Chapter 5
Adrena Lynn followed Hego along the dark back alleys of Go City, her gaze nailed to his broad back. She was confused, angry, and afraid. She didn't know where they were headed, or what the Team Go brothers wanted her for. At least she was out of prison and the special restraints she was forced to wear if she wanted to leave her cell. Hego's brothers, Mego and Wego, brought up the rear, making sure she didn't try to slip away.
She had tried to control them, of course. She'd been most successful with Wego. She had hit both twins at the same time, but rather than gaining control of them, she had gained control of fresh duplicates that popped into existence from the red-clad teens, only to vanish as soon as Wego figured out what was going on. When she'd turned her power on Mego, his outline had turned blurry for a while, and then he'd given her a smug grin, quite free of her control. She still didn't know what had happened there. She was itching to give it another go.
The primary reason she didn't dare was Hego. When her orange glow had impacted him, the sphere had popped like a soap bubble; Adrena hadn't known that was even possible. The big man had never even noticed. The other wielders of the glow could clearly somehow shrug off the effects of hers, but at least the rest of them had to work for it. Only Kim Possible, for whatever reason, had ignored it as thoroughly as Hego, but even then the orbs had just bounced off, like they did when they hit something solid enough, like the walls of her prison cell.
Hego hadn't paid much attention to those walls, either. When it became obvious her power was useless against Team Go, Adrena had meekly followed their order to follow them. She didn't want to get on the bad side of a man who could tear reinforced concrete like paper and crush cars like tin cans. She just would have liked to know what the deal was.
She yelped as someone pinched her bottom.
"Hey, toots, pay attention."
Shaken out of her brooding by the unwelcome contact, Adrena wheeled on Mego and tried to slap him. He evaded the attack by shrinking. She aimed a kick at him, but he danced out of the way and grew back to full size, leering at her.
"You're about to meet the boss. Do try to behave."
"The boss?"
"In here." Mego indicated the side door of a large, rather nondescript building. Hego and Wego had already entered.
Adrena entered the building and was herded through a short corridor by several copies of Wego. She found herself in a large, dimly lit space which reminded her of a TV studio. A quick look at the ceiling revealed metal supports running along it, which only reinforced that impression. A voice addressed her from the catwalk running along one side of the hall.
"Welcome to my humble abode, dear. My name is Electronique."
The woman was obviously a supervillain. She was dressed in a dark jumpsuit decorated with circuit patterns and thick wires, and wore dark glasses with rims so thick they looked more like goggles. Her bluish-gray hair stuck up like that of Bride of Frankenstein, and it crackled with electricity. Her skin had a similar shade, unless that was just the effect of the shadows. A mad scientist, probably, though she had a much better figure than most brainy types. She had an accent that to Adrena sounded Eastern European.
"And what the hell do you want with me?"
"Oh, when I heard of you I simply had to arrange to meet you. Adrena Lynn, the girl who stole a Glow." Electronique leaned on the railing. "I also liked the way you went after your nemesis the moment you got out of prison. I think we are going to get along marvelously. As long as you understand your position, of course."
"Yeah, we really need to see about that."
Adrena activated her glow. As soon as the orange spheres formed around her hands, she willed them towards the woman. Electronique didn't attempt to dodge, but the circuitry on her suit lit up, accompanied by the whine of a charge building up. A shimmering field formed around her, crackling with power in the same way as her hair.
The orange spheres were repulsed by the field. Adrena directed them back only to see them bounce away once more. Electronique extended an arm towards Adrena, and a bolt of lightning leaped from her fingers towards her. The electric shock brought Adrena to her knees, and the orange orbs vanished as she lost control of her power.
"Did you really think I'd let you near me if I wasn't protected against your mind-control power?"
"Oh, for crying out loud! Is there anyone my power works on?" Adrena struggled to her feet.
"Of course there are, my dear; over six billion, I think. There just aren't any in this room."
"How can you have protection against my power? We've never even met."
"I've faced Team Go quite a few times, and I've learned much about the Go Glow. I was fairly confident I understood how to shield myself from you."
"It seems to me like you took a bit of a gamble."
"Not as big as you, my dear." Electronique gestured beside Adrena, who looked that way to find Hego standing closer than she'd realized. "My darling Hego was under orders to crush your skull to pulp if I succumbed to your power."
A shudder went through Adrena and she swallowed, her throat dry. Hego leaned towards her and whispered loudly, shielding his mouth with the back of his hand. "I wouldn't have actually bashed your head in. I was just going to give you a little tap to knock you under."
Adrena didn't find that very comforting. She remembered how those hands had punched through solid walls, and wasn't sure he could judge his strength well enough to not kill her accidentally.
"Ah, dear Hego, tenderhearted as always. Well, we shall let that be for the while. Now, tell me, Adrena, do you understand where you stand?"
"Do I work for you, too?"
"Well, let us call you a junior partner. I think you might have potential, my dear. If you perform to satisfaction, you might find this a mutually pleasurable arrangement."
"Are you coming on to me?"
"I fear you have been in prison for too long, dear girl. Then again, so have I, although quite by my lonesome. Remind me to tell you about my escape some day. Now, do you have any reasonable questions?" As she talked, Electronique abandoned her perch on the catwalk, and made her way down metal stairs.
"How come Team Go is working for you? I'm pretty sure they used to be heroes."
"So they did, until quite recently. In fact, you are indirectly to thank for this happy state of affairs." Electronique sat down on a couch set against a wall, under the catwalk, and indicated a chair opposite it. "But do sit down, we have a lot to talk about."
Adrena sat down as directed, reflecting that Electronique was living up to the villain stereotype: she certainly liked to talk. Then again, if she had really spent some time in solitary confinement, it was perhaps understandable that she made use of a captive audience.
"Uh, what do you want us to do?" Adrena turned to see Team Go standing around, shuffling their feet awkwardly. They looked a lot less intimidating now.
"You boys can make yourself scarce; girl talk, you know. Why don't you get some rest? You must be tired after spending all night on the road."
"There was also the prison break."
"Yes, yes. Run along now."
The brothers left without another word. Adrena wondered if maybe she ought to try to control Electronique again. Her shielding might not be impregnable, and appeared to require a charge-up time.
"Please don't try anything foolish. I'd hate to have to chastise you again."
"I wasn't thinking about anything like that."
"Of course you were, but never mind that. I've been quite anxious to meet you. I have you to thank for my sweet revenge on Team Go, after all."
"So you said. Did my power to give you an idea for some freaky mind-control gadget or something?"
"Nothing so crass. When I made my escape and started planning my revenge, I learned of your coup when I was doing research. You can understand I was intrigued when I heard about a previously unknown fragment of the Go Comet. I have been fascinated by the Go Glow for the longest time. "
"It got destroyed, though."
"Obviously. I doubt you'd have your power if it hadn't. Anyway, I broke in to the facility to find out if they had any more samples, and to review their research notes."
"You just broke in Jack Hench's lab like it was nothing?" Adrena remembered her own trials in putting a crew together for the job.
"I'd just broken out of a special non-conducting plastic prison designed solely to contain me. That was nothing, by comparison. I'm quite good with electronics, security systems included. You might have noticed my handiwork during your extraction."
Adrena just looked at her dumbly.
"I gave the boys a device to knock out the cameras and the alarms. Do pay more attention next time."
"Sorry, I was a little distracted by a superhero bursting into my cell."
"Well, never mind. I didn't find any evidence they'd ever had more than the one fragment, but I did find their notes. They were disappointing, for the most part: they never even learned the nature of the power granted by the orange Glow. But at least their measurements gave me a good idea of how to block it. My new shield worked well enough, don't you think?"
"This would be a very different discussion if it hadn't."
"True. You'd have a concussion and be in restraints."
Adrena decided to change the subject. "So how does that get you Team Go?"
"Ah, I was getting to that. Since I was there, I decided to have a look around to see if they had anything else interesting. I did find one delightful gadget they called 'Attitudinator'. Clearly this Jack Hench person needs a better marketing department."
"It does attitude adjustments?"
"More or less. Apparently it was originally marketed as a way for villains to achieve their true potential by eliminating unwanted character traits like compassion and fairness. I obviously saw much more interesting potential in the device, and stole it. With some clever work that I'm very much afraid you'd be unable to appreciate, I created my Reverse Polarizer."
"And it, what, turns good guys evil?" Adrena was interested in spite of herself. Maybe she should have stolen this Attitudinator instead. Turning Kim evil would have ruined the annoying hero's reputation quite nicely.
"The original design was clumsy and invasive, rewiring much of the brain. It occurred to me that I could achieve most of the effect with fraction of the effort by focusing on reversing certain key personality traits, mostly associated with agreeableness—do you know Big Five theory?"
Adrena looked on blankly. Electronique sighed.
"It turns good guys evil and vice versa. My more elegant design works at a range, practically instantly, and can neatly revert the changes, if necessary. Oh, and it also makes people more... pliant. I wanted to make Team Go my henchmen, after all."
"What about Shego? You want to collect her, too?"
"Ah, yes. Shego. It seems there have been some developments since my incarceration I wasn't aware of. I think I might have unintentionally turned her back into a productive member of the society.
Adrena burst into laughter. "Well, that serves her right. But I thought you did your research? How did you mess that one up?"
"She teamed up with an up and coming young hero, Kim Possible, to bring you to justice! How was I supposed to deduce from that that she had turned evil and quit the team?"
"Just how long were you locked up?"
"That is irrelevant. But for the time being, Shego's whereabouts are unknown."
"I thought your thing made people tame."
"Well, more tractable, but she wasn't going to want to associate with villains after being turned good. I'm sure she'll become a model employee for some respectable company, or maybe a perfect little homemaker for some upstanding young man."
Adrena laughed again. "I guess that's revenge enough for someone like her."
"Well, it would be, if the old Shego knew what she were to become. It loses some poignancy when the victim is happy."
"Doesn't that apply to her brothers, too?"
"I don't think they're precisely happy, but you do have a point. Maybe I need to change them back, every once in a while, so they can contemplate their present station in life in despair. Lucky I included that function, no?"
"You really go all in for this revenge business, don't you?"
"After thwarting me for years, they were responsible for locking me away in my prime. I find it quite satisfying to have made them my evil little henchpeople."
"God, I so want to do that to Kim freaking Possible. Why won't my power work on her?"
"That is intriguing, is it not? After reviewing the research notes from the lab, for all the good that did, and what little information was available about your exploits, I formed the hypothesis that, quite uniquely, your Glow infests other people. I further surmised that it can't do it to somebody who already has a Glow, which explains your inability to control my new minions."
"And that bitch, Shego. At least it made her scream."
"Mm, yes, I was wondering if maybe it had a more interesting effect on her. Unlike her brothers, her Glow is centered on her hands, rather than permeating her entire body."
"You really have studied them, haven't you?"
"It is important to know one's enemy. Really, you could have spent at least a few days studying Kim Possible before launching your ill-considered attempt. You might have been more successful."
"I did! I scoped out her haunts and social circles and everything. It would have worked perfectly, if she hadn't been immune to my power, and her freaky green girlfriend hadn't interfered. Why is she immune?"
"Did you know Kim Possible once possessed Hego's blue Glow?"
"I didn't. How did she manage that?"
"Aviarius, another villain vexed by Team Go, hatched a plan to steal their Glows. He is a senile old fool, but he does have moments of technical brilliance. He fashioned a device that could transfer the Glow from one person to another—how I wish I could have studied it before it got destroyed. Of course, because he is a doddering old fool, he fouled things up and the Glow ended in Possible rather than him. Perhaps there is some residual effect from that experience that protects her from your Glow."
"I can't believe the luck of that brat!"
"Or perhaps she, too, was affected by the fragment that gave you your power. Oh, I would like to give that young woman a very thorough examination." Electronique gave the word 'very' a purring emphasis that sounded suggestive to Adrena. She also had to wonder if that sentiment extended to her, too.
"You know, you do sound gay."
"Surely you jest. I may be flush with the success of my revenge, but given how long I spent in prison I'm not gay at all."
"How does that... no. No, I refuse to believe you are too old to know what the word means."
"You flatter me, my dear. You also seem rather preoccupied with other women's sexuality. I don't wish to make unfounded assumptions, but it does rather suggest something about you."
"Whatever. So, you want to collect Shego and study Kim, and I want to teach them both a lesson. It seems like we have a common cause?"
"Clearly we do, darling. I presume you want to go after Kim Possible first."
Adrena sensed danger, and decided to play it safe. "If I'm the junior partner, I suppose I can defer to your choice."
"Very wise. Our first order of business is, I think, to find where Shego has gone to ground, but that can wait until morning. It is very late, and I need my beauty sleep. Come, my darling, let us retire for the night."
Adrena gave Electronique a sharp look as she stood up, and received an exasperated eye roll in return. At least, that's what she assumed it was from the way she tossed her head; she couldn't actually see Electronique's eyes.
"There is a room prepared for you. It locks from the outside, I'm afraid, but once you have proven your loyalty, we can maybe come to a sleeping arrangement that is more to your satisfaction."
"Oh, come on! Now you are just doing it on purpose!"