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Enter the Naked Mole Rat	By : kwh Category: Kim Possible > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 18153 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Kim Possible, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 16
- 17
- 18
Now:
Actually, at that precise moment, Shego was 5,374 miles to the East and 33,000 feet above terra-firma, scrolling through recent ECAM alerts looking for anything she needed to actually act on, while the Airbus A340-8000 Flight Operations manual lay open across her knee. She had a chinograph pencil between her teeth, where she had been scrawling the occasional key number in the right hand margin of the Navigational Display screen between the compass rose and the edge of the display. Several charts lay on the Captain's tray table in front of her, held in place by a bottle of water; on top was the approach chart for Hong Kong, partially visible below it was the en-route chart for China. A plaintive , faint and intermittent knocking could be heard from somewhere behind her, in the direction of the hijack-proof cockpit door. Draped across the empty co-pilots seat next to her was a voluminous full black Burkha, and a pair of long white silk gloves, and then behind the seat an expensive designer case on wheels, while on the jump seat behind her sat a large black leather briefcase. Both cases were emblazoned with the royal crest of the House of Tajiri and the legend 'Diplomatic Bag - Valise Diplomatique' in gold leaf. An occasional metallic 'clink' could be heard from within the open briefcase, whenever the plane hit a small patch of rough air. To her right, a small laptop PC sat on top of the glare shield above the pedestal, angled towards her. It was attached via a USB cable to a small satellite modem, which had a good view of the sky through the cockpit window. The screen of the laptop was awash with numbers, ramp weight figures, fuel burn rate calculations, endurance figures, latitudes, longitudes, flight levels, upper airway identifiers and alternate airports.
Satisfied that the Centralised Aircraft Monitoring System had no relevant bad news for her, beyond annoyingly and pointlessly bitching that air conditioning pack one in cargo hold three had shat its pants and been shut down, Shego turned back to the laptop. She would occasionally flip a page in the flight operations manual with her thumb and scan through it, before typing in a new number, or adjusting an existing one. Occasionally she would grab the wipe-clean white pencil from between her teeth and scribble a new aide-memoir on the glass cockpit screen, and a couple of times she pushed buttons on the MCDU to pull up different pieces of information from the plane's integrated flight management system, which she also tapped into the laptop.
Eventually she was satisfied, and when she hit 'Calculate' she got a satisfying 'Ding' from the laptop. Pleased with herself, she hit 'File Amended Flight Plan'. A dialogue box appeared. 'Continue, Y or N?'. 'Not yet', she thought. 'Not yet!'. Still, the more go-juice the better, she thought. She reached for the control box on the voice synthesiser and switched it on, checking that it had the 'Profile A' LED illuminated, and then said 'Testing, testing' very quietly. Which she heard as a masculine sounding voice with an arab accent. Then she pushed the transmit button on her side-stick. "Good evening Euro control, this is Tajiri Royal Two, as salaam alaikum, requesting flight level four-zero-five for reasons of fuel economy, inshallah, over…".
A voice crackled in her headphones in response "Good evening Tajiri Royal Two, this is Eurocontrol. I can give you flight level three-niner-zero if that would assist, over".
"Euro control, Tajiri Royal Two, yes please, three-niner-zero, over!" replied Shego.
"Roger, Tajiri Royal Two, climb flight level three-niner-zero at your discretion, over!" came the reply through her cans.
"Euro control, Tajiri Royal Two, Roger, climbing flight-level three-niner-zero, thank you and goodnight!" responded Shego, prodding the new flight level into the Flight Control Unit, listening for the four engines spooling up slightly in response, and checking that the plane was responding as she expected.
As soon as the Airbus was established at its new altitude, she slid the commander's chair back on its rails, tucked her hands behind her head, closed her eyes momentarily and exhaled deeply. The upper airway junction she was waiting for was half an hour down-route, and to give it time to transmit the data, she would need to activate her retrospective revised flight-plan filing hack at least ten minutes before that. Fifteen to be safe. So, quarter of an hour to fill. She selected the Standby radio frequency, dialled up the BBC World Service on Short Wave, and then reached across her body with her right arm to turn up the cockpit speaker volume. And painfully hit the limits of the shoulder belts. She swore, volubly. She was healing remarkably well, given the state she'd been in a week earlier. But healing was the operative word, not healed. Not quite yet.
The pain subsided to a a dull ache again and she momentarily switched off the World Service and picked up the PA microphone. Just in time before she spoke to the cabin, she remembered the voice synthesiser unit and turned it off. Then she keyed the microphone and spoke in Arabic. "This is Sheikha Mustaffa. Please stop with the banging and clattering on the door. You have every luxury you can imagine back there, and normally you have to sit up here with all the knobs and the buttons and the other stuff I as a mere woman don't understand. You should relax and enjoy the flight. I certainly am. Watch a movie. Have the chef cook you a decent meal for once. Play cards. Raid the oil minister's secret stash of whisky that he keeps at the back of the wardrobe in his state bedroom. If I'm going to fly us all into a mountain, then banging on that door for five hours won't make it any less likely. It will just make me cranky. So sit back and enjoy the ride!"
The banging stopped. Shego smirked. She'd got all of the crew, including the flight crew, to assemble in the rear state room for her to speak to them as the favourite wife of the oil minister and only passenger on this trip, and then she'd simply walked into the cockpit and slammed the door behind her. There were a tense couple of moments while she found the breakers for the on-board satellite phones and internet connection and popped them, but that and the GSM jammer she had left in the drawer of the desk in her stateroom had ensured that all frantic attempts by the crew to contact anybody and warn them that the Oil Ministers favourite wife had gone insane and thought she could fly her own plane were doomed. By the time they realised this, Shego was 5,000 feet into the climb away from Dasqba Military Airbase and it was all far too late for them to do anything except live with it. In a culture so misogynistic that women aren't allowed to drive cars, she found their discomfiture quite amusing.
Shego switched off the PA and turned on the World Service again. It was news time in a couple of minutes and she did just want to check that she was still definitely dead...
************************************************************************************
24 hours earlier:
Sheikh Mustaffa had had more than enough sex, whisky and cocaine to last him… well a few hours at least. Since he had heard of Shego's death he had been frantically making up for lost time with one hand, hence the 12 year old girl he was enjoying breaking in at the moment, and simultaneously trying to make sure his own time didn't run out entirely in just under a week on the other. To which end, he needed to make a secure phone call to the contractor he had hired in order to get confirmation that the first payment had been received and that the Emir would shortly be experiencing a severe shortage of breath. Even the down-payment was an eye watering amount of money, but he needed the best , and he couldn't spend any money at all if the Emir found out what he had been up to and had him killed first. And the Emir didn't 'do' quick painless deaths for those who crossed him, either.
He reached the office, in the basement of his summer palace, and checked the top of the line multi-dimensional security system for any sign of breaches that might indicate that bugs could have been planted since the last security sweep. Then he used the iris and fingerprint recognition system to gain access through the armoured sliding door. Once inside, the door swished shut behind him, and he flicked the light switch.
Nothing happened.
A cold clammy hand gripped his soul.
"Sh….    Shego?", he said in a very small voice.
Total silence was the only reply. He only realised that he had been holding his breath when he exhaled in relief. Stupid fool that he was. It was just a blown bulb. Or a tripped breaker. Shego was dead. He walked over to his desk, to switch on the desk lamp.
He never made it. The moment the room was illuminated by a ghostly green glow, he froze in terror.
"Hello, Saieed!", she said, spitting his name out with real venom. "Guess who!".
Sheikh Mustaffa realised that his bladder had just emptied itself down his leg. He still couldn't move. Finally his mouth unfroze and he said… "Sh.. Shego. I heard you were dead!".
"Yes, that's the rumour. Which must explain why there's a child downstairs. Because you remember what I told you I would do to you if I ever caught even a suspicion of you with an under age girl again?"
"Shego, I can explain…"
"Remind me what I said. "
"Shego, I thought…"
"REMIND ME!", she yelled, angrily.
The Sheikh squealed and stammered "Y.. You said you would tear off my c… cock and balls, cook them in front of me in your hand and then jam them down my throat until I choked to death on them. "
"Oh yes… that was it. Oh well, at least you can't claim that this is going to come as a surprise…"
"Shego, no, oh god no, I'm sorry, I'm weak, I can't help myself, I thought I was going to die in a week's time anyway…", gibbered a terror-struck Sheikh Mustaffa.
"Actually, I've just remembered why I'm here. I need you alive for the next couple of hours or so, so as much pleasure as it would give me to kill you where you stand, you corrupt offspring of a whore and a diseased camel, you will live at least the rest of this day. And may be even a little longer. Provided you do right by her now. Tell me her name."
"I… do not know. Some Pakistani peasant girl for sale by her parents to the highest bidder. I have her name on my desk."
There was a click and the lights came on.
"OK, go and look. And then phone your private secretary. She is to be taken to the harem, cleaned up, dressed, and then straight onto a plane to England and into the same private girls school that the girls I rescued from your depraved predation two years ago went to. She needs to be on a plane before midnight, or you'll be eating your own meat at one minute past, do you understand? "
"It is done, Shego! It is done!" he babbled, practically running to his desk and sitting down, before composing himself for a few seconds and picking up the phone.
All the while he was speaking, Shego stared at him with naked contempt. When he had finished, he put the phone down. "It is done. She will be in a car on the way to the airport within 20 minutes".
"Next time you hear a rumour that I'm dead, remember this moment. If I didn't have need of you right now, you would currently be eating your last meal. A small one."
Now that he believed he had cheated death, the Sheikh was recovering some of his swagger and bravado, aided by the two lines of finest Columbian marching powder he had snorted not 30 minutes earlier. "I'm guessing that you want to stay dead, Shego. I heard that the Americans had killed you, and that they are offering a very large reward for information leading to your corpse. Perhaps I should give them a call?"
"Unless they are paying over 1.94 trillion US dollars, which I very much doubt, I'm not sure that would be very profitable for you. I hope you haven't forgotten that if anything happens to me, two weeks later you stop getting your regular eight-figure refunds, and the rest of the money still in the pot I… borrowed… from you gets distributed between my favourite charities, and to put out a very very large contract indeed on you. Oh, and if you remember, that dossier detailing your fraud goes to the Emir and to the world's press. And since the only chance the Emir, who makes you look like a boy scout, has of recovering any of that two and a half trillion US dollars you embezzled from the state oil company, meaning from him, is to kill you himself before every professional mechanic in the world gets to you, I'm not betting on you surviving anything bad happening to me for very long at all. Unless something bad happens to the Emir at about the same time. Then maybe… just... maybe... you can buy out the contract and save your own vile stinking skin. So… do you feel lucky?"
He didn't feel very lucky at all.
"Right. As you have observed, I am dead, and I want to stay that way. Which is why your favourite wife wishes to buy a new pair of shoes tomorrow. In Vancouver, Canada. She wishes to fly there alone aboard your flying palace, on an Emirate of Tajiristan diplomatic passport, and under letters of protection as a diplomatic courier."
"Vancouver?"
"That's what I said. I need to see a man about a dog. A very private dog."
"Well…"
"Shall we say take-off from Dasqba tomorrow at 15:00 local? I trust that all the necessary documents will be waiting for me, the crew briefed and a proper flight plan filed? I'd hate to have to come back here for anything. If I do, I might remember to feed you your own genitals after all!"
He put his head in his hands and closed his eyes. "Yes… yes… YES, Shego. Alright. It shall be as you ask.".
There was no reply.
When he looked up, the green skinned woman with the flaming hands had simply vanished. How the hell had she done that? Where had she gone? He jumped up from behind the desk and ran around the room frantically, looking behind furniture and flipping up rugs, but there was no sign of her, and there were no logs on the security system to indicate that she had had any more trouble getting out unseen than she had getting in. If he didn't have a clammy leg and a smell of urine hanging around him, he would be convincing himself that he had imagined the whole event. But he knew he hadn't.
He went back behind his desk and picked up the phone. First things first. He selected the ultra-secure line and dialled a number that he had committed to memory, and not written down anywhere. There was an exchange of code words and then he put the phone down. A second later it rang. Another exchange of code words. And then…
"The commercial matter we discussed a few days ago. Trading conditions have altered significantly and the contract is terminated immediately. It must not proceed under any circumstances." said the Sheikh, cryptically.
"There are certain costs associated. Resources committed. Expenditures made." said a sinister sounding voice from the other end of the secure line. "Which is why you can retain the down-payment. Which is a lot more than the 20% cancellation fee that I believe is standard in these kinds of contract negotiations", replied the Sheikh.
"I was thinking more of 50%" said the disembodied voice. "I'm sure that there is somebody out there who would reimburse us our costs in exchange for the details of the original… transaction… that you contracted. I hear that the Emir is quite wealthy, perhaps he will offer?"
"If you sell me out to the Emir, your professional reputation will henceforth be lower than whale excrement, but nobody will care because the Emir will kill you very slowly and painfully for taking a contract on his life in the first place" admonished the Sheikh. "You were being paid a big premium because of the risk if anything went wrong. No hit, no risk. 33% is all there is and it is more than generous. Especially since when I eventually do re-let that contract, and I have every reason to doubt that I'll have to wait very long before… trading conditions change again in your favour, we can do another similar deal."
There was a pause and then the sinister voice said "OK. Done."
"Thank you. And now I have another job for you. This one is just bread and butter work, and you can invoice me in the usual way at the usual rate. I need you to put a full top drawer surveillance team on the ground in Vancouver, Canada. They are to follow the Sheikha Mustaffa covertly during her visit there which starts the day after tomorrow and report back to me on who she sees and where she goes, what she does. Treat her as highly surveillance aware, because I really don't want her knowing that she was followed. But whatever you find, you report only to me! If you gather any… exceptional... information that you consider particularly valuable, I personally get first chance to buy at exactly twice the going rate for that information. Nobody else. Understand? "
"Understood. There will be a premium for pulling together a suitably high quality and trustworthy surveillance team at such short notice and positioning it in time to expedite."
"Yes, yes, agreed!", said the Sheikh, testily.
"Excellent. Goodnight Saieed! I will be in touch.", and with that he put the phone down.
The sheikh did likewise. And then he put his head back in his hands and sighed.
******************************************************************************
A mile away, Shego was walking, with a slight limp, into the vast empty desert, alone in the pitch dark, towards her impromptu camp site. In her hand was a large and very expensive designer suitcase, empty but for a leather briefcase, a bhurka, a pair of long white silk gloves, a giant bottle of chilled water liberated from the odious oil minister's refrigerator, and a slab of very fine steak that she would be grilling by hand (literally) in due course. On her face was a smirk. The ear bud she was wearing relayed the telephone conversations captured by the bug Shego had fitted to the telephone on Saieed Mustaffa's desk perfectly. And she'd bet absolutely right about him three ways now. A vile excrescence upon the face of humanity he may be, but a useful one. And utterly predictable. The good his money had done so far outweighed his own parochial hedonistic evil, however offensive it was. And of course, when the chips were really down, and the chips were really down now, he gave Shego an ultra deep cover secret identity that could, once in a while, get her anywhere in the world, anytime, completely incognito. Well… until she burned the Sheikha's legend. Which she would try not to do on this trip, if she could help it… could be tricky, though...
******************************************************************************
A further 24 hours earlier:
He didn't understand what he had done to get this posting. He had pissed somebody off. Or maybe his grandfather had pissed somebody else's grandfather off. 'Border guard', was Mustapha's alleged job. But this border needed no guarding. The 'post' consisted of the remnants of an old French colonial desert block house, but the original roof, and half of the front wall with the doorway, had long ago given up the unequal fight with the ravages of the desert. Along with all bar one small pane of glass in just one of the two small windows. The 'roof' now, such as it was, consisted of rusty corrugated iron that rattled and banged every time there was a gust of wind, and it had been patched again with an abandoned sand ladder that somebody had found from a competitor in the rally raid races that used to come this way in the days before the last border war. Actually… he looked at the long faded bullet pock marks in the façade… perhaps it hadn't been only the desert that had ruined this 'border post' so comprehensively.
He wiped his sweat-soaked brow with his stinking kepi and then replaced it on his head, and hefted his rifle sling to his other shoulder. It was pointless to carry it. Not only did this border not need guarding, but he only had one magazine and he had no idea if the thing even would fire. He'd had just one go on the firing range at training camp, where they had given him five live bullets to fire, and he still had no idea whether he had hit anything. But if he wasn't carrying it or wearing full uniform, what was left of it, when the sergeant came and inspected the post, he would be fined a month of pay. And given how little he was paid, and how his family back home still suffered despite the little he could provide, he daren't risk it. Not that the Sergeant had been up here for many months. Who would come here of their own free will?
He turned slowly through 360 degrees and looked to the horizon. In the distance was the rusty old barbed wire fence that marked the border. It was choked with sand in places, broken in others, but nobody on this side could get anywhere near it to repair it, even if they had wanted to. You'd have to be pretty brave to trust that there were no mines hidden even on the other side, to be honest. The mines were everywhere. Nobody knew how many, nobody knew what kind, nobody knew which side had planted them all, let alone where. Probably both, at various times. They stretched to the horizon to his left and right, occasionally poking above the sand, normally just below the surface, and sometimes they would sink deep into the sand and then rise up again years later to surprise the unwary in places they had previously thought safe . Occasionally camels wandered across the broken fence and several would go off at once, in sympathy with each other. And then the air would be sweet and foul with the smell of death and rotting meat for the rest of the day. Often the vultures who came to deal with the carcass would set off more mines themselves, but eventually the bones would be picked clean. Until the next camel. Or goat.
Behind him the mines also stretched as far as he could see. There was another fence, slightly better maintained, out of sight in the distance. It butted up against the village, so they had more reason to keep care of it, to save their livestock. A winding single track cleared safe path marked by stakes ran all the way from behind the post to the village, and every day a child from the village would come up to the post to sell them bread and goats milk. If he didn't come, they didn't eat. They barely ate anyway. Last year the child had made a mistake and strayed from the path. They didn't find all of him, and they couldn't collect that before the vultures picked the bones clean, because of the mines. Now, his brother comes instead.
Behind the block house was the well, an old French construction which still provided them with water enough to drink, though it wasn't the sweetest water he had ever tasted. Without the well, this place would be uninhabitable. There was also a stinking hole in the ground, which Mustapha knew was far too close to the well. But they couldn't dig a new pit further away, because of the mines. There was no privacy, but who needed privacy out here? Privacy from who?
Also there was no paper. But that didn't matter because one thing they did get was a regular delivery of forms for immigration purposes. Forms and rubber stamps and ribbons for the old type writer. The last person to enter the country via THIS border post had come through before he was born.
It was almost the end of his turn outside the hut, he decided. There was no watch, but he had become pretty good at telling the time from just looking at the sun. There was a home made sun dial beside the post which was slightly more accurate, but his internal clock worked pretty well. The cheap digital watch that Ahkmed, his comrade in misery, had treasured so much had given up the ghost 6 months before. Battery.
He unshipped his water bottle and took a last swig of the slightly brackish, warm well water. As he did so, he was looking out over the border in absent minded fashion, when he noticed a dust devil in the very far distance in the heat haze. As he put his water bottle away, he realised that it was coming closer. And it was moving really fast! Really really fast! He paused to watch it, and realised it was coming straight towards him, all be it still far away on the other side of the border . "Hey, Ahkmed", he called, not very loudly… "Look at this!". It was the most interesting thing that he had seen for three days. Ahkmed was obviously much happier dozing in the hot shade of the hut, though.
The dust devil continued to approach at incredible speed. Faster than he had ever seen one move before. It was huge, and it was tossing giant welts of sand skywards behind it as it rampaged towards a section of the barbed wire border fence that was still quite tall, in front of a low sand-dune on the other side of the border.
"Hey! Ahkmed, Ahkmed!" he called excitedly now, "LOOK!".
A querulous grunt emanated from the hut.
"LOOK! LOOK!".
Just at that moment, the top of the dune on the far side of the border fence exploded in a geyser of soft sand. And then there was nothing for a few seconds, and Mustapha's face fell. Ahkmed would think he was winding him up. Then suddenly there was another geyser of sand on THIS side of the fence. The dust devil had touched down again and it was still heading to go right past the post! Half a second later there was a massive explosion, just behind it. Mustapha heard Ahkmed swear loudly and start to scramble out of the hut, just in time to see a second and a third massive explosion, again just in the wake of the dust devil, which was moving at terrifying speed, faster than he could ever remember seeing anything move before, and it would be on him in seconds. And there was no wind. How could this be? Unless it was some kind of dust monster or…
Quickly and shakily he unslung his rifle and tried to aim it at.. What? There was nothing there! There was another pair of huge explosions not 100 yards away now, and he could hear a terrifying high pitched whining noise, and a sound like a truck riding potholes in the road as he desperately pulled the trigger of his rifle while waving it in the direction of the approaching… sand ghost! Nothing happened! Then the whistle turned momentarily to a roar, he felt the air being moved aside, and a sound like... 'Music?', as he threw himself to the floor in terror, a fortunate decision because a pair of big mines not 50 feet away from him chose that moment to explode, showering him in sand and the roof of the hut with pieces of shrapnel. He heard that last pane of valiant window glass shatter. And then it was heading away, followed by more explosions, as the whistle receded, and Mustapha remembered that he had to actually cock the rifle before it would fire. He pulled the cocking handle to the rear, but with the magazine and the working parts full of sand and grit, it wouldn't go all the way forwards again. Or back either. Useless thing!
Within a few more seconds, the explosions had receded and everything was as it had been. Well almost… a line of still smoking craters, big and small, led from the border fence, right past the border post and headed back towards the village as far as he could see. His ears were still ringing from the two closest big explosions .
He looked around for Ahkmed, who was nowhere to be seen. Had the monster got him? He frantically dashed into the post, to find Ahkmed under the small camp bed he had earlier been sleeping on, sobbing hysterically.
Mustapha knew exactly how he felt!
******************************************************************************
A further 2 days earlier:
Monsieur Montgolfier collapsed, red faced, over the handlebars of his bicycle. 'Sacre Bleu!" he exclaimed under his breath. He looked behind him at the hill he had just pedalled up, and waited until his breathing returned to normal. The parcel jammed into the basket in front of him wasn't heavy, but the hill was long, the sun was hot and at 57 years old, he wasn't as spry as he once had been. Normally when he went to the Chateau to tend the gardens, he cycled from his cottage, and that was only a mile away and a very flat ride at that. Today he had cycled down into the village to buy some stamps so he could post a letter to his cousin Bertold, and the post-mistress had ambushed him as soon as he walked in. "Andre", she had said, "You may be able to save my life, or at least the reputation of France Post in this village! Can you help me? I have received a parcel for the Comptesse at the Chateau! It comes all the way from Hong Kong! Normally I would put it on the van that comes out from Bolganville on Fridays, but this parcel is special apparently! It has to be delivered today before 2pm and it has to be signed for! Will you be a darling and deliver it for me and have the Comptesse sign for it? You can pop the signature sheet into the post-box at the top of Robispear Lane, and Alfonse will pick it up and bring it back to me when he does his rounds tomorrow morning first thing! Be a darling!". And then she had blown him a kiss.
He was putty in her hands.
He took a long look round at the glorious patchwork of the finest of French countryside, pausing to enjoy the bird song, and the sounds of contented farm animals, and then he pushed off again and pedalled gently along the lane towards the Chateau. He had been looking after the gardens there for five years now, ever since the Comptesse had bought the derelict shell of the old place, more or less. He had been a commercial grower, working in big greenhouses, for many many years, but after his wife had died, he had decided he needed a change. He'd sold up and downshifted out here to the middle of nowhere and he loved the place. He had a little investment income, and a small military pension courtesy of his war service in Algeria many decades before, and the few hundred francs he earned each week from his work at the Chateau ensured that he lived very comfortably these days, despite only working part time. And he was proud of the beautiful gardens he had created there, the neatly cropped lawns, the riot of blooms for all seasons. When he had first started, the whole grounds were completely overgrown. In the first six months, things had got much worse before they got better, as the Comptesse's building contractors swarmed the old building, gutting it and then completely restoring it to its former glory. Better in fact. From the trades he had seen arriving, and the fixtures and fittings he had seen delivered, he knew that it was beautiful inside. But then everybody had gone, and taken their detritus with them. A removal van had arrived and deposited some of the Comptesses' furniture, and then that was that. The furniture inside the chateau was all covered in dust sheets, and the place remained empty. It had done ever since. Alfonse Montgolfier was actually paid by the management company that looked after the property for the Comptesse, who he had never actually met. Actually, nobody involved in the project had ever met her; she was a recluse, apparently. Lived in a big house in Paris, or was it Lyon, and never went outside. Some people would say it was a crying shame, a waste of a beautiful house. But Monsieur Montgolfier was in heaven. After four and a half years of having the grounds almost entirely to himself, they were _his_ gardens. He had turned them from rough overgrown wasteland to a beautiful vista of well tended lawns, raised beds, water features and gazebos. He had built his part outrageously; the management company had been incredibly accommodating. With very few exceptions, whenever he had made creative suggestions, within a few days, after inquiring about costs from him, they had authorised the expenditures and arranged for the necessary materials to be delivered to the front gate for him. It had become a great labour of love for him. He had lost his wife to the ravages of cancer, but his lover was now definitely the garden of Le Chateau Nouvelle de Petis Remander. Not that he would turn down the post-mistress from the village if she ever wanted to curl up on the rug in front of his fire with him!
Which made the message he had received the day before yesterday all the more of a shock! The Comptesse would be staying at her chateau for a few days, and while he would still be paid, his presence wouldn't be required for at least the rest of the week. She would apparently send word to him via the management company as to what she thought of his beautiful gardens! It felt a bit like his lover had gone off for a dirty weekend with somebody else!
He arrived outside the giant wrought iron gates and waved his electronic key-card at the reader. Instead of the click as the gates swung open that he was used to, he was rewarded instead by an electronic 'Bleep-Bloop' that said 'Go Away' as eloquently as any sign. Undaunted, he pushed the button on the entry-phone.
Nothing happened for a while. He looked up at the CCTV camera above the gate and was surprised to see that it had swivelled and was looking back at him! He waved cheerily.
Then the reedy voice of an old woman spoke to him from the intercom unit. "Can I help you?"
"Bonjour, ca va. Is this the Comptesse de Aurigny I have the privilege of addressing?" he asked.
"Oui, d'accord! Who is there?" asked the reedy voice.
"It is I, Andre Montgolfier, your gardener!", he said, proudly.
"Ah, Monsieur Montgolfier, your landscaping is exquisite and your horticulture divine. You are to be truly congratulated. But I thought you were told that you were not required to attend this week?" asked the Comptesse, through the little box on the outside of the gate.
"Yes, of course! But I have brought a parcel up from the village for you on my bicycle."
"A parcel? There must be some mistake, Monsieur Montgolfier!"
"No mistake, Madame. It is addressed to you in person, here at the Chateaux. It comes all the way from Hong Kong, and it must be signed for I am afraid. The post-mistress asked me to deliver it for you, she had no other way of getting it to you today!"
There was a long pause. Then the box said "Very well, Monsieur. Please bring it to the front door. "
The front gate clicked open, and then swung smoothly back, and Monsieur Montgolfier lent his bicycle against the wall and plucked the parcel out of the basket, before crunching his way up the long gravel driveway.
When he reached the front door, it opened barely a crack and the reedy voice said "Monsieur, please leave the parcel on the front step just here by the door.
"Of course Madame. But… ", he placed the parcel down and then wrestled with the little plastic envelope until he had torn it open and extracted the triplicate delivery note, "...I am afraid you will need to sign here for it!"
A wrinkled black glove extended from out of the crack in the front door and signalled for the paperwork. He placed it in the outstretched hand and it withdrew into the darkness and the door closed. A little while later, the door opened again, and the hand emerged to offer him the two top sheets of the form, complete with a spidery signature. "Merci, Monsieur Montgolfier, your trouble is much appreciated. Allow me to put an extra twenty euros in your wage packet this week for your effort."
"Madame, it was nothing!", he said. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you!"
"Likewise!", said the Comptesse. "And now I must bid you adieu. I must take my medication. Au Revoir, Monsieur. Have a pleasant afternoon!"
'A frail old recluse', thought Monsieur Montgolfier, as he trudged back down the gravel driveway to retrieve his bicycle. Moments after he swung his leg over it, he heard the gate click closed behind him. He sighed, and pedalled off towards Robispeare Lane to deposit the signature sheet in the old post box.

**********************************************************************

The Comptesse de Aurigny watched the cheery gardener pedal away up the lane on his bicycle on the CCTV monitor in the cupboard under the stairs. And then, she spoke aloud, almost absent mindedly.

"Merde! Putain! Ça ma fait chier!"
How had they found her? _Who_ had found her? Not the CIA. If the CIA had found her, the news would be talking about the terrible 'accident' where a US warplane had 'unintentionally' dropped a live bunker buster bomb on a remote French chateau. Somebody else? The Comptesse de Aurigny was one of Shego's best constructed clean-skin sock-puppet identities, with a full, consistent and wholly unbreakable official legend, up to and including detailed medical records going back 50 years, and until yesterday, Shego had never used the legend for any purpose whatsoever, so there was no way she could have blown the gaffe herself. She would have gone as far as saying that the identity was essentially un-crackable. Especially given that she was officially dead, and therefore if anybody was looking for her, it would be at the bottom of the Atlantic, not in rural France. HOW had she been found out? Her 'loyal' handful of little helpers all had far too much to lose to say anything, and they had all been tested almost to destruction before and not found wanting! And why weren't large calibre armour-piercing bullets crashing through the chateau walls already? Had she missed something in her extensive background checks on Monsieur Montgolfier? He'd played a small non-voluntary part in one of France's African colonial wars many decades ago and had got himself slightly wounded for his trouble. But a less likely one man sleeper cell it would be hard to find! And for who, anyway? Why? How big a bang would that parcel make when she opened it?
She sighed. She stood up slowly with a terrible groan, and hobbled over to a very nice Queen Anne sideboard with a very heavy and very solid base. Crouching down on her haunches, she groaned again, more loudly, and swore under her breath. Never mind playing the part of a frail old lady, she was doing some pretty good method acting here, she reflected. And then she fired up the index finger plasma cutter and cut through both the plywood floor of the sideboard, and the mild steel sheet beneath, until she could remove the entire metal top of the welded crate concealed in the pedestal, and then extracted a robust briefcase from the smoking sideboard. Then, standing up again using the chair back for support, and groaning in pain again, she placed it on the top of the antique walnut curio, and flipped open the catches. A small portable X-ray scanner and a wide selection of other tools of the trade of larceny were revealed.
She was pretty sure that if there was a bomb in the parcel, it wouldn't be on a timer, since it would be tricky to set it so that she was vaporised and not poor old Monsieur Montgolfier. And of course, had her gardener exploded en-route to her, Shego would have been alerted. Similarly a trembler would be a bad idea. A fuse that detonated when X-rayed would be quite a clever wheeze, but Shego had seen Andre the gardener tote it with one hand very easily, so if it was a bomb, it wouldn't be a very big one. And anyway, if somebody knew where she was, and was clever enough to devise a fiendishly complex explosive device to kill her despite reasonable precautions, then there were many easier ways of doing the deed. Somebody on top of the ridge on the far side of the valley with a Barratt could have had a good go at blowing her head off when she answered the door, for example.
Nevertheless, the fact that sending her a parcel bomb would make no sense was no reason for neglecting common sense caution. Selecting an extending feeler probe from the case of tools, and reaching through the crack in the door, she deftly slid the parcel across until it was the other side of the substantial stonework around the door frame, and then she placed herself behind it. Hanging the x-ray scanner on the end of the feeler probe, she switched on and poked it through the gap, and made sure the parcel got a good dose of radiation. Then she withdrew the probe, switched off the scanner, and reached around with the probe again and gave the parcel a good hard prod, just in case the X-rays had enabled a trembler circuit. Nothing happened. But there was still the possibility of an x-ray initiated timer, so she closed the door and hobbled to the kitchen to make herself lunch.
Some time later, having eaten a healthy and very french lunch of bread and smelly cheese, she opened the door slightly wider and quickly hoiked the parcel into the front hall before closing up again.
A quick peruse with the X-ray scanner showed absolutely no wires or detonators. But it did reveal a mystery. The box appeared to contain the faint outline of a rectangular card, with an embossed metal design on it that showed up very well on X-ray. It also contained a pair of what looked like bracelets, but with an extra metallic 'strap' attached to them. Shego was satisfied that it was safe to remove the brown paper wrapping, and was rewarded with a smooth, black, one-piece box that rattled and clinked a little when shaken, but to which there was no access whatever. She looked carefully at the X-rays for any hint of a seam or a joint. Nothing. It was one continuously fabricated box seemingly forged or moulded around its contents. She also examined the material of the box itself and noticed that it was laced with cloying synthetic fibres that could well have been designed to frustrate any saw, and bind even the most powerful mechanical cutters. What she was looking at was a one-piece box that nobody could open without destroying, and which cutting open with any kind of saw or angle grinder without destroying the contents would be extremely slow and difficult if it was even possible! But what was it made of?
She had to cut into the floor pedestal of the wardrobe in the spare bedroom to retrieve a flight case containing a portable forensic laboratory in order to try to answer that question. Despite peering through a microscope for an hour at slivers and indeed the surface of the box itself, she was little the wiser. Her attempts to isolate the chemical composition of the material by attacking it with various powerful solvents failed miserably, when even the most powerful acids wouldn't touch it. Oh, she could identify some individual constituents of the material the box was constructed from through the microscope - strands of carbon fibre, for example, but this material was nothing commercially available that she knew of. Without a mass spectrometer to hand she could be no more specific! However, on a hunch, she gave one of the sample slivers a quick hit of the old green magic. It melted just like mild steel. Then she picked up the other sliver she had been examining in a pair of tweezers and held it in the flame of the kitchen gas range. It went with a proper 'Woof!'. Further more representative experiments using burning acetylene gas that Shego generated using lumps of calcium carbide and the pressure cooker from her kitchen confirmed that cutting into the box with a gas-axe would result in an embarrassing and destructive self-oxidising fire, but that Shego's plasma could be used to cut into it with impunity. She didn't have any means of generating a traditional electrical plasma arc at her disposable - it wasn't something she would normally have a use for, but she wouldn't have been at all surprised it that also caused the package to self-immolate!
Somebody had gone to extreme lengths to send her a package that only she could easily get inside of without destroying the more flammable contents, and certainly nobody could have opened and re-closed again without her knowledge. Which meant that the sender not only knew that she was alive, not only knew who she was and where she was, not only knew a disturbing amount about her - a lot more than the spooks of the CIA did - but was prepared to take extraordinary measures to keep her secret, while letting her know that they knew. To keep her secret at the moment, of course. Which, given that it was a pretty valuable secret, worth a lot of real cash CIA reward money, didn't reassure her in the slightest. Which in turn, suddenly made whoever had sent her this parcel a slightly higher priority for her than the folk in Langley, Virginia who could wait a little longer for the good news. Once 'people out there' knew she was alive, word would spread like wildfire, and when word spreads, the NSA has ears everywhere. The ideas she was currently kicking about in her head for a truly appropriate and apocalyptic revenge on the CIA required absolutely that she remained officially and irrevocably dead. And whoever sent her this package was a threat to that...
She fired up her index finger, and quickly removed one end of the black box, on the kitchen table, and then slid the contents out on to the oak table top. There was a clatter as an identical pair of sturdy but unadorned hinged bracelets, each with a braided metallic finger strap, landed on the stained hardwood surface, along with an ebony black envelope, which was trimmed with… about US$327 worth of Gold Leaf, at yesterday's closing price, Shego estimated. The single Chinese pictogram on the envelope, roughly translated to something like 'Dragon's Hand' or 'Dragon Fist', as far as Shego could remember. Pictograms were never her strongest linguistic suit. If the parcel claimed to have come from Hong Kong, then nothing so far stood out as contradicting that suggestion.
Patiently, Shego dripped a couple of different re-agents onto the envelope, looking for chemical markers that might warn of contact poisons. Normally such things didn't bother her much, but she figured that somebody who was this far inside her might have a few new tricks up their sleeve and know of something she wasn't mostly immune to.
In due course, after taking sensible precautions, Shego finally opened the expensive envelope. To find, once again after some toxicology testing, an invitation to a martial arts tournament, of all things. addressed to La Comptesse de Aurigny. An invitation that only Shego could likely ever have read! There was also a short beautifully scripted note, in French, tucked into the envelope. It said "Please bring the jewellery with you, Madame, you will require it to be allowed to participate...", and it was signed apparently by Lo Pin himself.
She turned her attention to the bracelets which she had previously ignored. They were entirely unremarkable, if apparently well crafted. The surprising thing was that they had no catch - merely a flat section with mating faces. They were clearly designed to be welded closed! Shego had no idea what purpose they served... unless... a chill ran up her spine, and she examined the surface of the metal more closely, then looked again through her microscope. Finally, she put one of the bracelets on her right wrist, and clipped it closed with a clothes peg. 'Here goes nothing!' she thought, and sparked up a very small flame on the tip of her index finger. Or rather, she didn't. She experienced a sensation that reminded her of touching an electric cattle fence and numbed her finger for a few seconds. Bracelet off, no problem. Bracelet on, and the metalwork was earthing her plasma generating mojo to her body, and she was giving herself a tazer shot every time she tried to spark up a flame. Presumably if she gave it full power while wearing the bracelets, she would fry herself to a crisp Even that damned redhead had only exposed her to about the tenth of the peak electrical energy behind Shego's plasma hands when she had kicked her into that tower!
There was only one explanation. The bracelets were made of Molybdenum Ferrucite. But nobody would make anything out of Molybdenum Ferrucite unless they were doing it to short-circuit Shego's plasma power! How the hell did these people know about that? It was a million to one shot that SHE knew about it! Drakken had had her steal a bunch of moon rocks from the Smithsonian for some ridiculous reason, and she'd picked up a meteorite by mistake ('Doy' - a pointless rock is a pointless rock), a meteorite that happened to be made of Molybdenum Ferrucite, an incredibly rare alloy of Molybdenum and Iron that only occurs in that specific form at temperatures and pressures consistent with exploding planets. Meaning in a very small handful of meteorites. As Shego found out. She was heating the rock to 2,500 degrees centigrade to throw it at the plastic water cooler by the doorway and thus create a huge cloud of superheated steam that would beat back Kim Possible and the one with no pants on, who were pursuing them at the time. While doing this, she inadvertently touched the meteorite on the metal ladder she was climbing while she was powering it up. Next thing she knew she was on the far side of the museum on her head feeling like she'd just stuck her fingers in a plug socket. Half the rock was still welded to her hand, which enabled her to analyse it later, while her hand was healing up. But obviously she wasn't the only one to notice what had happened. Somebody had picked up the other half of that meteorite, and had worked out how to weaponise it. They had also worked out how to smelt Molybdenum Ferrucite without it reforming into an entirely different and useless alloy - something that Shego's own experiments had led her to conclude was likely to prove impossible! But to get the material together to manufacture the two bracelets she was looking at, somebody must have designed and built a whole new industrial process from scratch, and then stolen two thirds to three quarters of the world's Molybdenum Ferrucite meteorites from museums and space institutes, and then smelted them down to make...    wow...   just 'Wow'!
'OK, I reaaally need to meet these people. They're scaring the shit out of me now!', thought Shego.
She looked at the calendar on the wall, then at the clock, then at the date on the invitation. Then she pulled out a map and started looking at her options for getting to Hong Kong on time without becoming late shortly afterwards. The advantage of attending Lo Pin's tournament, apart from the fact that she would be close to the people who had gone to all this scary trouble to send her an invite and who apparently already knew everything the CIA hadn't even fantasised about knowing, would be that she would be on a tiny island a million miles from everywhere. The disadvantage was that if anybody else discovered she was there, disappearing a tiny island in the middle of a vast ocean is just a button press away. Small puff of smoke on horizon, end of her chance for revenge, or indeed anything else. For getting in to Hong Kong covertly, without even this Lo Pin being able to second guess her, she could only think of one option. The Sheikha Mustaffa had no legend they could break. She lived as a chatel prisoner in the Sheikh's harem in a backwards shithole oil kleptocracy with no public records at all, having supposedly been plucked from an illiterate mountain village nobody had ever heard of in Bangladesh at the age of eight. Crack that legend, Lo Pin! She scrolled her map around to the Middle East and zoomed in on the desert Emirate of Tajiristan...
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An hour later, she was ready to roll. She had extracted her stock emergency caches of clothing, equipment, cash and information from all of the furniture she had had delivered to the house, and had divided them into two piles, that which was coming with her, and that which she would incinerate to charcoal dust in Monsieur Montgolfier's fire pit before she left. She really hoped that the Comptessa's elaborate and difficult to establish legend wasn't burnt, beyond Lo Pin's obvious penetration of it, but if it was, she wanted to leave no trace of her ever having been here behind. She locked up the house again, threw dust sheets back over the furniture, reset the security system to give Monsieur Montgolfier access again, and then hobbled towards the lean-to garage attached to the side of the chateau, unlocked the big rusty padlock and swung the doors open. The garage was ostensibly empty apart from a few pieces of rusty obsolete garden machinery that hadn't apparently been used for half a century or more. There was one clear spot in the garage near the back, quite a long thin spot as it happens.
At least, it was clear until Shego pushed a button on the key-fob that was now hanging round her neck.
A... thing... shimmered into view. It was only here because she had needed somewhere off the grid to keep it. The bastard offspring of a high performance motorcycle and a monster truck, it owed as much to engineering and technological excellence as it did to the extraordinary power of creative and artistic grand larceny. The basic dynamically adjustable chassis and the active variable geometry suspension, along with the massively powerful twin digital electric hub drives, were all courtesy of Motor Ed, who apparently wanted into her green and black catsuit very very badly and had presented her with this motorcycle in an attempt to seal the deal. To be honest, he reaaallly wasn't her type. And she really wasn't that desperate at the time either. Also, the original Nickel Metal Hydride battery pack weighed as much as a small house, compromising the handling and performance severely, and required several days to recharge. Another obvious problem was that the machine was as ugly as sin and stood out like a very standy out thing indeed, which made any attempt at keeping a low profile moot. Nevertheless, it was a good basis for a spare time project. Over the years she had bolted various things onto it as she had acquired them. First to go had been the enormous battery pack, replaced by a much, much smaller and lighter pack made up of an industrial quantity of the incredible power cells that nerdlinger had designed for Kim Possible's walkie talkie thingy, and which she had personally liberated from the first sample quantity shipment which the firm he had licensed the technology to had tried to deliver. For an 80% reduction in battery weight, flat out endurance had now gone up from several hours to several weeks! Indeed she had had to commission Dr D to design and build her some special power control converters to stop the thing melting its traction motors the moment she opened the throttle. A lot of the riding dynamics control software she had re-written or upgraded herself. It had taken her many months and many missteps, bug fixes and a couple of big earth-sky-earth-sky moments but it was pretty good now across all terrain. She knew full well, and it was a source of some frustration to her, that if she'd been as dextrous with the ones and the zeros as little nerdlinger was himself, she'd have done a far better job than she actually had and finished it in about two hours, but then, unlike him, she actually had a life, so she couldn't feel too inadequate about it.   A lot of the bodywork was now radar disruptive, infra-red absorptive and high-velocity bullet-proof, and the active aerodynamics were based off research she had liberated from Middleton Space Centre. But the piece de resistance was the stealth cloaking device. Which she had pinched from Dr D when he wasn't looking. Using it reduced endurance by about 50%, ,which is why a non-descript extension lead snaked away to a power socket on the wall of the garage to keep the power cells topped up, and knocked about 10mph off of top speed, although she had found hanging on at the fully rated 260mph, not to mention avoiding traffic at that speed , to be something of a challenge anyway. But she had two choices now, if she wanted to get to her destination without doing something that would fly red flags all across the world and blow her secret wide open. One was to destroy all those months, years of work in the fire-pit behind the house, and then try to hitch-hike to the Arabian gulf in three days disguised as a hobo, the other was to ride 5,000 miles plus across innumerable international borders, for at least 14 hours a day at an overall average of 110mph or so, on motorways, back roads, goat tracks, a thousand miles of burning desert sand dunes, several mine fields and a number of unbridged rivers, on an invisible motorcycle that she had only ever built as a hobby toy anyway. All while feeling like she had been kicked in the tits by a mule and trampled by a herd of elephants for three weeks solid before she started.
Given the choice, it was a no brainer…
A few minutes later, Shego sat astride the now laden beast, having painfully forced her tortured body into one of her green and black armoured catsuits. The house was secured and sanitised behind her, as she pulled the full-face helmet over her head and plugged it in to the central control system. The head up display sprung into life as the gyros spun up, and she issued a few voice commands to test the command interface. "Auto-NVG mode on! Police Scanner On! Navicomp to track mode! Traffic Information Mode On! Stealth Mode Lock! Ambient Noise Cancelling On".
Various displays in her eyeline altered obediently to her commands. She had a 99.8% power reserve in the cells, enough to make this insane trip three times both ways even in stealth mode, even if once was probably more than she would want to do it herself in her current fragile state, and she was as ready as she could be. She reviewed her to do list. 'One - homework. Do some proper untraceable research on this Lo Pin character before I bed down for the night. Two - raw materials. Find a couple of kilos of high quality titanium alloy that nobody will miss for a week or two. Three… oh yeah… ride to the moon and back!'
"Terrain Response Mode Adaptive!" she said, talking to the beast. And then, to herself, with a wry grin, she added "It's 5,317 miles to Dasqba, I have full power cells, half a french loaf and I'm wearing an image intensifier helmet!". Then, to the bike, she said "Bring the noise!". A very loud death metal track filled her head, and she grinned evilly. Then, to herself again… "Hit it!". She gave the throttle a vicious twist, and the traction control warning flashed red at her as a huge wall of gravel spattered the wooden door behind her and the bike snaked under her towards the open gate. A second later, and with a chirp of tortured rubber as she slewed sideways into the lane, she was gone, only a pair of intersecting huge black stripes indicating that she had ever been there. The cloud of dust blew lazily across the beautifully manicured lawns, and vanished into the afternoon haze, and the wrought iron gates clanged shut behind her. And then there was only bird song as Le Chateau Nouvelle de Petis Remander returned to its peaceful slumber…
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A further 3 days earlier:
She awoke with a start. It was dark, the moon was high, and everything hurt. Jagged rocks and sharp sand dug into ruined and burnt flesh that screamed, locked muscles and strained tendons seared, joints ached. And she was very, very cold. Shivering uncontrollably, laying in a little alcove under the overhanging rock face in a contorted shape, facing the wall. She went to turn her head to look out to sea, and… ooh… that was a mistake! Her head swum, and her neck screamed blue murder, bringing her up short. She rolled her whole body over onto the other side in order to look out to sea and check that there were no vessels in the vicinity that might see her if she showed a light. And that was really a mistake! She actually had to cram her fist quickly into her mouth to stop herself screaming in agony as both the flesh released from contact with the ground, and the flesh that had just been introduced to the rocky foreshore, made known its displeasure. A tear ran down her cheek, and the world swam again. After a few moments she felt able to remove her fist and began mouthing the word "Fuck!" under her breath, repeatedly. But she was able to look out to sea, with the aid of intermittent lighthouse flashes, and determine that there was nothing out there as far as the eye could see. Which, given that she was borderline hypothermic as well as in agony, was quite a good thing. Her next challenge was to roll back again, without screaming out loud. She managed it. Just. And then she fired up her left hand, which seemed to be moving reasonably freely, unlike her right arm that had obviously spent the last several hours contorted under her body, and gave the rocks in her alcove at the bottom of the cliff a good long zap to heat them up. It worked. From shivering uncontrollably, she was now at least warm, the rocks radiating a comforting heat. As she revelled in the temperate microclimate of her rock alcove, of course she now realised that she was thirsty. Very thirsty indeed!
After a little while, she realised she could hear trickling water from further along the cliff. Ideally it would be a stream, but possibly it would be a storm drain or even a sewer. She didn't think at the moment she could afford to be choosy, she was obviously severely dehydrated…
It took her ten minutes to make it to hands and knees, with much muttered profanity and a great deal of pain. She decided that if she could get to the water without standing up, she would have a much better chance of not falling straight over again. Standing up sounded like a problem best approached when she was better hydrated, in any case. So she crawled along the cliff face painfully slowly until the water was trickling onto her back. And then she stopped, and painfully manoeuvred herself and her very painful right arm into a position where she could cup her hands and catch some of the precious liquid.
In due course she had a handful, and then she used her special ability to boil-sterilise it in her cupped hands. Then she drank what little was left. It tasted like nectar. It took her a while, but she eventually got enough water down herself that she felt slightly less acutely dehydrated. She was just starting to realise how starving hungry she was, when a turtle crawled out the surf fifty yards away and shuffled up the beach to lay eggs. She looked like a decent sized meal! And she came with a built in drinking bowl, water for the use of! The only question was, would Shego get to the turtle before the turtle made it back to the sea..?
It was close. Damned close. But Shego won, at the expense of much agony. Roast turtle tastes like chicken, and a turtle shell does indeed make a very handy water sterilisation vessel. Also useful as a wash bowl for getting rid of the worst of the stray turtle gore from her arms, chest and face.
Then, after eating and drinking her fill, back in her warm alcove, and mindful of leaving no trace, she dug a big hole in the sand with her left hand, and buried the wreckage of the unlucky sea turtle, before smoothing the sand over the top and giving it a quick blast to dry it.
'Right...', she thought, 'Now what?'.
She knew she was somewhere in the Cape Verde chain, and she knew she needed to stay dead. The nearer she was in time and space to that exploding plane, the more circumspect she would have to be about doing anything that might raise the slightest suspicion that she might have survived. Which meant getting off this island, and well away from this part of the world, preferably without stealing anything, and certainly without being seen. To be honest, right now, just getting off the beach was going to be a monstrous challenge!
She reckoned it was now a little after midnight, and that meant she still had a few hours of darkness on her side. The fact that she woke up in the same place she had crawled out of the sea meant that she had been lucky enough not to be found or spotted by a passer by. She couldn't have been that lucky for two whole days, so that meant it was still Tuesday night... or early Wednesday morning to be more accurate. There were a number of places she could theoretically head from here, but she knew that the moment she touched any resources associated with Shego, she'd be blown. If anybody so much as flushed the can in any one of her known or suspected homes, bolt holes or lairs any time in maybe the next month or so, there would be people with cheap suits and automatic weapons waiting outside the door of the shitter before they had finished washing their hands. And that's if they were really lucky. After a few weeks, though, the vultures would be circling and all those people who were shit scared of Shego while she was alive would have plucked up courage to start looting. Which might give Shego a chance to 'liberate' a few of her own more amusing toys, if she thought she needed them. Assuming she was still dead by then.
And not dead dead.
Still, for the foreseeable future at least it was therefore fortunate, and very prescient of her, that Shego had pre-positioned a hatful of deep-cover legends in different parts of the world to give her somewhere, or somebody, to drop off the grid into and lie low in a catastrophic emergency... well, just like this one.
Which one she ended up using depended very much on where she could get to from here without raising any red flags. And she needed to get moving if she was to have a chance of getting the hell out of Dodge before dawn broke.
She used the cliff face, and the power of creative vocal profanity, to slowly and agonisingly haul herself upright for the first time. Her right leg would barely support her, her left leg not at all, every inch of her skin burned and screamed at her and she had to work quite hard to stop herself vomiting her turtle copiously across the beach, as a wave of nausea struck her. Presently, the nausea receded and her vision cleared. She found she could move along the cliff face, using it as a support for her still almost useless left leg, as she painfully hobbled. The cold night air was on the one hand uncomfortably chilly, and on the other soothed her naked and tortured flesh. Clothes wouldn't be a priority just now, partly because stealing them would be a risk, partly because she was hoping not to be seen anyway, and partly because it would be just far too damned painful.
She spotted a piece of robust looking driftwood down by the tide line that looked like it could be fashioned into a workmanlike crutch. The only way down to it was to crawl, and when she made it, cursing and swearing all the way, it was rotten. However, the idea was sound, so she crawled along the tide line until she eventually came upon a large tree bough that looked perfect, even having a fork in it that could go into her armpit! A little brief plasma-fuelled carpentry later, and she was ready for an audition for the role of Long John Silver's long lost green cousin... and she succeeded (in hauling herself upright, slotting the makeshift crutch under her left arm and hobbling down the beach at an almost respectable pace at least, if not at saying 'Arrrrrgh, Jim Lad!')!
Despite the all consuming pain, and the terrific exertion, Shego grinned evilly to herself as she thought "I'm Baa-aaaaack!!".
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A further 10 years earlier:
It was dark in the club, smoky and incredibly loud, and the irregular bursts of staccato white strobe lighting leant a dangerous, edgy, violent ambience to the place. All of which is why she came here. Some black eye-shadow, black lipstick, a bit of white foundation and something with long sleeves so her arms didn't give her away and she fitted right in. Ripped jeans, clumpy boots, a 'Forever Metal' sweatshirt and a black leather motorcycle jacket were kind of a goth standard, and so was an... odd complexion, so she had a crowd to hide in for the first time in a while. Plus, she liked the mosh-pit, the energy and anarchy of the place. It was a perfect counterpoint to the 'day job', and head-banging the night away incognito was sometimes as good a way as any of dealing with the frustrations and disappointments it regularly inflicted on her.
But not today. Today had been too much. Today had seen her sitting in a Go Foundation trustees meeting while the trustees argued about her underwear. Specifically, which items of underwear The Foundation would fund and provide for her, and which items they would not. So, her detailed written requisitions for a dozen high-tech sports bras and the cotton-lycra briefs were approved, but only because they were black, or green. Other colours would have been rejected. As were the requests for anything with any lace on it, or indeed the two dozen thongs she had ordered, because they didn't meet fire-retardance standards for use 'on the job'. That was the way it now was. Want to go on a $2 million Advanced Fighter Air Combat Tactics school at the US Navy Top Gun academy? No problem, fill your boots, the Go foundation will pay. Want bus fare into town and a mosh pit ticket to see your favourite band at the local college? Not in the charter, go whistle...
She wondered how many other 16 year old girls had their underwear preferences picked over and second guessed by committees of disapproving senior lawyers and accountants? Not many she guessed. And not many of the few unfortunate 16 year old girls who were in that situation held the power in their hands to vapourise all of their tormentors round the table on a whim, she would bet. But of course she couldn't do that. Worse, apparently, according to Hego, whose fault all this was in the first place, she couldn't even lose her temper and tell them all to Go Fuck Themselves, because it would be bad for the image of Team Go. So she had come here tonight and would hard-drink the night away, on the dollar of the hoardes of young men who hung out in these places and fantasised about getting attractive young goth chicks drunk and then spending the night shagging with them like rabbits, in a futile effort to get even slightly buzzed, so that tomorrow she could go back to the Go Tower and do it all again another day, without killing everybody involved in the whole operation. If she found somebody she really, really lusted after, then she might just drag him back to her tiny rent-controlled slum cave and make his most warped fantasies come true - she loved the moment in the morning when they woke up in her bed in daylight and said something like "Oh my god, you're green!" (A quick wave of a flaming hand and a "Congratulations, lover-boy. You just fucked an under-age superhero, so keep your mouth shut about it forever or you'll be in jail getting raped in the showers for the next five years and then I'll be waiting for you when you eventually get out to kick your ass..." invariably dealt with any potential fall-out before it happened). But usually, it was just the drinking. And the moshing. Today, mostly the drinking.
The guy buying her her next drink tapped her on the arm and handed her the double vodka martini she had ordered. She had managed to make herself a selection of decent enough fake IDs but since she didn't have any money to speak of, they weren't much use beyond getting her in the door of places like this. She began to chug it back happily, and then stopped… yep! A roofie! Her palate was quite discerning these days, she could taste adulterants in drinks that 'normal' people couldn't - the curse of the comet had done something to her taste buds as much as the rest of her. Well, she'd enjoy the slight headache later - it would mean she at least felt something after a night of hard drinking, a rare enough situation to be sure. She turned to the guy who had brought her the drink, smiled at him and said "Thanks" in a winning fashion , before draining it in one hit. She appraised him critically. This was her third Rohypnol laced drink in this club, in the last year. But this guy didn't look like the previous two, He was a little older for a start, and he didn't look the type. Well, compared with the other two, anyway. He looked like he had a bit of money, for a start. And he didn't look like an obvious sleaze bag. His future was presumably going to be similar though. Now he was smiling warmly. In about half an hour when she pretended to be out of it, he would be leading her outside and guiding her into the alleyway behind the warehouse that this club ran from. And then he would be waking up with a face like the elephant man after a bad car crash with no seat belt on, looking very closely at his own teeth, laying in a puddle of his blood and snot, on the inside bottom of the dumpster in that alleyway, and wondering why nobody had told him how much a pair of irreparably ruptured testicles would hurt before he decided to turn rapist. But for now, he looked very pleased with himself.
In due course, she started to sway as convincingly as she could, and true to form, he led her outside. But then the playbook changed slightly. He put his arm up at the kerb and a very expensive SUV parked up further down the road came to life and drove up to meet them. She was gently persuaded into the back seat, and the man climbed in along side her from the other side. "You got one then?", asked the driver, whose eyes Shego could see in the mirror. From where she was sitting, slumped up against the door, she could see an expensive golf shirt and slacks. "No problemo, Phil. And she definitely likes a drink as well, she's been knocking them back hard!", said the man who had just 'kidnapped' her. "Excellent. Well done Harry!" said the driver. 'Intriguing!' thought Shego. 'Oh well, let's see where this is going…'.
The SUV sped through Go City from expensive suburb to expensive suburb, stopping to pick up three more well dressed, well heeled young men. They all greeted 'Phil' like an old friend. None of them paid her any heed, but by now she was jammed up against the door, as there were four of them crammed onto the leather bench seat in the back of the SUV.
'This is going to be a hell of a lot of fun', thought Shego.
The SUV made a final stop, and this time the driver wound down the window next to two young men, one of whom said "Hi Phil, I've brought a friend along!". "Dave…", said Phil in an admonishing tone. "It''s OK, he's a sound guy, I vouch for him!" said Dave quickly. "What have you told him, Dave?" asked Phil. "Nothing. Nothing at all. Except that I know where there's a great party with hot chicks who are guaranteed to put out! He was all over it!".
"What did I say Dave?" asked Phil, again.
"It's on me, Phil. Seriously. He's rock solid, I promise!".
Phil sighed. "OK, but it really is on you. Understand? Who is he?"
"Name is Peter. Pete. He works on the same trading floor I do", said Dave. Then he called Pete over and introduced him.
"Pleased to meet you, Pete. I'm Phil. We're a bit full I'm afraid, you'll have to hop in the back with Dave…", said the driver. Presently the two final passengers hopped over the tailgate and parked themselves on the little dicky seats in the back of the SUV and they were off again.
Some time later, the car pulled off the road out of town and into the driveway of a McMansion, up the winding driveway and into a car port next to a very nice Porsche 911 Targa Fiorio. Everybody hopped out, and Harry gently led her out of the door on her side and propelled her in the direction the others were taking, down the driveway to what had obviously once been a double garage, before somebody had bricked up the frontage. A steel door with a padlocked bolt was apparently the only entrance, and Phil unlocked it, sliding the bolt back and opening the door, before flicking a switch just inside. Strip lights flickered into life, as Shego was gently ushered inside and towards a double bed that sat at the far end of the carpeted former garage. From the look of the interior, the walls had a goodly layer of sound insulation on them; perhaps this garage had originally been converted into a band rehearsal studio in a past life? Phil closed the thick steel door, slid a heavy bolt matching the one on the outside into place, padlocked it closed and pocketed the key.
Shego was left alone, sitting apparently spaced out on the rather unhygienic feeling bed as Phil gathered the assembled would-be gang rapists together in the centre of the room, round a concrete pillar that contained a small but, Shego noted, very expensive high quality safe.
"Right, gentlemen, welcome to tonight's little soiree. As you can see, Harry has procured us tonight's entertainment. But because we have ourselves a new party guest tonight, I'm going to have to go through the rules again, just for form's sake. Firstly, there's a $400 cover charge. Cash only…". He held his hand out. There was a rustling of expensive snakeskin wallets and paper money as Phil collected from everybody. There was also a whispered conversation between Dave and Pete, obviously of a 'Don't embarrass me in front of my friends' nature, before Pete reluctantly opened his own Armani billfold and dispensed four crisp $100 bills into Phil's hand.
As he was twirling the combination lock on his safe, shielding the numbers with his body, Phil continued "OK, Rule 2. Nobody marks the girl, and nobody damages her clothes… well… ", he said… then added, glancing at Shego and her thrift-shop reject wardrobe, who was wandering in as apparently aimless a fashion as she could muster towards the heavily padlocked door, "damages them more than they already are damaged. When we have finished tonight we'll put her back where we found her, and she'll have no idea that any of this even happened."
At this point, Pete piped up to say "Wait a minute… isn't that rape?"
"Dave, have a word with Pete for me! Remember, you brought him along! Pete, if she can't remember what happened, or even if anything happened, where she has been or who she was with, then no harm, and no foul. Tomorrow, she'll just think she got drunk and had a good night she can't quite remember! Nobody has ever complained!"
'Hmmm…', thought Shego. This was clearly a regular event for these scumbags. Well… apart from Pete. Who was about to become one of them, but hadn't quite yet. At the time she was ostentatiously rattling the padlock with one hand, while very subtly spot-welding the bolt into place with the other, shielding the momentary green flash from Phil and the gang with her body, not that they were paying her any attention. Nobody was getting out of here tonight until she released them…
As she weaved in her best glassy eyed fashion back towards the double bed, Shego saw Phil holding aloft a bag of Cocaine… "Party favours. For later. Cash bar, gentlemen. There's some 'E ' in there as well, and some viagra in case any of you run out of steam later!"
There was a titter around the group. From all except Pete who was looking very uncomfortable. Peering into the open safe, Shego could see a very large pile of $100 bills, to which Phil was now adding, assorted recreational pharmaceuticals, a big bottle of what she assumed was Rohypnol, a tube of lube, a party sized box of condoms, a Rolex Oyster, an instamatic camera and a set of Porsche keys. Then Phil slammed the safe shut and span the combination lock.
"Right… according to tradition, Harry brought the girl along, he gets first go! Over to you Harry!".
By now Shego had made it back to the bed and slumped down on the edge of it. The remainder of the rapists arranged themselves in a leering semi-circle around the room - all except Pete who went and stood in the corner and cringed. She knew that if the evening proceeded as planned, by the end of it he'd be in as deep as his friends, since just by being here he was as guilty as sin, and peer pressure can be a terrible thing, plus when the cocaine flows, inhibitions shrink. But for now he was clearly an unhappy camper.
Harry approached her, smirking, and took care to position himself so that the rest of the crowd had a good view of what was about to happen. "What is your name, young lady?", he asked pleasantly enough. "Suki…", said Shego, extemporising on the spot. "Well Suki…", he said, unzipping his fly and extracting his already erect cock from his expensive Calvin Kleine's, "I need you to kneel in front of me… ", and then he added "Now!", firmly.
Shego complied.
"And now, I need you to suck my cock, Suki!"
Shego lazily reached her hand up to his erect member , while looking vacantly at his midriff. She ran her hand gently up the shaft until it slipped around his balls, cupping them. Then she lent forward towards him, as he looked around at his co-conspirators with a silly triumphant grin on his face. Then she suddenly gripped his nuts. Not that hard, but hard enough to get his attention back. And she looked up into his eyes and said, very sweetly "Guess again, shithead!". And she squeezed with all of her might, and twisted with all of her comet enhanced strength…
******************************************************************************
It hadn't really been a fight. More an entertaining work out and a study in the therapeutic nature of extreme martial violence and loud abusive swearing. One of them, Dave, who had so nearly co-opted his friend Pete into a gang-rape, had obviously watched 'Enter the Dragon' or played a lot of Tekken or something because after seeing two of his friends bounced off the walls he had adopted a hokey Bruce Lee stance and shouted "Stay Back, my hands are lethal weapons!".
Apparently they weren't. Although Shego deliciously enjoyed picking up one of the house bricks the double bed was propped up on, one-inch punching it into a cloud of brick dust and rubble with her other hand, dusting them off theatrically, thumbing her nose in classic 'Bruce' style and then giving hands-of-death guy the full 'Neo from the Matrix' come-on.
He went wall, ceiling, wall, other wall, ceiling, ceiling, floor.
She'd made sure to let Phil, who she had left to roam free until last, undo the padlock and spend a good twenty minutes failing to pull the bolt back and get the door open as she kicked the rest of her would-be rapists round the converted garage for fun before she'd dragged him away from it by his collar, ducked the ridiculous punch he had tried to throw at her with hands bloodied and torn from frantically scrabbling at his own steel door, and then scissor kicked him into the air venomously. As he lay on the floor in a crumpled heap after bouncing off the same steel door, she had dragged him upright, slammed him back into the wall as hard as she could repeatedly while working out as much of the remaining anger she was harbouring at him, the Go Foundation, Hego and her life in general. The thick sound insulation provided some cushioning for each hammer blow, but eventually he lost consciousness and she realised that further verbal abuse or violence were probably pointless. She dropped him in disgust, dragged him to the middle of the room where the others lay by one expensively shod leg, and began binding them all hand and foot with anything that was handy. They weren't going anywhere. Actually, broken bones probably limited escape options for several of them anyway. They were all concussed and out cold at present, and none of them had seen her use her plasma powers when they were in a position to do so, so as far as they were concerned she was still Suki, the kung fu ninja bad choice of rape party guest, but as she went down the line of bound ivy-leaguers and wannabes, alternately zapping them on the forehead and then zapping their bindings just enough to obliterate any fingerprints she might have left, a strangled gargle of "Shego!" emanated from the corner of the room, where Pete had been sitting clasped in the foetal position thoughout, completely ignored by the lady in question. Although now that he called her name out, and once she had finished the little clean-up job, she turned her attention to him and said… "Pete…. Pete… what am I going to do with you. You know who I am! Give me your wallet…".
Terrified, he held it out in trembling hand. She snatched it and rifled through it, memorising his name, address and social security number and several other key details,. Then she tossed it back to him.
"Peter Jordan." she said simply. "So, Pete, have you ever been in trouble with the police before?", she asked. "N-No", he said, cringing. "Not even as a Juvenile? Never had a DNA sample taken?". "No!", he said. "Oh well… it may be your lucky day then! Your DNA is all over this place. That and your prints. It will be on file associated with the crime of rape and conspiracy to rape amongst others for at least as long as the statute of limitations lasts, maybe longer. And that is a lot of years in the big house, Pete. With a lot of very nasty people who like sweet rich kids like you a lot! But if you've never been arrested before, and if you make sure to live the rest of your life like a regular saint among boy-scouts, then you may… just may... stay out of jail. So, no unpaid tickets, ever, no domestic violence, no drunk and disorderly, no DUI, no nose candy, no little light Forex fraud on the side… and you could dodge a massive bullet here. Capiche?".
He nodded, looking massively relieved.
"Of course, if you out me for being here, then I may have to reciprocate. So we won't be saying anything to anybody, will we. So, I was never here. You were never here. I may have to have another conversation with the non-friend over there who dragged you down here later to make him agree to that, in case he was thinking of ratting you out, but rest assured the end result should be that the only people who might put you in jail for this will be yourself … or me!"
Pete nodded, desperately.
"So, we may never speak again after today, but on the other hand, one day I might need a favour or several in return. I assume that the really huge favour you owe me for letting you walk away today will still be good?"
Pete nodded again.
"Excellent. Well… you just sit tight there and when I'm done I'll let you out."
She wandered over to the safe. She'd seen a camera in there, and there might be pictures of some of the other victims. She could plasma-cut the safe open, but bang would go any chance of sliding away incognito, so she flexed her fingers until her knuckles cracked, told Pete to hold his breath, stuck a comet-enhanced ear up to the safe door, and worked the combination lock with the expert touch of a pro. 'The benefits of an expensive private education', she smirked to herself.
With a flourish, she opened the door, and peered inside. Yes indeed, there was a stack of polaroids at the back. She only glanced at the top three, but they showed a trio of anonymous random victims being abused. Neither of the pictures she saw showed the woman's tormentors faces, but there were enough identifying marks on the body parts that were shown to nail them, assuming they were in this room. Although right now some of them weren't in quite as good a shape they had been when the pictures were taken. Shego hoped the victims could be identified and find justice. If this stack contained one picture per victim then this gang had raped many tens of women over time, so shutting them down was quite a result.
Rather than put the photos back in the safe, Shego tossed them round the room like confetti, having first removed her prints from them. She was pretty sure that the police would look inside the safe, given the situation, but she didn't want anybody being able to use expensive lawyers to get the search ruled illegal, and spreading the photos round the room meant that the expensive legal argument could never happen. Then she turned back to the other contents. The Rolex appeared on one of the pictures she had seen, presumably on Phil's wrist, so it was important evidence, but the cash money? That would sure buy a lot down at Victoria's Secret. It might also mean she could make rent on her apartment this month. Losing her bolt hole would be a body blow. And she really couldn't see any reason why Phil should be allowed to keep it, knowing as she did how he had come by it. She had a think for a few seconds, and then gathered up what amounted to be $11,400, rolled it up and pocketed it. As she was doing it, she winked at Pete, who was looking at her in amazement. "Bus fare!" she said, with false bravado. Something told her she was crossing a rubicon, but it didn't actually feel like a bad thing to do.
With one hand, she de-printed the door of the safe, as she had a final peer inside. At the last moment, she reached in and snagged the Porsche keys. 'In for a penny, in for a pound!' she thought. Her 'Governess' had once introduced her to some guys who ran a very civilised chop-shop a little further out of town. They had taught her everything she now knew about internal combustion engines and transmission systems. It had been a couple of years, but she bet they were still there! A Porsche owned by a scumbag would be a nice present for them. Actually, the SUV would probably be good as well. They might give her a few bucks as a finders fee!
She went along the line of unconscious rapists and liberated another $2,000 or so from their wallets, until finally she came up with the SUV keys. Then, after another quick sweep of the room to make sure she hadn't left any of her own fingerprints about (they iridesced with a slightly green hue if hit with an extremely low intensity burst of plasma, which of course Shego's comet enhanced eyes enabled her to spot), she carefully removed all traces of her earlier spot weld, grabbed the padlock and key, threw back the bolt and said "Come on!" to Pete. He needed no second invitation, and scampered out the door. "Woah boy!", said Shego, as she padlocked the door from the outside, and threw the key as far as she could into the bushes. Then she tossed him the keys to the SUV and said 'First favour. Follow me. Don't break any traffic laws!". And then she headed for the car-port...
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Enter the Naked Mole Rat