He may have made the hull, but I built Janice from the ground up. I even taught her to smile."
"Janice?" Ron asked, before backing up as Harper shot him a look.
"Yep, Janice Zelazny Harper, artificial intelligence for the J-N-S dash E." His angry fit passed as quickly as it came, and without another look he took to the ladder, climbing up almost to fast for Kim and Ron to follow him.
"The software on this baby? I built it. Engines? That was me. Half the drive core would have been a jumbled mess if old man Possible didn't bring me in." Kim and Ron emerged into the bottom of an airlock, where Harper was already keying a code into the keypad. "Security systems were designed by Global Justice, some fancy new locks they're putting into their bases. Everything else, that was me."
The keypad beeped under his fingers, the light over it flashing green. Instead of opening the door, the corners around the three hissed, and the bottom hatch whirred as the door beneath them closed and the ladder retracted. Kim had been in all manner of secret and high-tech facilities, but being closed in a tiny room she knew was going to fill with sanitizing gas wasn't her idea of fun.
But, it had to happen, so she closed her eyes and tilted her head as the sprayers around them started, shooting a thin foam throughout the room, before blowing it away with an overhead fan. Ron snorted and wiped his eyes.
"That was it?" He asked, waiting for round two.
Harper shrugged, pressing a final button that slid the door apart, and out of their way. "Janice scans everyone who boards. If you're clean enough, she gives you a little shower." He suavely walked and talked, exiting the little airlock and entering what looked to be a living room, or a lobby. It was two stories tall, shaped like a Y, with one door flanked by two corridors, and a ladder right above it leading to a balcony on the upper floor. Across from that, and up a ornately raised deck, was a smaller arch that seemed to lead to a cockpit. Surrounding either side of that exit were more ladders, both leading up to a walkway high above their heads that held three chairs complete with consoles, two on either side, and one in the center.
"Now, here we have the lobby." Harper started, pointing to their feet. He talked smoothly, but still jittered when he was idle. "Up there," He continued, pointing up the ladder that ran above the center door, "Is the arboretum. Fully functioning, state of the art, yadda, yadda. Just add seeds and water. It can feed a crew of six as long as they keep it spiffy." Now he pointed to the center door. "In there is the mess hall and the gym," Then around the Y to the right, "That one leads up to the crew quarters," And around the Y to the left, "And that one leads down to the engine room and the core."
He wasn't headed any of those ways, though, instead walking towards the front of the ship, the bottom of the Y. "And here's my seat, the cockpit." Ron and Harper both muffled their laughter at that, though Kim just rolled her eyes. "Up there," He said, pointing above his head, "Is the copilot and the workstations, that's where you'll be riding."
"Ah, man, I hate ladders. Couldn't you have put in an escalator or something?" He whined.
Kim pursed her lips, taking the ladder on the right as they made their way to the workstations. "Well, as soon as we get into orbit, we shouldn't have to worry about them anyway."
Ron brightened at that. Harper clicked his tongue. "No such luck. Thanks to the drive core, Janice's belly is made of energized gravity plating. We leave the atmosphere, you won't notice the difference. Until you get on NASA's billion-dollar scaffolding, that is."
"Gravity plating?" Ron asked, sitting down at the left console. "Isn't that from Space Passage?"
Kim took her seat on the center of the catwalk, a seat nearly twice the size of the other two up there. Instead of the various readouts and cameras on the few screens around Ron, it had over a dozen different monitors suspended in the air around her, ranging from a in depth layout of Janice at her feet, to what looked like a security monitor above one of her shoulders.
"You'd be surprised how much of our technology comes from Space Passage. Our cell phones, music software, tinted glasses, everything!" Harper called back from below. "Don't touch anything up there, I've got eyes in the back of my head you know." His last sentence was filtered through the small microphone above his seat, coming from a speaker somewhere above Kim's head.
"Lady and gentleman, make sure your trays are in the upright and locked position. We will be taking off in five, four-" Harper paused, then leaned over to look out the window. "Oh wait, forgot to tell the guards to clear the area." He whistled innocently. "That would have been messy."
While the short scientist radioed down to the ground, Kim and Ron both occupied themselves without the scenery around them. Through the domed windows surrounding the four posts, pilot, copilot, and twin workstations, they could see all the way into downtown Middleton. Blue skies filled the top of their view, sun shining somewhere far overhead. There wasn't a cloud in sight.
"We're lucky it's such a nice day," Kim commented through her own microphone, "Wouldn't want to be late for Drakken's newest plot."
"Bah, Janice could take whatever weather Earth sends at her. Now, where was I? Right." Harper flicked a few switches down at his console, many attached to the flat screen monitors that surrounded him on their swivel arms, though few were actually attached to the walls around him that served as a backbone for the upper catwalks.
"One, liftoff." One lever he pulled seemed to control the ship's height, rising quickly above the building as he moved it towards him. "Hover mode, check. Janice, give me a flight path on screen two."
"Confirmed," A voice echoed beneath Kim, "Calculating path." It was feminine, yet possessed an unmistakable mechanical accent. "Path calculated, displaying."
Harper had busied himself with the multiple readouts across his many screens, which seemed to be mirrored across Kim's as well. She could hear him muttering under his breath, over the onboard communications, and could spot the occasional number he recited. Some were easy enough to understand, the percentage of power, which seemed to be totaled from five different power supplies, the lift and thrust, and the hull integrity. One she didn't quite understand was the ticker centered above her head, which counted backwards, but had no other information around it. It was just black numbers flipping over on a white background, one after another.
"Alright, next stop, NASA's beautiful P-O-S." Harper called as they rose.
Janice's nose lifted to the sky, light blue flames shooting out the quad exhausts in her back. She was already high above the building, having risen on the lower exhausts which controlled her left, but the sudden force of the thrusters knocked the leaves from the trees around the parking lot. Her lifts had left four separate scorch marks far below her in the same fashion.
Now she flew gracefully, swinging from side to side as Harper saw fit, bursting through the only cloud in the sky simply for her pilot's amusement. It left its own unique trail, a curled tendril of raindrops that pointed it out in the sky, as well as a sudden sheen to their windows as they exited the protective layers of the atmosphere. Harper flicked a switch down at his seat, and an almost comically complicated quartet of arms popped out on the domes above them, wiping the water away with the simple squeegees attached.