Second chapter in as man days and still thankful to the patient ones.

Lots of Middleton and still no Norway. Fleshing out is proving to be wordsy, but I hope in a good way. If not let me know.

The Job Pt. 2

break

It was not. The job was WAY back in the boonies. And for the Amazon that meant WAY WAY back. It was a small research station. They landed and exited the craft. Shego locked it down and stealthed it. "Who is going to steal it here?" Ron asked as he started walking up to the shack that sprouted satellite dishes everywhere.

Shego shrugged. "Now? No-one."

Ron nodded. "Can't fault that logic."

As they approached Shego grabbed Ron's arm and pulled him to a stop. "We may not be welcome here. More specifically, me." Ron gave her a quizzical look. "If this is the guy I think it is. I may have stolen from him."

Ron half chuckled. "That about describes a large portion of the scientific community." Ron started walking again. "We'll just have to burn that bridge when we get to it." He turned to look at her. "Remember you've got legitimacy now." When Shego didn't start walking with him, he stopped. "Listen. You're a professional right?" Shego nodded. "If nothing else they know your reputation. And that reputation is that if you choose to do a job there really isn't anything anyone can do to prevent the job from being done."

Shego walked up next to him. "Or some buffoon blows up the job so it can't be done." She said with a sly smile.

"Well there is always that." They climbed the short set of steps to the porch.

Ron knocked on the door. An intercom burst to life next to the door causing Ron to jump. "Go away. I'm in my panic room and all my experiments are locked down. You can't get to them."

Ron looked up to see the camera lens. He started to say something but Shego interrupted him. "Listen. We're here about a goat. That's it."

There were a few moments of silence. "You're not here to steal from me again?"

Shego shrugged. "I'm freelancing and Stoppable pays better than Drakken."

More silence. "But, this would be helping me?" He sounded genuinely confused.

Shego smiled and shook her head. "He pays good enough I don't ask questions. Now can we come in and get some details or do we just turn around now? 'Cause we can do that."

"No, no! Don't do that." There was an audible thunk. "Come on in. I will be up shortly."

Ron shrugged. He opened the door and graciously ushered Shego in. "This is way easier. The whole going in the front door thing." She looked around absently. "Should try and do that more often."

"It is rather refreshing." Ron closed the door behind him. "And I don't go through so many pants."

They entered and gathered all the info they needed. It was awkward retrieving the animal, but seeing as how the goat was slightly radioactive made the actual locating easy. Getting it down from the sheer cliff it had no trouble running on was another manner. "Okay up some more." Ron ordered from the open hatch where he was trying to entice the animal into the door.

Been trying for an hour. Shego grunted as her hand flew across the controls. The craft zipped away from the wall rapidly. "No, I am done playing around."

"Careful!" Ron recovered. "I about took a header out the door."

Shego glared back at him. "There's a reason I had you tie off, goat whisperer."

"Still."

Shego rotated her ship around. "Doc's gonna get some extra." She targeted and fired the net cannon catching six other goats besides their target. She lifted and got further away. She confirmed with the geiger counter that they had the right one and set course for the research station.

Ron sat down in the copilot chair and buckled up. "Why didn't we do that an hour ago?" Shego opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Her mouth closed wordlessly. Ron stared back at her. "You forgot you had that didn't you?"

Shego's head turned slowly and her eyes burned. Again her mouth opened to speak and nothing came out. She took a deep breath and released it. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

Ron grinned and leaned back in the seat. "Nope. Didn't say a thing."

Shego grunted. "Good answer." She disabled the autopilot once more and piloted the ship down. As the net touched down she cut the cable and settled the craft down the slope a bit.

They met the doctor at the net. "He got in with a herd and on a cliff so had to improvise." Shego stated.

He just shook his head with a grin. "Not a problem, not a problem. Thank you." He offered his hand. Ron took it and shook it and the doctor turned to Shego. Reluctantly she took it and shook. "I really appreciate this. Again, thank you."

They returned to the ship and got harnessed in. Shego lifted off rapidly as she activated the cloaking. She set the auto pilot with a B-line for the the air force base they were to deliver the device to. "Weird, wasn't it?" Ron surprised her.

"Very." She folded her arms behind her neck and stretched. "I don't think I will ever get used to it."

Ron yawned. "Don't have to." He reached down a pulled up a bottle of water. "The deal was to do a listing. I didn't say anything about having to like it."

They sat in silence for several minutes before Shego reached up and kicked on the stereo and generic metal filled the cockpit. "Okay, Stoppable, got a question for you?" She turned to him and he merely nodded. "Where is the buffoon?" She paused for a moment. "I mean we were in and out like warm butter."

He shook his head. "I have a working theory on that." He took a swig of water. "I think it's the fact we have a plan. A solid, no room for hip shootery, plan" He paused. "I'm okay at shooting from the hip, but it's kind of a tossup whether it works or goes horribly wrong." He turned back to her. "I would just as soon not think too much about it."

"Afraid of jinxing it?"

Ron nodded. "Terrified in fact." He put a hand out in front of him and held it level. "Just going to try and ride it out for as long as I can." He pushed the hand forward in a level line. "Knowing me it's not going to last forever, so…"

Shego lifted her own bottle. "Fair enough." She looked down at her instruments. "Why don't you get the unit all the way uncrated for delivery. We have an hour or two till we get there." Ron replaced the water and unbuckled and headed back without a word.

Break

Shego settled them down on the tarmac where the tower had directed them to and spooled down the engines. Ron got up as she finished the shutdown. When she finished she helped him unstrap and dolley up the core of the device. They rolled it down the ramp and onto the tarmac. They were approached by a very military looking older man and a very scientific looking man surrounded by grunts.

The military man stepped closer and extended his hand. "General Anteel, and this is Dr. Mumford."

Shego took his hand. "Shego, and Mr. Stoppable." They crossed handshakes around.

"May I inspect the device?" Dr. Mumford asked hurriedly. Shego merely waved in its general direction. Before he could even touch it he remarked. "Where is the rest of it?"

Shego half turned. "GJ removed the weapons and the superstructure. What you have there is main computer and the doodads that make the interface run." She turned back to the General. "The contract was for the interface. Didn't mention anything about the suit itself."

The General turned to Ron. He shrugged. "You didn't"

The General pursed his lips and took a deep breath before speaking to the Doctor. "Do you have what you need, Doctor?"

Dr. Mumford mumbled to himself absently as he inspected it. "I'll need to get it to the lab and power it up to see for certain, but she's right, the hardware is here."

"And if GJ wiped the computer, nothing we can do about that either." Shego added.

Dr. Mumford whipped around. "The software is vital, without it the hardware is almost use…"

He was cut off sharply by the General. "Dr." Dr. Mumford's face turned slightly red. "Thank you for your service." He shook Ron's hand again and took Shego's. Before he let her hand go he looked up at her ship with a smile on his face. "Very interesting tech you have in that little ship of yours."

Shego smiled as she dropped his hand. "Not for sale." She didn't quite scowl.

The General shook his head. "Didn't ask to buy it. How about rental." Shego placed her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow. "Couple of weeks for the boys in the lab to reverse engineer that cloaking tech and you'll have it back without a scratch on it. What do you say?"

Shego smiled. "You DARPA guys are all nerd aren't you?" The General smiled as if to say, guilty as charged. "Like, now?" She looked at Ron and back to the General.

General Anteel waved a hand back at a row of private jets. "Not as vertically mobile as yours, but more legroom. Not a bad trade, temporarily."

"Too bad it's bound to be temporarily permanent." Ron stated.

"He has a point." Shego commented.

The General nodded. "Two weeks. My boys in the lab are very good at hitting a deadline."

Shego turned to Ron who just shrugged. Shego looked at the General one more time and turned to enter the craft. She disappeared. Dr. Mumford ordered two of the grunts to help him move the device and began escorting it away. Shego reappeared and chucked Ron his pack before disappearing again. When she appeared again she had her own pack and a small notebook. This she handed over to the general. "Drakken's 'User Manual'. He has bad handwriting and it's spotty at best. Mind the header for booby traps. Not my problem one of your nerds loses an arm." The General nodded. "She's a bit finicky on the throttle, it wants to runaway on you. The controls are super tight so gentile is the name of the game."

General Anteel nodded again. He dug into his breast pocket and handed over a business card with a phone number stenciled onto one face. "If anyone picks you up, they are to call this number. Any questions?"

Shego shook her head. Ron piped up. "Which one is ours?"

The General turned and held out an arm to usher them toward the row of planes. "Right this way."

As they walked behind him, Ron pulled out his communicator and clicked it on. Wade's face filled the display. "Handoff complete." Ron stated.

"Sounds good. Fly safe." Wade responded.

Ron looked up at the row of jets. "We have alternate transport back to Middleton. Might need some help finding a home for it."

"Sure thing."

Break

Shego began the descent into Middleton airport on the orders of the tower. "Its Hangar 448." Wade's face filled the Ron Com that Ron had duct taped to the center console.

"Got it." Shego nodded.

"Have I mentioned that you are really amazing at this, Wade?" Ron asked.

Wade shook his head. "Not really. Two phone calls and a wire transfer for the rental. It's not rocket surgery."

Shego frowned as she watched her instrumentation. "Wire transfer with what money?"

Wade had a pained smile on his face. "We have some… private investors that have offered to get us started."

"Who?" Her question was loaded with malice.

Ron coughed. "Chill. I invested. It's one investor. It just looks better on paper if they're private."

Shego's face was less than pleased as the plane shuddered with wheels down. "I think I'm not happy right now." She looked through the windscreen intently. "And right now is not a time to be really angry." She manipulated several more controls then spoke for several seconds into the mic from her headset. She finished and removed the headset. She turned to Ron. "So I am going to get some beer as planned and cool down before arriving at your place." She directed the response to Wade. "Because I thought I made a very clear statement a while back to you, Ron. So I am going to walk away before I do something unpleasant." Ron started talking, but Shego's response of green flame shut him up.

She glared silently out the windscreen as she directed the plane to their Hanger. "I do understand that statement would have been more appropriate for once the plane was actually in the hangar and I could have walked away." Shego's rage face was still present, but it had softened.

Break