Again, a huge thank you to everyone who's been following along. Chapter 11 is a bit of a bridge, but fear not - Chapter 12 brings back the action.
Chapter 11 - The Winner Takes It All
Kim was awoken by the morning light seeping past the curtains. The few hours of sleep she had gotten that night had felt a lot better than she was used to outside her own bed and, for once, she seriously considered just staying in bed and getting an extra hour or two of sleep to compensate for the past two days.
Her rational, responsible side won the battle not through words, but because she was startled by the position she had found herself in, tightly holding on to Ron. She decided that the least embarrassing option for both of them was to slowly move away and let Ron continue sleeping, allowing him to remain unaware of, and unharmed by how they had spent at least a decent chunk of the night.
Although this is a lot less awkweird than I would've thought…
She got out of bed and went to the bathroom to brush her hair without disturbing Ron. It had taken a beating from the better part of two days crammed under a wig, and Kim tried to work up a gameplan to avoid doing so all the time for the rest of their mission, with little success.
She was startled by a voice outside the door.
"Good morning, KP, getting ready for the best part of any hotel stay?"
"Woah, since when do you wake up at this hour outside of a school day?"
"Bad things happen when I oversleep and leave Rufus without his breakfast."
"Care to elaborate?" She answered skeptically.
"Some things are too horrible to speak of, Kim. I'll just say there's a reason my mom does most of the cooking, and it's not because I'm too lazy."
"You need to use the bathroom? I'm just here to not wake you up."
"That's very kind of you, KP, and yes, please"
They had not needed to share a room all that often, and certainly not while needing to maintain an elaborate disguise. Still, they got ready with little fuss. Feels downright natural.
"There, that should do it," Ron proudly announced after touching up Kim's makeup work. "Ready for breakfast."
"Just a moment," she replied. Kim stood up and examined Ron, stopping at his shirt collar, which was oddly bent. She fixed it and tugged on the collar for theatrical effect. "Now we're ready."
Ron took a deep breath, then announced, "Rufus, it's time for breakfast!"
The naked mole rat ran from his little pillow down and across the floor. He climbed up to Ron's shoulder.
"You know the hotel breakfast rules, Rufus. You stay discreet, ask politely, and be patient."
"Uh-huh," he replied enthusiastically.
Fortunately for all involved, Rufus had enough self-control for breakfast to go well. Ron filled two plates with a sampling of most of the buffet, no doubt expecting Rufus to devour his way through at least one of them. Kim, meanwhile, had started off with some toast and fruit.
"I'm surprised you didn't grab any toast," Kim commented.
"That toaster looked sketchy as hell, KP. Like it's going to eat my hand and leave me with third-degree burns."
"Drama queen much, Ron? You just drop the bread on the conveyor belt and the toaster drops it into the chute after it's done. Besides, since when am I the one who has to teach you about kitchen anything?"
Ron sat back and took a deep breath, Rufus used the opening to devour what was left of Ron's scrambled eggs. "I should level with you, KP… They had one just like that at Camp Wannaweep."
"That trauma runs deep, doesn't it?"
"It was pretty miserable. But you know what the worst part was?" He paused for a moment. "Spending the whole summer away from you."
Rufus interrupted whatever that moment was by tugging on Ron's sleeve, pointing to the empty plates.
"Yeah, alright, amp down, buddy, I'll get us some more food…"
Back in their room, Kim placed a call on the Kimmunicator, which was answered by Burn Berman.
"Good morning, folks. I trust you're doing well and managed to catch up on your sleep."
"We're fine thanks. What's the status on our next stop?"
"Flight and hotel are both booked. We also booked a car for you to rent, since it's going to be the most practical option for getting to the chemical plant. You'll be staying at a hotel just far enough from the airport that they didn't have to pay a premium to build on airport grounds – that means few frills, nice breakfast, and few questions asked."
"Question," Ron interjected. "Few questions asked in the sense of 'they have a lot people traveling and coming and going and so they just focus on providing the service' or in the sense of 'other hotel guests are likely to be involved in illegal activities'? Because one time we ended up in one of those up in Montana and it took Monique spelling it out for us after we got home to realize what had been going on."
"Uhm, the former, I guess… Anyway, we've dug up some more Intel on our chemical plant. Apparently, it was sold back in October, so the timing on that is suspicious. Curiously, the new owner is completely unremarkable, and we haven't quite figured out where he got the money from."
"Sounds suspicious," Kim commented.
"Right, but it's also looking like a slog to find out more, so we're focusing on immediately actionable things, like building plans, shipping records, that sort of thing. We did come across a noise complaint, of all things – remember that this is an industrial zone – which got quickly dismissed by the local cops. We don't know what to make of it."
"Something about this story isn't making sense," Ron said, "even by Drakken's standards."
"We still don't know just how involved he was in all this," Kim replied. "He could be just the buyer, or he could be the… I was going to say 'mastermind', but maybe 'schemer' is a more appropriate word when it comes to him." As no one else brought anything more to the conversation, Kim continued, "For now, let's focus on doing recon of the plant and confirming that it is the source of the synthogoo. We'll work out our next steps from there."
"Roger," Burn answered. "I've sent you the details of your reservations. I'll call you back if anything major shows up."
Kim and Ron did a last sweep of their room, looking for anything they might have forgotten to pack. Satisfied, they went downstairs to check out and took a taxi to the airport.
This is actually kinda fun.
Kim was accustomed to rushing everywhere to respond to whatever the latest emergency was. Sticking to a schedule was an interesting change of pace. "We should do this more often," she said after they sat down after getting through the security checkpoint.
"Why?" Ron answered. "What's so good about me being on the receiving end of an aggressive pat-down after asking the woman if she wanted to inspect my naked mole rat?"
"I mean travelling together without an urgent mission. I mean, sure, we have a mission, but there's no imminent danger or anything. As for the way they treated you back there, maybe next time think about how you're going to say things and not just what things you're going to say."
"That was my thought-out question!"
"Dare I ask what you originally were going to ask?"
"Something about taking my pink friend out of my pants."
Kim tried, but failed, to not burst out laughing. "Oh, Ron," she said as tried to recompose herself, "I'll give you props for improving on your original version. Don't want to go around saying that, especially within earshot of your wife."
Ron chuckled, "Yeah… You see the lengths I go to so that you don't have to travel in the cargo hold, Rufus?"
Rufus chittered his equivalent of "thank you" and the group relaxed as they waited for their flight to start boarding. They were happily surprised that they were getting a regional jet and thus would not have a seat neighbor to worry about. The flight itself was unremarkable, with a simple drinks and snack service.
Kim was idly browsing the Kimmunicator's menus, trying to distract herself. The only topic of conversation she could come up with was one that she had been for weeks trying to work up the courage to raise.
"Ron… I was thinking… About the moodulator sitch…"
If he tried to hide the fact that he was startled, he did a very poor job of it. "Wha- What about the moodulator sitch?"
"Well, we kinda just, you know, silently agreed not to talk about it. But I wanted to thank you."
"I'm sorry, you want to thank me? For what?"
"Well, for not taking advantage, for being respectful… For being my friend, I guess."
"KP, I would never dream of anything else. If you'll excuse my choice of words, the whole thing felt wrong. Not sick and wrong, but wrong for sure."
Well, there you have it, Possible. He did tell you he wanted to just be friends, so why are you in any way surprised.
"No, I get it, Ron… It was all so ferociously embarrassing, I didn't –"
Kim was interrupted by the PA announcing that they were now approaching Munich. Once the boilerplate announcement ended, she tried to continue her sentence, but gave up when she realized that Ron was busy getting himself and Rufus setup for the landing.
It was 12:45 PM by the time they joined the queue to pick up their car. "I hope Wade's getting something out of booking with Global," Ron vented, "all the other companies have zero people in line."
Kim looked at the other desks. Second, Kahless, Premium, Fourt – all were indeed empty. Still, their line was slowly inching forward, a small comfort partially nulled out by the fact that nobody was joining the queue behind them. Finally, after the seemingly endless wait, it was their turn.
"Hi, good afternoon," Kim said, "we have a reservation for Kim Parker…"
The clerk typed out something and examined her screen closely. Her expression indicated that something was wrong. "One minute please…" She stood up and went to talk to another employee. Whatever she needed, he did not seem to have it either, and she picked up a phone.
"I'm starting to think we might not get a car, KP."
"Maybe they'll dig out an ancient beater just for us…"
The clerk's phone call ended and she returned to her seat. "I'm sorry, but the car you reserved isn't available. We can give you the same segment, but with a manual transmission and discount the difference; or we can upgrade you for free to a larger car."
Kim and Ron looked at each other – a manual transmission was going to be so the drama. "How much larger?" Kim asked.
The clerk typed out a few more indecipherable commands, then answered, "We have a Volkswagen Passat with automatic."
"That's not too big, right Ron?"
"I guess it's fine."
"We'll take the VW, please and thank you," Kim answered.
After taking care of the remaining paperwork, they walked out to the endless row of rental cars and found theirs near the very end of the garage.
"Yeah, this really isn't that big," Ron commented.
"Looks shorter than Mom's minivan, we'll be fine."
Ron took the job of playing Tetris with the luggage to fit it in the trunk of the car, while Kim acquainted herself with the car's controls, working to overcome her limited driving experience. Ron joined her up front in the passenger seat.
"We ready to go, KP?"
"Still trying to figure out where the lights are…"
"Same place as on your dad's car, probably, on a big knob to your left on the dashboard."
"Why? The two cars couldn't be more different."
"Well, yes and no. It's a Smarty Mart slash Club Banana sort of thing, same company, different brands."
"Aaand of course I got stuck with the Smarty Mart of the two."
"I can take the wheel if you'd like…"
Kim froze for a second. "On the other hand, Smarty Mart is fine if people don't recognize me."
I should clarify that my headcanon is that Mr. Dr. P. drives a Bentley Continental GT. Yes, technically the car came out in 2003, which would not really work, but it's a good fit, otherwise. And yes, I did have way more fun than is reasonable coming up with inverted names for the rental car companies.
I'm going to cheat today and recommend one of my own stories, First Time, because I referenced it in Ron's hotel question.