Hi everyone and welcome to A Sitch Too Far, my second longer story to be published, but one that I started working on before Tomorrow's Possible.
I want to acknowledge the influence of a few other authors before we get started, namely MrDrP, Mr. Wizard and Michael Howard - the latter in particular was a key inspiration for the concept of a prolonged undercover mission. More details as we go along.
I also want to share a few words on the M rating: Readers familiar with my other stories will probably find this one to be similar. However, certain specific moments might push things beyond a T rating. Think of it as a very soft M close to T, rather than something that pushes M for shock value.
As usual, please read and review. New chapters every Saturday around 12:00 UTC, as usual.
This is where the traditional copyright disclaimer would go, but the cat ate it.
A Sitch Too Far
Chapter 1 - Little Lies
Kim Possible was no stranger to odd scenes taking place at breakfast. Despite her parents' attempts at maintaining some sort of normalcy when off the clock, her twin brothers' lack of self-control when it came to creating weird and wonderful gadgets was enabled by their ability to actually construct interesting and, more than occasionally, dangerous devices. Good reflexes and experience putting out fires were valuable survival tools. Kim's best friend Ron Stoppable, frequent visitor at breakfast, would often provide for interesting situations when the structural integrity of the house was not at risk, typically unintentionally.
And yet, the scene before her astonished Kim. Large whiteboards, flipcharts and corkboards were arrayed around the kitchen, all filled with what looked like the crazed theories of one of Kim's usual foes. Photographs, documents, calendars, graphs, all connected by pieces of string, their relations undecipherable to anyone but the author of the mess that had taken over the kitchen. Standing in front of one of the boards, Kim found the likely culprit deep in thought.
"Uhm, hi… Early start with dad's taxes?" Kim asked Burn Berman. Why Team Impossible had a Certified Public Accountant as one of its members was still a mystery, but his skill set had come in very handy, and the offer had been too good for him to refuse.
He answered, still staring at the same spot: "No, late night."
"Wow, that much trouble to work out the tax forms?"
"They were a doozy, but I've been done with that for…" He answered looking at his watch and taking deep breaths, "five hours? Oh boy… No, most of this came from a little detail I found and I've been going down the rabbit hole since then, a notification about Bueno Nacho stock…"
Berman was interrupted by the arrival of Ron in the kitchen. "Yo, good morning, KP…" As usual, he'd invited himself in to join the Possibles at breakfast. Less usual was the discussion of Bueno Nacho stock accompanied by a rat's nest of paperwork. "Something happen to Bueno Nacho? What's with all the conspiracy nutcase stuff?"
"Sit down kid, you're going to like this one," Berman continued. As there was no practical seating available in the middle of the mess, his somewhat captive audience did not go along with his suggestion. "I was going through your father's paperwork and came across a merger notification filed with the FTC. It was weird because it wasn't strictly necessary, and extra weird because it got mailed out to all shareholders. I investigated it, dug a bit, and figured out it was some weird fast food-centric investment company. Follow along so far?"
At this point, both of Kim's parents had arrived in the kitchen and had been taking in the scene. As her brothers arrived, Berman continued his speech without giving anyone a chance to interrupt.
"So, two days after the notification, all the Bueno Nacho stock this holding company held was transferred to a newly-established 501(c)(3) non-profit. As far as I can tell, at least 60% of Bueno Nacho shares are now controlled by this one organization, through a network of holding companies. Someone is taking over Bueno Nacho and trying not to draw attention to themselves."
To Burn Berman's surprise, the meaningful first reaction to his exposé came from Ron: "Dude, that is sick and wrong! Who's trying to mess with Bueno Nacho!?" His distress drew a few blank stares from the adults in the room.
Continuing his presentation, and now armed with a laser pointer, the Team Impossible accountant answered, "Good question. I grabbed the statutes for this mystery non-profit, and the sole director is named…"
He handed over a printout to Kim, who stood closest. After a few seconds, she narrowed her eyes, adopting a more menacing expression. "Doctor Drakken's mother," she said, looking in Ron's direction – his panic quickly turned into anger. Better keep Drakken away from Ron on this one, he so does not know what he's gotten himself into this time, Kim thought.
Dr. James Possible raised the question that was on everyone's mind at that point: "Assuming that Drew Lipsky is trying – and failing – to conceal his involvement by bringing his mother's name into this, what does he actually want to do by controlling Bueno Nacho?"
After a brief silence, Ron offered a hypothesis: "Bueno Nacho has more than 30000 locations world-wide, more if you count Tovarisch Nacho, the weird experimental concept they tried when they first expanded into what was then the Soviet Union and then was taken over by an oligarch who licensed the Bueno Nacho intellectual property for use in Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, though he never actually opened in Belar–"
"Get to the point, Ron." Kim's frustration was evident in her voice.
"Sorry, got sidetracked there. Anyway, 30000 locations," Ron continued, "with a common logistics network for non-perishables like bendy straws, kids' meal toys and tray liners. If Drakken wants to take over the world, he can use this infrastructure to discreetly move his chess pieces into place. Or maybe he wants to traffic drugs using the same infrastructure, I've always wondered why that hasn't been tried before, it feels like I could open a chain of fried chicken restaurants and use that to discreetly move product around the country from a central production location."
Even Kim was somewhat surprised at the surprisingly elaborate, though convoluted plan for a drug-smuggling operation that her best friend had just espoused. "You've always wondered why people aren't smuggling drugs in from South America disguised as fried chicken?"
"Not strictly smuggled in from South America, they could be synthetic drugs produced here, a surprisingly small lab could produce a meaningful amount of product for the scale of the US mark…" Sensing the mix of uneasy looks and piercing glares he was getting, Ron shifted gears and added in a sullen tone, "Uhmm, I didn't mean literally always. It's just a thought I had during the attitudinator sitch."
His explanation satisfied the Possible family, who took it with a naturality that visibly surprised Berman.
"Alright kids, let's try and clean this place up so we can have breakfast," Dr. Anne Possible spoke. It was not clear whether it was a suggestion or an order, but the prospect of skipping breakfast filled in whatever motivation might have been lacking, with even Ron joining the efforts by carrying stacks of folders that had been occupying the kitchen table.
"I'm surprised you're helping with the cleanup, Ron, it's not like you caused it," Kim inquired of her friend.
"It's the least I can do if I want to have breakfast here – thanks by the way, Mrs. Dr. P. – there's no way I'm leaving my money at Bueno Nacho until this Drakken business is resolved. I have principles!" Ron's statement drew a shocked reaction from Rufus, who popped his head out of Ron's pocket and mock fainted as if to more dramatically express his dismay at the thought of a Bueno Nacho boycott.
Surprisingly mature attitude, Ron… Kim did not give voice to her thought, choosing instead a more positive spin: "In that case, let's make sure we figure out what's going on as soon as possible. Burn, can you forward your findings to Wade? He can coordinate with us as soon as he finds out more."
"He'll get them within the hour. Now, if you'll excuse me, the sooner I email him, the sooner I can get some sleep. Good day, doctors Possible, kids…"
Berman left, narrowly avoiding obstacles in his path. Lack of sleep was taking its toll.
Shocking as the revelations might have been, a more pressing matter was getting to school on time. With breakfast not insubstantially delayed, Kim and Ron had to forgo their usual walk to school in favor of a car ride with her mother.
After arriving at school, with a few minutes to spare, they faced a rather normal day at school. Ron might have used the word "boring", Kim preferred "uneventful". Shortly before their last class of the day, Latin – the poster child for Ron's worst decision-making, driven by impulse unmoderated by research – the Kimmunicator beeped bringing welcome excitement. Such was the hope, anyway.
"Hey Wade, what's the sitch?"
"Yo Kim, GJ is mobilizing to move against Drakken. Apparently, he has this giant new operation up in the mountains and nobody has any idea what he's doing there."
Ron asked the obvious question, "Do you have a ride that can get us there before GJ arrives?"
It was not a matter of Global Justice being incompetent, because they were not, but Kim preferred to have free rein during a mission. Ron did not have a strong opinion either way, so he was on-board with Kim's methods.
"Sure do," Wade answered, "I've got a helicopter ride that can drop you off at a discreet distance, you can ski the rest of the way. My guy can pick you up in ten minutes."
"Please and thank you," Kim answered.
Check back tomorrow for Chapter 2, you didn't think I was going to get the ball rolling with 1500 words, did you?