13"The X-14 Psi microchip is vital to keeping U.S. industry ahead of the foreign competition. It must be recovered as soon as possible." The Corridor Seal greeting card company CEO, Comet Sans, one of the new generation of Internet Whiz Kid Millionaires (and a major contributor to a certain Senator's campaign financing) was briefing the Senior Agent in Charge of NSA's Triple Z Program, a highly covert program to defend the United States using non-attributable agents.
"Mr. Gibbons," the young CEO said, "The X-14 Psi microchip was developed for use in sound enhanced greeting cards. The team working on it greatly exceeded their design specs and we fear that the chip could be militarized."
"Really?" the Agent was skeptical, "How so? Does it 'Rick-roll' people instead of playing 'Happy Birthday'?" he said with a smirk.
"As long as you only power it with a single button battery it will self-select an appropriate song from its internal data store of all Top-100 songs recorded over the last fifty years. It self-selects the most likely song for any occasion based on its built-in database of the U.S. Census data, Post Office Zip Code database and open source mapping data using GPS location and continuous speech processing of conversations in the area."
"I'm not seeing the military uses for a tiny computerized DJ, Mr. Sans," pointed out the Agent, "No matter how much data it carries."
"A test of the chip by the Air Force demonstrated that if you can get it in the control room, it can crack nuclear launch codes in fifteen minutes. The CIA wanted to seize it for use in enhanced interrogations. Let me show the security footage," the CEO clicked his mouse and started a video playing.
"This is the tech team having their weekly stress reduction lunch meeting," the video split into four segments, each segment showing a different camera view. The team was eating pizza and talking while watching videos of puppies playing.
An older man came in, apparently late to the lunch, set a small plastic box down on the table and snagged a slice of pizza. Sitting down, he joined a discussion.
The video paused and a laser pointer highlighted an air vent at the top of a wall.
"This is how the thieves got into the room. Watch closely." The CEO resumed playback. Now that people knew where to look, they saw a small light, like a cell phone and... feelers?... waving out of the vent. Suddenly everyone in the room put their hands to their ears and tried to flee an unseen horror, but they all collapsed before they could take three steps. Blood was seen trickling from a couple of ears. The vent cover was pushed open and a cockroach the size of a cat scurried down the wall. Picking up the small box it removed the X-14 Psi microchip and stuck the device to its back. Its theft complete, it scurried back up the wall and into the air vent.
"What happened to the people in the room? Poison gas?" asked the Senior Agent.
"No, worse. The chip played 'It's a Small World' at 115 decibels and double speed. Nobody in the room died and we hope, that with therapy, most will be able to resume a nearly normal life in a few months."
"How are they controlling the chip?"
"We believe that it was remotely controlled with the cell phone providing a network connection to the chip using Bluetooth. Now, here is the chip leaving the building. Notice that the chip has been upgraded with four AA batteries."
The video changed to the exit to the building. A formation of six cockroaches scurried to the front door while people in the vicinity collapsed to the floor. The roach with the chip and cell phone stuck on its back now sported four AA batteries next to the chip. The glass door shattered and the infiltrators were seen traveling out to an expensive looking sports sedan parked out front. The glass in the driver side door shattered and they climbed up the door and into the vehicle. Within moments, the car drove off.
"I didn't see a driver in that car..."
"No need for a driver, the X-14 Psi microchip can use sound pressure waves to manipulate objects. In the Air Force's simulation, the chip, properly powered, could not only crack the nuclear launch codes but enter those codes into a keypad then unlock and turn the two physical key switches. The X-14 Psi microchip with its mapping databases, GPS and sonar capabilities is easily up to the task of driving a car with an automatic transmission," the CEO looked slightly embarrassed, "The developers assure me that the X-14 Omega microchip will be able to drive a stick..."
If you had asked Ron Stoppable what he expected to do on his honeymoon, he wouldn't have listed being in a powerboat playing spotter watching Kim wakeboarding and Shego parasailing both pulled by the boat. He would have expected lots of marinating time with his new bride but this was turning out to be fun. Kim had been jumping wakes while Shego was trying to time her swoops to grab the redhead's outstretched hand. It was hard even with Shego's selection of a specially designed, extra-maneuverable, acrobatic parachute. On his last turn on the water, he had done a 360-degree turn on a wakeboard during a jump off the wake. He managed it once out of three tries with the first two tries ending in spectacular fails generating truly impressive splashes. Seeing Kim give him a thumbs-up signal, he backed up closer to Drakken:
"Dr. D," he yelled to be heard over the engines, "Kim says faster and I think she needs a bigger wake." Drakken pushed the throttles forward then reached down and adjusted a trim control, making the boat ride lower in the water increasing drag but making a bigger wake. This time Kim launched off the larger wake perfectly timed to Shego's downward swoop successfully grabbing her hand lifting the redhead high in the air. The two women conferred for a bit then Kim dropped her tow line freeing her other hand to pat her head.
"They want back in the boat," the blond told the driver. Drakken adjusted the trim and watching their two loves in the panoramic rear-view mirror, pulled back the throttle to position the boat to catch the descending parachute. Catching the dropped redhead in his arms, he took advantage of the privacy provided by the parachute canopy draping over then to kiss her soundly.
He had just enough situational awareness to hear Shego giggle in delight as Drakken wrapped his arms (and a few vines) around his angel who had just descended from the heavens and kissed her. Once upon a time, he would have thought that hearing the former villainess actually giggle would be a sign of the end times or at least that a small child would have had its candy stolen from it.
Now, that sound was a validation for the concept that villains can change their ways, repay their debts and become, well, at least somewhat better people. He wondered if a beaten, but not killed, Warmonga and Warhok would ever have given up their evil ways. He was brought back to the present by a frustrated growl and strong hands giving his butt a squeeze. His redhead gave a happy sigh as he focused all his attention back to the kissing...
Once again, They found an uninvited visitor on their couch when they returned for a late lunch.
"Colonel Fury," growled Ron, "What part of 'No' didn't you understand? Wait, did you get your eye fixed?"
The dark man on the couch looked annoyed, "Young man, I am not Colonel Fury, I am..."
"Augustus Gibbons," said Kim, "Imagine my surprise on seeing you here on my couch. I thought that you never wanted to see me again."
"You know him?", asked Ron.
"He's the NSA Agent in charge of the Triple Z program."
"Agent Xandra," replied the Agent, "Your country requires your services again. The X-14 chip has been stolen. Only instead of the X-14 Alpha version your Triple Z team dealt with, this one is the X-14 Psi version. The developers seem to have exceeded all expectations for building an over-engineered greeting card chip that is now a military threat."
"Uh, KP," the blond asked, "I thought we recovered that chip right before I left for Paris on vacation with my family?"
Drakken leaned over to Shego and whispered, "I'll get some popcorn...," then left for the kitchen.
"We did," explained the redhead, "but it got snatched before I could return it and apparently some Congressman pushed the NSA to recover it. Agent Gibbons came to my house talking about skateboards and empty swimming pools and the next thing I know, I'm on a jet flying to Morocco with Rufus... I thought about asking to have them call you in, but this was the first family vacation that you had gone on with your parents in a long time. I couldn't spoil that."
"You went on a mission with Rufus and you never told me?"
"I would have, but they said I failed the mission. When they dumped me off at home, they told me that I would be charged with some sort of Official Secrets Act violation if I told you," her green eyes pleaded for understanding.
"Xandra, I have secrecy agreements with me, if your significant other," looking up when Shego cleared her throat, he smoothly continued, "and your associates will look them over and sign them, you will be free to discuss the previous mission with them and hear about the current problem." Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a set of envelopes and handed them out. Realizing that an extra person had slipped in, he turned to the woman and asked, "Ma'am, If I might ask who are you and what is your business here?"
Kim spoke up, "This is Dr. Edmee Reveuse, she is helping Ron and me with some... uh, personal issues. Dr. Reveuse, this is..."
"Augustus Gibbons. We've not exactly met, but I have been in several debriefings of missions done by his bunch," the dark woman answered. Handing him a card, she continued, "Here are my bona fides, call them in and you will find that my clearances are current."
The agent took a picture of the card using his phone and got everyone else to sign the documents. His phone beeped and looking at it, he said, "Dr. Reveuse, your clearances are indeed valid. Instead of dwelling on the past, I'd like to press on with the current problem."
"That's fine," Ron said, "but first I want to know how she failed the mission. KP does not fail missions."
"She didn't recover the chip undamaged, Mr. Stoppable."
"To be exact, Ronnie," Kim had brightened at Ron's comment, "my partner was hurt and bleeding, a bad guy was about to get away with the chip. I chose to stay with my partner to render first aid instead of pursuing the bad guys. I fired my grapple gun and shattered the chip inside its case. The cable got tangled up in the helicopter's skids and snagged a railing on the parking garage we were in. The helicopter crashed, but all the bad guys got away cleanly."
"True, Agent Xandra prevented the chip from being used and possibly reverse engineered by unauthorized persons. But the senator who was pushing the investigation was not pleased because his constituent was unhappy that the chip was not recovered intact. We had to declare the mission a failure and Agent Xandra was blamed. This new mission could be a way to erase that failure," the dark Agent offered. Seeing that nobody seemed to care about that he then repeated the briefing he received from Comet Sans even playing the surveillance video for the group.
"Sorry, but 'Xandra' doesn't do non-flickable bugs," pointed out Ron who had seen her face grow pale at the sight of cat-sized roaches walking down the walls.
"But didn't she handle the giant roach attack on Middleton?" reminded the NSA senior chief.
"That was Ron, Rufus, and Roachie doing the heavy lifting on that mission," the redhead admitted.
"OK, well then, Mr. Stoppable, can your country depend on you to recover this chip?"
Kim remembered 'Rock', the Triple Z agent she had worked with. He was solidly built and had a grin, not unlike her Ron's. She remembered meeting him at Big Momma Sisterson's where he had gone the night before to 'gather intelligence'. She met Big Momma who had just smiled and directed her to the penthouse. Entering the penthouse, she ran into the agent buttoning up his shirt preparing to leave.
"The things I do for my country," she heard him mutter with a sly grin, then noticing her, he said, "Come on, Kid, I got the location of where they are taking the chip."
Looking into the room he just walked out of, she saw a dozen bodies strewn over the couches, overstuffed chairs and the plush rugs on the floor. They were all attractive young women. Young women with a noticeable lack of clothing. Young women sleeping the sleep of the physically exhausted. She remembered blushing furiously as she ran after the agent...
Snapping back to the present, she declared, "Ronnie is NOT AVAILABLE for the mission," her green eyes flashing.
"Shouldn't we let the man speak for himself? Surely as part of Team Possible all these years, his combat and physical skills should be beyond question?"
Shego swallowed a mouthful of popcorn and snorted, "None of us question Sport's fighting skills or physical abilities. I think she has another objection. Let me guess, you Triple Z guys still get your information from Big Momma Sisterson? Mr. NSA, she's not letting her new husband go there alone, not for love of country or money."
Ron looked confused but wisely decided to remain silent.
"Mrs. Possible, don't you trust your husband?" the Agent prodded.
"I trust him with my heart and my life, but I am not testing that trust stupidly." Kim snarled.
"Wait, I have a question," Ron butted in, "this is a chip designed to put into greeting cards, right? A chip that must cost less than, say. twenty-five cents to produce in the thousands otherwise the greeting card would be too expensive for people to buy. In addition, the chip must have an auto-self destruct, otherwise other people would recycle and reuse the cards instead of buying new ones. I saw a Knowing Channel show about making microchips. They never make just one, they make a disk at a time with each disk containing dozens of chips. I'm thinking that somebody is not telling the entire story somehow."
"Ronald has a point," said Drakken, refilling bowls with popcorn, "I can't believe that the Triple Z program only recruits one agent at a time and then only when a mission pops up. I suspect this is a distraction and you want Team Possible to make it look like you have bought into this threat while you marshal your agents to be ready for the real peril."
"That doesn't mean that a distraction isn't important," argued the Agent, I'm not saying you are right, but if you were, then having more senior agents free to jump on the real peril could be critical to the survival of this nation. Either way, this chip needs to be tracked down."
"What about Wade Load?", interjected Kim, "and before you start off telling me that he isn't agent material, let me point out that Triple Z Agent Rock wasted an entire night because he was more interested in getting the information than actually having the information. I'm guessing that since these are simply oversized bugs, Professor Acari is the person to start with. Why not have Wade run down information on who is running the roaches and you can have Colonel Fury have one of his real heroes pick up the chip?"
"Mr. Gibbons, may I speak to you in private?" the counselor pulled the Agent into a bedroom, closing the door behind them.
"Mrs. Possible stopped sleeping without a shirt two nights ago after her new husband woke her in the middle of the night by ripping her shirt open. Do you know why he did that?"
"Counselor, I'm guessing you're gonna tell me."
"He has a recurring nightmare that he rips the heart out of an enemy and finds out that it was really her that he killed. He was making sure that her chest did not have a fist-sized hole in it. Now I know that you don't have a problem with your agents killing people, but these two do. I won't allow you to put their sanity in peril for some stupid distraction mission. You ran my bona fides, you know I can make that call when it comes to these two."
"But it's just a silly dream..."
"You might think so, but Ronald has torn the beating hearts out of two living foes with his bare hand. I've seen the videos."
"He can't really do that, that only happens in cheesy Kung Fu movies..."
"Yes, he can. I have seen the videos. The part that should worry you is that Kimberly is the more dangerous of the two. Her personality profile suggests that should Ronald, her very new husband, get killed on a mission this stupid, she'd go after the people that sent him on that mission. That would be you and any of your people that are between you and her. Find. Another. Hero."
Looking thoughtful, the Agent walked back into the living room.
"Kimberly, it appears that Xandra will remain retired for the foreseeable future. I'll take your advice and contact your Mr. Load to track down the thieves. If you all will excuse me," the Agent gathered up his papers and smiled, "I have to go find someone new to catch some righteous air with."
"Hi, Jim, this is Wade. Say, you and Tim got a little free time to check out Drakken's old lair on Mount Middleton? ... It's for the NSA Triple Z program, they've lost a pretty cool microchip... Yeah, that's right, the extreme sports spy guys..."
Credits
Kim Possible and characters from her show are the property of Disney.
Augustus Gibbons is the property of Paramount Pictures, at least with respect to his appearance in xXx: Return of Xander Cage directed by D. J. Caruso and written by Rich Wilkes and F. Scott Frazier.
Author's Note:
This is just sort of a collection of amusing one-offs that I am writing. I am not sending this for sanity checks, plot hole detection, etc. to my standard group of reviewers. I reserve the right to claim that this never happened with respect to my "alternate universe" that my stories live in. LOL