Disclaimer: No, I do not own Kim Possible. On that note, I'm delighted by the 4th season, which has thus far been some quality episodes. Hey Disney, how about some DVD sets with juicy extra features (commentary tracks would be totally badical!). I do not own Shadowrun either. However, 4th Edition SR kicks a lot of ass. So if you like Urban Fantasy and Cyberpunk, I recommend getting a copy of the core book, some friends, and a big block of d6's. If you build your character right, you're gonna need 'em! Anyway, on with the show...

--

Kim Possible in:

Born to Shadowrun

Chapter 1: The Best Laid Plans of Hackers and Runners...

Date: October 26th, 2069

Location: Cryo-Dawn Stasis Facility, Treaty City of Denver, an Extraterritorial Holding of Renraku

Most 'Runner teams preferred to have a few more people 'on site' than two. Most preferred to a have their hacker on site these days too, but UpLoad liked the more classic feel of diving into the Matrix from half a continent away. Then again, most hackers weren't nearly as good as UpLoad either. Most teams didn't like to work outside of their home turf either, but this was a special case.

One of the two 'Runners crouched in the shadows, the lithe feminine figure further obscured by the stealth suit she wore. She looked impatient though, as she fidgeted with some of her mission gear, and tapped the commlink on her waist, checking something through her AR. Her green eyes flashed with annoyance, and she tucked an irritating strand of red hair back under her hood as she continued to wait for word from her teammates.

Four distinct tones sounded in her ear, and she rolled her eyes to the right. "Go, UpLoad," she subvocalized. As she looked into the upper right corner of her view, the AR feed from UpLoad appeared, as well as a chat box for her on site companion. UpLoad's Living Persona looked like a black man in his early twenties composed of writhing data and wires. As her eyes scrolled past the various windows floating in her vision, she double-checked the ammo count of her Ares Predator, the heavy handgun she favored, simply out of habit.

"I have the security blinded from this end, but you two need to move fast. I'm getting some weird Matrix traffic," the avatar said.

"OK, UpLoad," scrolled across the other text box. She still didn't understand why he was happy with the stock ninja icon, but that's what he kept going with. "I have the way in and out all figured out. I'm uploading the route I took in now; you getting the data feed 'Zorro Azùl?'"

She hated that handle. Take one stupid online personality quiz, and all of a sudden your Streetname is decided for you. She was, however, getting in the data feed for the route. "All over that o' 'Simian Warrior of the Night,'" she responded.

"First off, not my handle, you know it's Simian Nocturnus; second, still hate monkeys," came over the text window right before it went passive.

"Oh, Simmy, don't be like that," she sent back.

"Come on guys, head in the game," UpLoad sent to both before his window went back to passive as well.

"Right, head in the game." She looked up and saw the vent indicated by the map sent to her. "Now the fun part," she said softly, as she pulled down the green tinted goggles and put on her gas mask, effectively obscuring the rest of her features.

Easing up to the vent Azùl carefully removed the grate, confident that the security was down. After carefully closing the grate behind her, she shimmied up to the drop off that the map indicated. She was delighted to see that it was a straight drop down nearly five stories to the underground portions of the complex where the Payday waited. "Wiz," she said aloud. She braced herself, then did a handstand to tumble into the vents open top, and dropped into the void.

The world slowed around her as she dropped for a little over seven meters, enjoying the rush of adrenaline as she plummeted. After a few heady moments, she twisted impossibly quick to grab the lip of one of the vents branching off the central shaft. Her augmented muscles and tendons strained before soaking the stress.

She wasn't there for more than the moment it took to break her inertia before she kicked off yet again, the white noise generators in her suit smoothing out what little sound she made. As she plunged back into the shaft she performed a tight somersault midair, spinning backwards as she fell. With a soft grunt, muffled by her infiltration gear, she landed a half floor further down where her feet silently touched on the lip of another branch in the vent system. She bent her knees to cushion a bit more of the impact and then rolled backwards, falling carelessly into the void again.

Everything was crisper. Sound, sight, smell, touch, all of it. She loved this feeling, this rush. She was worried that this run would be a bit too much of a cake walk, but, sure enough, she found a way to stay engaged. She almost giggled as she bounced off the wall of the tunnel a few more meters down, her feet coming into contact with the walls, long enough to slow her decent, before she dived forward once again.

"God, this is almost as good as sex," she thought. She was thinking how long it had been since she'd had that little thrill and silently resolved to call that artsy pretty-boy Elf she'd met over the weekend. She wondered if she could get away with it right now, she did have a clean Matrix feed. This line of thought lasted for a few more ricochets, before she finally decided against it. UpLoad would get pissed.

She continued to toy with the idea, wondering if she could get the signal past her Matrix back-up. As she reached out and grabbed the lip of the nearest vent, twisting herself at what should have been an impossible angle, and coming to a complete stop. She saw that the bottom vent was open, just like the map had indicated, dropping into a deserted section of hallway. She tumbled to the ground, rolling into a shooting stance, her heavy handgun coming smoothly into a confident two handed firing position.

She froze for a moment, looking carefully up and down the long corridor she'd landed in. Just as she was standing, a voice behind her said, "Make enough noise on the way down?"

"What? You're kidding, right? I was a damn thief in the night on that descent," she said, spinning to address her partner in crime. Simmy was about as tall as she was, and of average build. He was dressed head to foot in a stealth suit of his own, his had an integrated full face mask and considerably more bells and whistles. Small pouches covered the suit's surface, and there were odd looking discolored spots regularly spaced along the shoulders and arms. She knew that other, more subtle enhancements were integrated into the suit as well.

He just shook his head, "Whatever you say, Azùl."

"Sheesh, you get a little ninja training..." she muttered. She glared at him for a second, and could see through the lenses of his goggles that it was being returned. However, it didn't last long, as she felt a grin start to spread across her face at the same time she saw his eyes light up with his own smile.

"Right then, time to roll," Simmy said. He reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a small mechanical object. It looked like an overgrown tech-infused insect with tool-like mandibles. It rested for a moment in his hand before it seemed to shake itself out. Its large insect eyes lit up with a soft blue glow, and with a low frequency buzz it lifted off his palm. It hovered around for a moment, like it was listening to something, before shuddered happily, and zipping off down the corridor. "Scout's away."

"That thing is so freaky sometimes," Azùl said, trying to suppress a shudder.

"Yeah, but that doesn't make it any less a part of the family." Before Simmy could say any more he stopped, and cocked his head to the side. "Ok, it's clear."

Azùl followed a moment after him, her heavy pistol held low and ready. Despite how odd the little drone looked, it was not only ridiculously useful, it was a part of the family. She trusted the strangely intelligent drone that was more a friend than a thing without a second thought.

The two ghosted down the labyrinth of corridors, having to duck around corners from time to time in order to avoid security guards patrolling the area. Finally, after far too much walking (in her opinion), they came to one of the older parts of the facility. She eased next to the door, feeling painfully exposed, as Simmy plugged a decoding device into the door's lock.

"Figures. Renraku must have updated this when they moved in. It's gonna take a few seconds more than I thought," he said quietly.

"Well, hurry. I think I hear another security sweep coming," she hissed back. As if to emphasize the point, the insect drone suddenly returned, bobbing excitedly in the air, and indicated the direction that the guards were coming from with one of its insectoid legs

"OK, there," he said excitedly as the door smoothly opened and the three rushed in. It closed behind them just as smoothly.

"Wiz," Azùl sighed.

There were a half-dozen monitors that were probably set up to display the status of the various freezers in the halls branching from the room. Several carts for moving the tubes around tucked into a corner. An old style cyberterminal finished off the rooms sparse décor.

She brushed a gloved finger over one of the deactivated monitors, grimacing at the inch or so of dust that followed it up. "Well, at least they changed the locks. UpLoad, you sure we're in the right place?"

UpLoad's Persona appeared in her AR, and seemed to look around the room, actually picking up sensory signals from the two 'Runner's gear and the drone's sensor suite.

"You should be. Check the tubes down the corridor to the left," UpLoad said. "I need to check something else out." The image of UpLoad disappeared from her AR as quickly as it appeared.

"I hate when he does that," she mumbled and started down the hallway full of stasis tubes he'd indicated.

--

As the AR projection of UpLoad faded from view, the Simmy looked at the drone hovering in the air around him. "Keep an eye on the door, little guy," he said.

The drone spun and looked him in the eye before snapping to attention. "You got it," whispered through the AR pick-ups in his ear.

"Thanks, buddy," Simmy said, as the drone began to circle the room, scanning everything around him.

He headed down the hallway UpLoad had told them to try first, deciding to start on the far end and work his way back. Simmy was glad there'd only been a few of these storage 'pods' in this facility. Most of the ones in this wing were desperate people with money trying to escape VITAS; a horrifying thought if the containment measures on these tubes were breached. But even then, he was surprised by how many tubes were empty. He reminded himself that even today the procedure still wasn't cheap. Then again, with a combination of the right magic and bioware, most things that were treatable were curable. Of course, not everything was curable, even under the double guns of science and thaumaturgy. And sometimes a person just wanted to escape from whatever it was for a few decades, which was probably why Renraku bought out this facility and others like it. Then again, maybe they just wanted some additional influence in Denver. Corps had paid more for less, he supposed.

He got to the end of the row, and slowly walked back, checking serial numbers and name plates for each active tube. There were about thirty down this hallway alone, and even if only about half of them were currently occupied, it was still slow going brushing the decades of frost accumulation. Just as he was beginning to wonder if UpLoad's information had been accurate, he found that it was.

"Holy shit, they are here."

"You, you found them?" a startled voice asked from a few meters away.

"I think I did. I did, this is them... we found them! Quick, get those carts from the main room!"

"On it!" she all but yelled as she ran down the hall to retrieve one the transit carts.

He tapped a few keys on his commlink's wrist-mounted interface and contacted UpLoad. "We found 'em, UpLoad!" he subvocalized.

"Good! Load that skill soft I gave you before you left, it'll let you link the stasis tube to the transit cart," UpLoad said.

"Right, right," he said, as he took a chip out of one of the pockets on his suit. He double-checked the connection on the skill soft, pushed aside the bit of fabric covering his data jack, and slotted it in. He shuddered as the skill soft loaded into the muscle and skill wires implanted across his body.

"I'll grab the other cart," Azùl said as she left the first cart next to him. He carefully moved the cart into position as he felt the complex simsense take hold. With one last twitch he relaxed into the software that would guide his body through the process of transferring the stasis tube from the place where it had rested for decades to one of the cart's they'd be using to steal them and their contents. He hoped nothing would go wrong during the process.

The skill soft gave his body the information it needed to do the task, but it was a cheat; he didn't understand what was going on as his hands did task after task. It was like he was watching someone else do it entirely. Still, it was better than being talked through the process or AR guided. This was much faster, and all things considered, more reliable.

Simmy grinned as the light above the module changed from green to amber just as the light on the cart did the same. He stepped back as the mechanisms in the cart and the wall unit took over. With a mechanical screech that he hoped wouldn't bring any guards or technicians running, the first cryotube lifted free from its alcove, and was gently placed in the bed on the cart. The light above the bay went blue, and began to blink as the light on the cart went to green.

As the other cart was positioned and he saw Azùl begin the same mechanical motions of the chipped procedure, the light in the wall unit went back to green. UpLoad was at work behind the scenes, just the way the hacker liked it. With another scream of rusted metal, the second tube was transferred to the other waiting cart. As he pulled the cryotube down the hallway towards the door, he noticed that the other wall light also went back to green.

"We're so wiz," Azùl said. He could almost hear the confident grin in her voice.

"Damn straight. Now let's get the hell out of here." He tapped his wrist pad again, and subvocalized, "UpLoad, we're ready on this end. Ten minutes to exit."

"Make it quick guys, we just had a spike in Matrix traffic, and I don't... shit, get out quick. Someone else is here for them, and they're killing my acc..." UpLoad's avatar abruptly vanished.

"Shit," he said.

"So, Run's hosed?" Azùl asked.

"Seems that way," Simmy said as he put a submachine gun on top of the cryotube he was moving.

"Run's hosed," Azùl said.

--

She drew her gun with one hand as she got ready for the drone to cycle the door open for them and begin their rush to the elevator that had been rendered 'out of order' a half hour ago by UpLoad. It led from the sublevel they were on directly to the loading dock where their ride would soon be. The drone opened the door and she followed her fellow 'Runner and life long best friend through the door.

The AR displays in her goggles sprang to life, presenting a detailed mini-map of the floor with their current location and the elevator they were moving towards. It had also been set to log into the rest of the security system and show the PANs of the guards and staff that were supposed to be on the floor. It wasn't showing any other signals.

"Not good, not good. This is kilometers of bad road..." came over the radio link.

"Head in the game, let's just move," she subvocalized to him.

"Shit! The other bank of elevators just opened, but I'm not picking up any PANs coming out of it," he said as they along there escape route.

"Send Bug Eyes to check it out," she hissed back.

"Oh, right. Hey, buddy, mind giving it a look?"

The drone buzzed happily and then took off down the hallway towards the other bank of elevators.

"If there are people there, they'll see us as we cross the main hallway. Unless we take the long way around, that is," he said as he pushed his cart down the hallway.

"No way. We stick to the plan. Our ride is going to be expecting us, and if we're late, it's just going to make everything worse," she said.

"Right, right, getting out with the Payday, sometimes I forget."

They traveled in silence for about a minute, when all of a sudden a video feed appeared in the corner of her view. It was a drone-eye view of one of the other hallways.

At first, it was just an empty hallway, but then around a corner came a single man in a trench coat, a shotgun held in his hands. He had wrap-around sunglasses obscuring his eyes, and a grim expression painted the rest of his face. Moments later came two others in similar garb, each holding submachine guns, one carrying himself with the lanky grace of an elf, the other sporting stubby Ork tusks and a powerful build. The fourth around the corner was a hulking brute, nearly eight feet tall, her face obscured by a mask, but hanging from the feminine forms robes was an assortment of mystical talismans.

"Shit, they got a mage." She was startled to hear her own voice out loud.

"And she's a troll. Run!" he replied as he took his own advice, pushing the cart faster down the hallway. She put her back into the task as well, rushing after him as best she could, burdened by the cart unwieldy mass.

The drone seemed to have escaped the attention of the other team and continued to track them down the hallway, careful to remain between the two Runner teams.

That is, until the elf suddenly looked right at it. His face broke into a sneer and the drone's video feed abruptly went fuzzy, as the elf tried to hack its programming. She smiled as she thought of the surprise the elf had in store if he did manage to get past the little drones firewalls. The grin was short lived as they went through the large central area of the level where the two elevator hallways joined. The sound of gunfire chased the drone as it spun into the empty space and made a tight turn toward the hallway they were escaping down. A few bullets ricocheted into the room but hit nothing.

Azùl was halfway through the room, about four meters behind Simmy, when the other team came into view. They seemed to quickly realize that maybe something was wrong with the two people moving cryotubes in what could only be Runner gear. The bark of weapon fire that followed was thus no surprise. She winced as she caught part of a shotgun blast with her leg. The suit's light armor and her dermal plating stopped most of the force of the impact, but it still hurt like a bitch.

"Want to play rough, huh?" The world slowed as her synaptic accelerators kicked in. With insane ease, she pulled one of the flash bangs off her belt and hurled it down the hallway. Before it could even hit the ground and detonate, her Ares Predator was in hand, and she'd squeezed off two rounds of armor piercing bullets at her attackers. She smiled as the rounds made contact with the elf and the man with the shotgun. She resumed her hasty push down the hallway right as the flash bang detonated.

She hurried down the hallway, quickly catching up with Simmy as they came to the elevator. She saw him disconnect a few wires that had momentarily connected his commlink to the elevator as the door opened with a happy chime. They nodded to each other as she dropped the half spent clip into her hand and loaded a fresh one. She turned to look down the hallway they'd just traversed, weapon leveled while the tubes were loaded. She didn't have long to wait.

The wall surged out, seeming to explode into the hallway. However, instead of a deafening explosion, it was a furious roar. The gout of wall formed into a hulking nine-foot tall figure composed of plascrete, stone, metal tubes, and clusters of wire. While the form was vaguely humanoid, having arms, legs, a torso, and what could be taken as a head with glowing green eyes; its resemblance was a rough one. Its arms ended not in hands and fingers but in fist-like balls of plascrete and rebar. What it might have had for feet was irrelevant, as its legs were merged into the ground, and the elemental simply flowed along the floor. It cared little for walls, flowing in and out of them like water, its composition changing subtly every time.

"Shit, shit, shit!" She unloaded round after round into the elemental as it lumbered down the hallway, far too fast for anything of that size. She felt the gun empty, and with a curse threw it into the open elevator. Impossibly quick, she pulled the three frag grenades she'd decided to bring. At Simmy's puzzled look, she muttered, "Hey, better safe than sorry," before hurling them down the hall at the elemental in rapid succession.

The three bits of explosive death arced down the hall, landing right at the elemental's feet. It didn't even slow down to look at the small explosive devices that had landed so elegantly at its feet. The surprised look on its face when they detonated, consuming its lower half in a vortex of shrapnel, was made all the sweeter because of it. With a gravely groan, it fell heavily to one knee. The other had been consumed by the explosive force, made that much more potent by the close confines of the hallway. Azùl was about to cheer, when she realized that the missing leg, was reforming as it stood, drawing substance from the surrounding wall. She had maybe slowed it for a moment, but probably hadn't truly hurt it.

"Got 'em in, let's get the hell out of here!"

She didn't need to be told twice. As the Ork rounded the corner and opened fire with his submachine gun, she performed a series of back flips, easily dodging the random shots. She landed in the elevator car and picked up the sub-machine gun lying on Simmy's tube. She turned, opening fire down the hallway. She hoped that the swarm of explosive rounds being fired blindly down the hall would prevent more bullets coming in their direction.

She watched as the elemental resumed its charge. It continued its alien gliding run down the hallway towards them, murder in its glowing eyes. Luckily for them, it was still about ten meters off when the elevator doors closed with an unconcerned chime. With a shudder, the car began to rise.

"I hate mages," she said, as she handed the spent SMG to Simmy.

"Tell me about it." He paused for a second to look down at the two tubes. "Think they were after these two?"

She thought about it for a second while he reloaded his weapon. "UpLoad thought so. It wouldn't surprise me I guess."

They waited in silence as the elevator continued its rapid journey upwards. Finally, with yet another satisfied chime, the doors opened onto the loading bay, where a startled black man in his twenties was walking towards the delivery truck backed up to one of the bays. Two guns focused on him.

"Damn it guys, you're a hundred and thirty seven seconds early," he mumbled.

"Sorry, Network," they both said as they lowered their guns.

"Jinx, you owe me a beer!" she said triumphantly.

"Damn it, every time!"

"Come on, let's get the these two loaded. I lost my connection to UpLoad a few minutes ago, and I could swear I heard gunfire from downstairs."

There was a horrible shuddering from the elevator shaft, and the sound of the elemental's roar.

"OK, do I even want to know what that is?" Network said, nodding at the elevator doors.

"How do you feel about elementals?" she responded as they pushed the carts towards the back of the modified delivery van.

"Not a big fan," Network said.

"Well then, we should get a move on," she responded.

Network ran to the front of the van, cursing along the way that it lacked a rigger interface. She and Simmy wheeled their cargo into the back of the van, linking them to the tanks of pressurized gases in the back that would keep the tubes at stasis temperatures until they were able to get back to Seattle.

As she pulled the vans cargo doors shut, she saw the loading dock's elevator doors burst open and the elemental flowed out. She grinned as she closed the truck's door. Hopefully it wouldn't be bright enough to chase after the vehicle that was so calmly leaving.

--

They had gotten to the loading dock moments after the summoned spirit, and had only caught the tail lights of what looked like a delivery van leaving Renraku property. The man with the shotgun grimaced.

He tapped the commlink at his waist and after a few moments spoke aloud. "Sorry, sir, mission is unsuccessful." He listened for a moment before he replied. "No sir, another team got the tubes first and escaped with them. Some bad timing on our part, Mr. Johnson." He fell silent for another few moments. "No, sir, no clear description. They did have a funny little drone with them, but apart from that..." Another pause before, "Of course not, sir. We'll return the deposit, of course." A startled look washed over his face as he listened again. "Well, thank you, sir. We appreciate it. We'll be more than happy to. I'll report in when we're done." He turned to the rest of his team.

"What does Mr. Johnson want?" the troll mage asked.

"Mr. Johnson said he expected something like this to happen. We can also keep the down payment if we can take care of another little problem."

"What is it?" the Ork asked.

"Nothing we haven't done before."

--

Azùl turned back to Simmy and the two tubes. She pulled down the hood and pulled of the gas mask and goggles. After a short shake, she ran her hands through her shoulder length red hair, pushing a few stray strands out of her eyes.

Her companion pushed back his own hood after removing his face coverings. The long red hair tucked down the back of the suit was quickly tied into a tight tail. His blue eyes met her green ones, and they both turned to look at the two stasis tubes.

"So, Sis, that's them, huh?" he said, as he rubbed the window of the tube labeled 'Ronald D. Stoppable' free of frost, revealing the blond-haired young man within. A slightly shocked, almost silly, expression was frozen into his features.

"I think it is," she said. She rubbed away the frost on the tube labeled 'Kimberly A. Possible.' Within was revealed a peacefully sleeping face, framed by a mane of red hair. "Hi Auntie Kim."

To be continued...

Well, I hope you've all enjoyed the first bit of my first foray into both Kim Possible and Shadowrun fanfiction. Yes, the heavy use of Shadowrun jargon was intentional, and I hope it didn't put people off too much. But, hey, I'm happy to provide a list of some of the common "street slang" and technical terms that were used.

AR – Augmented reality. Information added to or overlaid upon a user's sensory perceptions in the form of visual data, graphics, sound, haptics, smell, and/or limited simsense.

Commlink – The class of personal computer used by nearly everyone to access wireless services, typically loaded with accessories. Commlinks also serve as the hub for a user's PAN. Often just 'comm' or 'link.'

Cyberterminal - a special type of computer used to access the Matrix.

Drone – Unmanned vehicles, typically controlled via direct wireless link or threw the Matrix.

Living Persona – The mental "organic computer" that allows technomancers to access the matrix with their minds alone.

Matrix – The world wide telecommunications network.

Mr. Johnson – name often adopted by a person who hires Shadowrunners.

Shadowrunners – Mercenaries or career criminals, depending on who you ask. When there's a dirty or dangerous job that you need "deniable assets" to take care of, these are the most advantages, and expendable, tools.

PAN – Personal Area Network. The network created by all of the wirelessly-linked electronic devices carried (or within) a person.

VITAS – Viral Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome. This devastating pandemic, in its first outbreak in the early twenty first century, killed approximately 25 of the world population. Two other outbreaks have happened since, one killing off another 10 of the global population. The final was connected to a terrorist attack.

Wiz – cool.

I think that got 'em all...

Finally, I'd like to thank the folks who took time out of what they were doing to give me some editing. This would have had many more spelling errors, grammar flubs, run on sentences, and other varied abuses against the English language without their help. So, big round of applause for "Font Size 26" (aka Pete!), Teh Zuh, and Your Queen of Fanfiction and mine: Cyberwraith9.

See ya next time! Water and Shade all.