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Chapter Text

Sometimes, it was pure.

This, just this.

Four tilting downwards, firing boosters that sent him and her plunging into a sea so bright-cut in its blueness that it made his eyes ache and his heart sing; water, deep but clear and with sunlight like swathes of silk cascading through it all.

Fish, thousands of them, shimmering and shining as he glided down between them, sea-jellies floating like forgotten confetti, and far to the left, a bronze whaler shark, sleek and effortless as it showed him how real gliding was done.

And to top it all off, someone to rescue. To help. Trapped, but not injured. Submerged, but not deep. Safe enough for now. A single rescue, a happy outcome, and nature doing its best to distract him by being as wantonly beautiful as complexity could ever be.

Okay, so John had space and a billion stars. Good for him. Gordon had a billion points of light in a single stretch of surf, and movement and life and surf-boys and girls besides. Scott had – well, Gordon would never know what Scott had that made him so Scott in his Scott-ness. Maybe nobility glowed like the underside of waves on a bright day like this, maybe certainty was as pretty as the tiny reef fishes disturbed by Four’s nose as they flashed and glittered above Gordon’s head.

All he knew was that this? This undulating, seductive world down below Virgil’s skies and Alan’s stars? This was pure, for him.

“I still don’t know why they’re using the old frequency like this.”

Alan’s voice, and that was pure, too. Pure grievance by way of resentment and petulant boredom. He’d wanted to come, just for the ride, but Scott pulled the homework clause and now Alan was stuck with Grandma, Kayo, Brains and Scott on Tracy Island, evidently bitching about the frequency used to call for help because it was better than bitching about International Rescue’s commander – no doubt sitting somewhere close by.

“I don’t know either, Alan, but let’s just be grateful they got through.” Scott had that finely calibrated level of sympathy in his voice that said, yeah, I’m sympathetic to the fact that you’re here doing homework when you’d rather be out there rescuing people with your brothers, but yeah, you’re doing homework so deal.

“It is odd, though.” John, never afraid to run a slight anomaly into the wearied ground. “That’s a frequency that hasn’t been regularly used for years.”

“Since your father’s Mars mission, as a matter of fact. It’s an interesting coincidence.”

Brains. Ready with a hammer to finish off the anomaly if it showed any last signs of life once John was done with it.

“It doesn’t matter about the frequency.” Time for a little reminder of what they actually did here. Other than, you know, speculate each other into a coma. Gordon reached up to adjust the diving angle slightly, bringing Four to a cruising level. “The only thing that matters is EOS picked it up when no one else would have. Aaand – I’m coming up on the coordinates. Forty metres viz, lookin’ sharp.”

“Tell me it’s merpeople.”

That was Alan again, manfully aiming for the maximum distraction points in the commentary. His kid brother was flying a distress flag here. Must be history. Or economics.

Gordon wouldn’t let him down.

“You know, now that you mention it – what was that stuff Lemaire sent you, Scott?”

Alan jumped in before Scott could answer.

“You mean those pictures of the sculptures they found in Yucatan? Those ones that looked like people with fish tails?”

“Yeah. Yeah. I dunno, Al – it looks like I’m maybe seeing…”

“Uh, Gordon.” Uh, Virgil. Virgil the killjoy extraordinaire, currently hovering somewhere overhead in the Jolly Green Giant. “A little focus here?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Sorry, Al, you’re on your own fighting the homework monster. “Okay, I’m at the coordinates. And I can see - huh.”

At 30 meters depth and in these perfect conditions, Gordon could follow the seabed spread out before him with the kind of clarity he rarely got to enjoy in rescue mode. A long reef banked around in a haphazard crescent beneath his feet, with rocky outcrops covered in coral, and green, brown and red algae, waving in the gentle current.

“’Huh?’ That’s it?” Virgil may as well have sighed it. “Any chance of a more accurate report there, Four?”

“Well, sure. If I had anything to report. Are you sure this is the right spot, Thunderbird Five? I’m not seeing anything.”

“Let me just check again.” From four hundred and eighty kilometres above, John ran the search algorithm once more. “Affirmative, Thunderbird Four. You should be right on top of it.”

“Well, there’s no welcome mat.” He tried, but failed, to hide the frisson of pleasure as he added, “Guess I’m going EVA to find this underwater facility.”

“John, was there any other clues about what we’re looking for?” It was obvious from Virgil’s tone that he was not best pleased. “Like what kind of an underwater lab?”

“That was the only description given.” There was a clear frown in John’s voice. “A woman, who said there were two of them trapped in an old underwater laboratory, at these coordinates. See what you can find, Gordon, but don’t take too long. Given the weird frequency and the lack of identifiers, I’m starting to get a bit of a hinky feeling about this one.”

“FAB.” Gordon strapped on a rescue pack, dropped out through the hatch, brought his body out of Four’s underbelly into a tucked spin then straightened out to release the energy in a smooth glide forward. It was close enough that he didn’t use the EVA motor. “Oh, okay - I can see debris under the algae. There’s been something here, at some point. Lemme just get at some of this growth…”

He carefully pulled aside the heavy fronds of the largest clumps of algae, and found himself nodding.

“Yeah, I think this is it. There’s metal here, under all the overgrowth. I just gotta find an entrance. Have they been back in contact, John?”

“No. Not since the last transmission, about an hour ago. And I haven’t been able to raise them, since.”

An eyestripe surgeonfish came up to Gordon as he probed along the outcrop, swerving to grab at particles disturbed by his actions. He couldn’t help laugh as it darted in at his fingers, a shimmer of silvery blue and yellow that seemed to have no fear of him.

“Hey, no, you’re welcome. I’m your friendly food distributing service, brought to you by International Rescue and the letter G.”

“You getting anything, Gordon, or is the whole rescue thing getting in the way of the fish petting?”

“I’d love to be doing the rescue stuff, Virgil, but I’m not finding a way in he - oh, wait, no. Take that back. Think I’ve just found the airlock.”

It was horizontal and hidden beneath a spectacular coralline growth of lime green encrusted to the metallic hull that formed what Gordon assumed was the ceiling of the lab. Quickly he grabbed the airlock wheel and turned it, feeling resistance but far less than he would expect in a structure of this apparent age. That fact alone told him someone had been through recently.

“Entering now,” he said, and registered Virgil’s acknowledgement even as he reversed his actions of leaving Four to swing his body through the narrow opening and secure the outer door behind him. An old-fashioned airlock valve was before him; he worked it to the side and the water drained noisily from the chamber, leaving him standing in front of a rusted and salt addled door. He gripped the second airlock wheel and turned it to open the door and enter the facility.

A modern arc-light was suspended directly ahead of him, alongside the kind of light fitting he had not seen in real life before – something heavy, metallic and thick-glassed that made him immediately think of Jules Verne and guys in bulbous diving suits. Directly beneath that was a locker bearing typewritten tabs on discoloured paper, and to the left was a wall of gauges, all silent and still, with acid forming discoloured white and green crystalline eruptions from between the glass and the pipes leading into each.

“Wow, Virgil, this is old school.”

“How old?”

“I dunno. There’s equipment here, instruments that look like stuff from the 20th century. I mean, mid twentieth. Fifties, sixties, that kinda thing.”

“Huh.” Virgil sounded interested, the dork.

“No sign of our couple. Going into the next room now, if I can open this door. It’s individually dogged, got some kind of anti-corrosion surface.” He noticed the gleam of the hinges. “Looks like it’s been lubricated recently.”

He turned the handle, and stepped into brightness.

“Oh! Am I glad to see you!” A man, stocky and young, stood up from where he was kneeling beside a woman, sitting propped against the wall with a jacket spread over her body, her eyes closed. “Are you International Rescue?”

“Yes, I am. Part of it. Gordon, and I’m here to get you to safety.” He moved to swiftly take the position the young man had just vacated, reaching for the woman’s wrist to check her pulse. “Hello? Ma’am? Are you injured?”

The woman opened her eyes, briefly, and moistened her lips but didn’t speak.

“She’s sick.” The man clenched his fists, helplessly. “It’s this place. I think there might be some kind of toxin in the atmosphere.”

He was wearing a wetsuit, as was the woman, but not using a breathing apparatus. Gordon asked the question with a look.

“Our diving equipment malfunctioned. The valves aren’t working, or something. Jennifer knows better than I do, I just know we can’t use them.” He gestured to where their tanks were piled unceremoniously together beside the wall.

“Okay. Won’t be a problem. I’ll take you across one at a time to my sub, take you to the surface.”

“But…” The man bit his lip, then continued, “I know you gotta get us out of here, but you have to find the others!”

Gordon paused in his appraisal of the woman’s vital signs to glance back up at him.

“Others? We thought two…”

“There are others here. I’m sure there is. We heard voices, from down there – “ He pointed to the end of the room and a further door, partly shadowed by the overhead struts and equipment banks lining the walls.

“Down?”

“Yeah, it’s quite extensive, this place. We heard them, that’s why we called you, and then the tanks wouldn’t work and we ended up needing rescuing too.”

Gordon looked over his shoulder at the darkened door. It wasn’t an appealing notion, heading downwards in a laboratory at least a hundred years old, but if there was the chance that someone else was here…

He touched the comm point on his sash.

“Thunderbird Five, you getting any other readings down here? Thunderbird Two?”

Two voices in the negative.

“But the signal I’m getting is inconsistent,” John added. “There must be a hell of a lot of iron in the construction of that place. Your signal is unsteady. Could be that the deeper you go, the more disruption there is.”

That wasn’t a comforting thought, somehow.

“Okay. Virgil, I better dry tube these two and check out the rest of the facility, just to be sure.”

“FAB, Gordon. Take it easy down there.”

“Will do.”

The man looked at him in confusion.

“What do you mean, ‘dry tube’?”

Gordon smiled, a well-honed expression that spoke of nothing but corn-fed farm-boy sincerity.

“It’s perfectly safe. It’s a way of getting you both up to the surface quickly and securely as we can. I’ll do a longer search down here while you’re looked after on the main rescue plane.”

“Oh.” He seemed doubtful, but nodded.

“Alright. We’ll be quick as we can. I’ll come straight back for you. In the meantime… ma’am?” The woman fluttered her eyes open at him again. She had dark hair and glasses and the kind of nondescript face that had Gordon wondering if he knew her. “Do you think you can walk with me to the airlock?”

“I’ll try.” She raised her arms and Gordon bent to scoop her up, supporting her weight against his hip. She clutched at his chest, then steadied.

“I need – can I take my bag?”

“Uh – sure.” Bags and other personal possessions weren’t usually part of a rescue plan, but with no great time pressure and plenty of room, Gordon didn’t hesitate to bend his knees so that she could dip and lift up the large water sealed carry-bag.

“All my footage. And my notes,” she explained, almost apologetically, and he grinned at her.

“Do not want to make you write all those again,” he agreed. She smiled, but clung tightly to him still as they crossed to the door.

“How will – do I have to hold my breath for long? I’m not feeling very strong, I’m sorry.”

“Hey, don’t worry.” He half-turned so that he was addressing both of them. “I’ve got full face re-breathers on me. My sub’s only twenty feet away. They’ll last long enough to get us safely on-board.”

“Thank goodness!” the woman gave him an admiring smile. “I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t come down here.”

It was common enough, that moment of heartfelt gratitude offered to a rescuer, when the possibility of death had begun to freeze a person’s soul and the rescuer appeared as an angel of mercy in their torment. Never something to be taken seriously; all God complexes would be neatly parked at the door, thank you and goodnight. The temptation to dive into those eyes full of relief and worship was one long dismissed by each of the Tracy boys. They knew real heroism, and though each one would assign it to the other family members, none of them would claim it for themselves. From the inside, heroism looked a lot like kindness and compulsion, a case of just not being able to do anything else, and that, as Lee Taylor would say, didn’t pin no prizes on no mule.

But Gordon felt something as she gazed up at him, and not what he expected.

Brief awkwardness, sure. Momentary embarrassment, maybe. But not this.

Not this.

This was a long, slow, ice-cold roll of revulsion.

It surprised him so much that for a long moment he looked down at her with his mouth open, eyes wide. She blinked at him.

“What is it?”

Bigger embarrassment, now, as he quickly opened the door and brought them through it, covering his momentary lapse with plenty of movement and little eye contact.

“Sorry – just thinking through logistics.” Barefaced lie, but hey, it wasn’t the first time he’d flannelled a bit in saviour mode.

But that slow wave of coldness persisted, and if he could lie to her, he couldn’t kid himself for long.

This woman was making every atom of his squid sense flail a tentacle of alarm in his face. And he just could not for the life of him see why.

She was the most ordinary of ordinary women. Someone you would pass by in a street and never notice. Someone in a corner of a room you’d never register as present.

“Hey, do I – “ He hesitated, feeling foolish, but something urged him on. “Do I know you? Have we met?”

The woman looked genuinely startled.

“Goodness. I don’t think so?” She gave a self-conscious chuckle, even as she sagged a little more in his hold. “You might not remember me, but I’d certainly remember you.”

“Yeah. Sorry. I don’t know why I – sorry. Let’s just get you on the surface, hey?” Embarrassed and confused, he unpacked the re-breather and checked that it was working before carefully putting it over her face.

“Breathe normally, just in and out,” he said, and she followed his instructions, looking less wan almost immediately. “That’s great. Okay, we’re getting in the airlock now – there you go – and I’ll be letting in the water. It sounds kinda noisy, but that’s just ‘cos it’s old. Gets a few creaks in its bones at its age.”

She smiled, under the rebreather, and he opened the valve to the sea before turning the airlock and bringing them back up and out, into the brilliant underwater garden that hid the lab.

It occurred to him, an odd, sudden thought, that neither of the couple had said a word of goodbye or good luck to the other as they parted. Not completely unknown; in the moment, when survival was the priority, niceties got lost.

Still.

That slow cold wave rolled through him again, even as he opened the rear access to Four and brought the woman inside it.

She stumbled as they cleared the airlock, and he steadied her as he brought down the dry tube.

“I’ll just help you up on here. Are you okay? Think you can lie down here for me?”

“It’s going to close me in?” She grabbed tight to him again, and he nodded, smiling with as much reassurance as he could manage.

“Just for a short time. Straight to the surface. From down here? Less than a minute. Will you need de-pressurisation on the surface? There’s a decompression tank ready if you’ve been deeper.”

She shook her head, but as she did so, her legs gave way and she slid downwards to sit on the floor.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I just – could I have a drink of water, please? Before I go up? I’m so thirsty.”

“Of course.” He turned and reached up into the overhead lockers, pushing aside various items of equipment until he could bring back a re-usable water bottle and fill it from the desalinated water dispenser. “Here. Take slow sips. Rehydrate for a bit.”

He tapped his sash again. “Virgil? First passenger for the dry tube is just about ready. Her name’s Jennifer and she’s looking forward to the first class service we promised in the brochure.”

“Good news, Four. I’ll be standing by to retrieve.”

“FAB.” He smiled down at her again, and it felt fake, and that felt mean. This poor woman had done nothing to be accosted by his heebie-jeebies. There was no possible reason for him to be regarding her as anything but a person in need of help. Wasn’t her fault she got stuck in that creepy ass lab.

And at that thought, his mind cleared. Of course! It was the lab that had him freaking out. There was just something about it – the old style equipment and design, the darkened struts, the shadows, the closed door into hidden depths… There was something in the atmosphere more than toxin, and it tasted of desperation and abandonment and all the kind of tainted loneliness left behind by submariners lost to the land forever. The truth was that Gordon had a kind of sensitivity to atmosphere he tried his damnedest to keep hidden from his brothers; successfully he told himself, poorly he suspected.

“Feel better?” he asked, and she smiled, wearily, and handed the bottle back to him.

“Yes. I just need to get into the sunlight. That place…”

“Ha! Yeah, I hear you. Nightmares for days. Okay, well, if you just hop up here – that’s it,” as he bent and hefted her onto the dry tube bed. She patted it nervously, looking about herself, before allowing him to gently push her back to lie in its harness, still clutching her bag. He strapped her in, and gave her a friendly nod.

“You’ll be fine. I promise.”

“Thank you,” she said, and then he hit the button that folded the dry-tube up and shot her out into the water on an upward trajectory to his brother, waiting in the module on the surface above.

He took a moment – several moments - to check his gear, tap the rescue pack with the extra re-breather and readjust his sash, before heading down and out again, back to the hidden laboratory under the reef. He told himself he was being the normal, meticulous professional he always was, that any suggestion he was actually reluctant to go back into that abandoned place was vile slander, and that whatever part of his subconscious was suggesting it could just shut the hell up and cut it the hell out.

“First dry tube away. Heading back to the lab for the second rescuee.”

“Copy that, Gordon. I have a visual on the tube.”

Well, one safely up top, one more to go. A slide, a flip, and he was back in the water, heading for the obscured airlock.

It seemed darker somehow, as he re-entered it. The arc-light was dimmer. He frowned at it, surprised to find the hairs on the back of his neck were up.

Ghosts were John’s thing, not his. This was ridiculous.

But it didn’t surprise him to find the man was waiting for him by the door as he came through, and almost leapt at him.

“I heard them. I swear to god, I heard them!” The man went to grab him, and then got control of himself. “There’s someone calling for help down there. Definitely. Sounded young, too.”

Any chance Gordon had of hand-waving a further search disappeared with that. The man, at least, was convinced and convincing, although Gordon glanced up and around at the dilapidated state of the facility and grimaced. No one would stay down here for long by choice. Maybe some other foolhardy adventurers, trapped here by ill-fortune in the last day or so?

“How long have you been here?”

The man paused in his feverish packing, frowning. “What difference does that make?”

“I’m trying to figure this out, how someone else could be down here without anyone knowing about it.”

A shake of the head. “We only got here this morning. I don’t know how the hell they got in here or when, but there’s someone here, no doubt about that.”

Gordon found himself straining to hear something coming from below them, some indication that there was anything but stale air and lost history down here, but he heard nothing. The man caught at his arm.

“Maybe you should go look while I wait?”

That got Gordon’s attention. He could tell the guy was anxious to leave, and he didn’t blame him one bit – but here he was, offering to stay waiting alone while Gordon checked it out. It was a generous offer, and a brave one, and the smile Gordon gave him was genuine.

“No. We’ll get you to safety first. No point in both of us - “ he almost said, ‘being put in danger’, but changed it to, “hanging around here. I’ll get you up with your partner, then I’ll take a look.”

“Okay. If you’re sure.” By the way the man was scrabbling together the last of his equipment and bundling it into his bag, he didn’t need much persuading. He held it up at last, a tentative grin.

“Room for all this on Four?”

Gordon chuckled.

“You bet. Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”

The trip was as non-eventful as the first, and Gordon helped the man and his bag onto the dry tube with the thankful sense that the first and most important part of his job was done.

“Thunderbird Two, we have the second dry tube ready to go. I’ll be taking another quick look in the lab, though – both of our guests heard noises down below, so I’ll check that out just to be sure there’s no one else.”

“Are you sure that’s necessary, Gordon? I’m not picking up any other life signals.”

“Yeah, I know, but they’re adamant and - I just wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t, you know? I’ll take the air quality meter to test what’s what.”

He could hear Virgil sigh this time.

“Yes, I know. Okay. But be careful? Check back in within twenty, or I’m rigging the pod and coming down after you. Don’t think I won’t.”

“Aw, you’d really get your toesies wet?”

“You better believe it.”

“FAB.” Chuckling, Gordon signed off, then wiped his sweaty palms against his thighs.

Time to go and be an adventurer. Trouble is, all the adventurers he knew, like Elly and Buddy, and even the Lemaires, tended to go in pairs. Much more fun if he had Alan, sans homework, down here with him.

He put that aside. It was highly unlikely anyone was really waiting for rescue in the depths of the laboratory – far more possible that it was a shared hysteria due to being trapped in a creepy ass lab, or that some kind of leak in the system had poisoned the air enough to produce hallucinations. With his own IR uniform, gloves and breathing apparatus, he would be immune to anything in the atmosphere beyond what his own treacherous imagination could conjure for him.

He gave an unhappy sigh to rival Virgil’s, and headed back over to the reef.

Only this time, he brought the biggest flashlight he could find.
 

Chapter Text

The typing was in Russian. That much was clear to him as he scraped away on the paper labels inserted at the front of each drawer in the filing cabinets. The drawers themselves were locked; a quick tug proved that. There was no real point in opening them up, of course, but Gordon’s curiosity factor was always high when the knowledge was forbidden.

And just maybe he was delaying the inevitable trip through the doorway half-obscured by shadow.

He was aware of the sounds more, now that there were no people claiming his immediate help. Or rather, the distinct lack of them. In any underwater facility he had ever served or studied in there was always a faint susurration beneath the everyday chatter – the sounds of carbon scrubbers and oxygen dispensers, air conditioners warming or cooling as needed, the soft burr of mechanised doorways, the muted jangle of distant music in offices and labs. In this building, there was nothing. No song of the ocean. No sounds of humans. In its deadness it echoed only the pad- pad – pad of his feet as he made his way to the door that led to the lower levels.

He reached out and turned the wheel that sealed the lower section. He expected a hiss of air as he pulled it jerkily back, but none came. The flashlight’s beam caught more lubricant on the hinges, the silicon spray Virgil used on everything for which he could find the slightest reason. Gordon suspected it was his personal cologne. Its presence here made him wonder. Had the couple he’d just rescued actually come down here after all? Or had they just begun to explore by applying the lubricant before realising their air supplies were compromised? Was it placed here by the others the couple claimed to have heard?

The space beyond was inky black until his flashlight beam cut through to reveal a wall, rounded, stained, and a rung ladder set into it, going downwards.

Gordon leaned through the opening and shone the flashlight into the depths.

Those steps went a long way.

Not spooky at all.

“Hello? Anyone down there?”

Well, it had great acoustics. The sound cannonaded from one side to the other all the way down to the blackness below. Gordon listened avidly as the echoes died, straining to hear the slightest response.

Nothing.

Good enough for some, but the thought came to him, unbidden, of unconsciousness and helplessness and dammit.

He checked the air quality meter. Ah. A cocktail of bad news there. Radiation levels way above the recommended safety level. That was unlikely to have caused Jennifer’s collapse so quickly, but added to the high monoxide levels and that was one fun time for the lungs.

“Thunderbird Two? Operate radiation protocols. Acknowledge?”

Nothing. Well, the connection had been tenuous throughout, so that wasn’t surprising. It did mean he had to step up the pace and return topside to warn Virgil as soon as he could.

He was procrastinating, he knew it, so he stepped over and swung his backside out over the abyss. Given the age of the lab he doubted the solidity of the rungs, so he quickly fired his safety line to the outer wall where Jennifer had once sat and attached it securely to his waist. This was not a place he wanted to spend any extra time in, particularly if it was at the bottom of this well with some favourite limb broken.

He began his climb carefully, testing each rung as he went. They seemed surprisingly strong – but then, each one was two inches thick through the centre. This place was built to last, no matter what history had decided to do with it.

Twenty feet down, and there was an alcove, an obvious stepping off place leading to another secured entrance. He took the step off the ladder and felt around the door facing him. No lubricant here. When he turned the smaller handle, it was so stiff he needed both hands to shift it, bit by bit, from horizontal to vertical. At its furthest point he stopped and pulled, feeling the door give slightly then snag.

It was too stiff, too unused, for anyone to be down here. He turned back to the shaft and directed the flashlight beam down again. Twenty feet below him, there was another sealed hatchway, but this one was huge, almost ten feet across. He shifted the beam from downwards to up, and saw a broken off chain and pulley suspended above the level he’d accessed the shaft from.

“Well, I’m not getting you open,” he murmured. His voice echoed again, distorted and dismal in the emptiness.

Everything told him that no one else was in the lab. But that niggle of need-to-know was biting him again, so he turned back to the door and grabbed the handle for another tug. One quick look, to be thorough, and he was so out of there.

The door didn’t give with the first tug, but the second brought it squealing open six inches or so. This time there was the sigh of released atmosphere, and that, more than anything else, confirmed Gordon’s opinion about the absence of lost adventurers. He stashed the light in his belt, put one hand against the wall, one on the handle, and tugged as hard as he could.

The door gave just enough to slide his body inside, but that wasn’t a particularly smart move. Instead, he retrieved the light and shone it from just outside the doorway as he peered past it to make out what was within.

His first thought was that it was a bunch of clothes.

Trousers, jackets, piled up oddly at desks across the space, or what he could see of it. It was a bizarre and unsettling sight, meaningless, until the brown sticks used to prop them up or stretch them out resolved into fingers, the brown lumps poking through shirt collars became skulls, and Gordon gasped even as his brain supplied the words dead people and mummified and oh god, right before his unnerved fingers dropped the flashlight and it rolled away into the room, clattering in a way that was terrifying in its wrongness.

“Shit!” he said aloud. And that was worse than the flashlight, now come to rest against a boot at the base of a bent trouser-leg, the illumination lost beneath a table and the sole of the boot. Sharp and grotesque shadows jagged across the space, and the new angles showed empty eye sockets and jaws dropped open as flesh withered away. But his voice didn’t seem to echo in here; it was swallowed by the blackness, by the death that ruled this century-old room, deep beneath the Pacific.

His first instinct was to scramble up the ladder and get the hell out of this creepy damn place. But even as he thought it, he knew it wouldn’t be that easy. He couldn’t leave the flashlight here. He’d never live it down.

Still, he bet none of his brothers, not even Scott, could come across something like this without a good manly yelp or two.

It was horrible, pulling harder on the door again in order to wriggle through and share the dark and silent space with the corpses before him. He couldn’t count them, but there seemed to be so many, hunched or drooped against the furniture, for all the world as if they were just taking a quick break and would be getting up at any moment to resume their ghastly work.

Yeah, that wasn’t a helpful thought.

But even as he carefully reached down for the light – ridiculous, as if he was sneaking here, as if he was trying to escape some kind of supernatural scrutiny – a different thought struck him.

Who knew what these people were doing, all those years ago? Who knew if their relatives ever heard word of what happened to them? What were the chances that word of their deaths here, sealed away in an abandoned facility, never got home to their families in Russia?

And suddenly the place wasn’t spooky, just sad.

The soldier – they were uniforms he could see now – against which his flashlight had come to a stop was sitting in a chair at a desk, his chest half twisted so that half a name tag was clearly visible when Gordon played the light across him. His head rested on his arms as if he’d simply fallen asleep. Gordon sent the light across others, noting the way they were slumped down or resting, as this man was.

It was a solemn thought, to be aware that he was the first one to see these people in a hundred years, and it brought its own responsibility. Decision made, Gordon lifted the fold of cloth that obscured the other half of the name on the man’s shirt and took a photo of it, using his comm.

Maybe this was a mystery, an aching, unresolved thing that was now just a grandparent’s memory of their grandparent’s sorrow. Maybe he could help bring these people to some kind of dignified rest.

He nodded to himself, then scanned his comm across the room, capturing as much as possible. Quite a story to tell when he got back – and he needed to get back asap, before Virgil came stomping down here in his size fifty boots.

Then he stood and gave his best WASP salute to men and women who wouldn’t know it when they were alive and didn’t need it now they were dead. Still, Gordon felt it was the right thing to do, and if there were ghosts and they were watching, he hoped they got the symbolism even if they didn’t understand the uniform.

It took a little something not to back out of that room, to turn and walk out without flinching. Reaching for the ladder was a relief, and he kept his steps back up the rungs at a steady pace so as not to stress the metal with the extra force of a fast scramble.

The arc-light was just about completely exhausted now, so that the upper level was almost as dark as the lower one. Gordon wasted no time marching straight through it, into the airlock, and then up and out into the bursting blue and brilliance of his beloved ocean.

It was only as he pushed away from the entrance, fast and free, that he let out a long breath and said, “Hey, Virgil, I’m clear. No one else to collect, but boy, have I got a story for you!”

There was no answer from above, but Gordon didn’t really worry too much about that for now. Another few seconds and he was opening Four and stepping through her airlock to be back in his own space again, bright and clean and facing out onto a world full of life. He shook off the horrors of the lab and swung down into his driving seat.

“Two? Virgil? Come in, Two? Are - ”

Almost at once his vision was blinded by lights boring in at him, so harsh he had to raise a hand to shield his eyes.

“Wha - ?”

The console in front of him was suddenly commanded by a revolving symbol, one he knew all too well, and a stern voice filled the cabin.

“Unidentified vessel. You are to remain where you are. This is a WASP patrol imperative. Repeat: unidentified vessel. You are to remain where you are. Do not attempt to flee or you will be fired upon.”

“Whoa. Whoa, easy big fella.” Gordon tentatively lowered his arm in order to squint past the halogens directed at him. “Uh, this is International Rescue, Thunderbird Four. Repeat, International Rescue, Thunderbird Four. You might wanna lower those lights a bit, hey guys?”

“Unidentified vessel; remain where you are and prepare to be boarded.”

“Whoa! Hey, guys, no. Wait. Wait. This is Gordon Tracy, of International Rescue. Not hostile, repeat, not a hostile. I am here on a rescue mission.”

“Unidentified vessel. Please confirm the numbers on board.”

Gordon growled, but complied.

“One. Just one. Little old me. Could you quit with the lights?”

“That is not correct. Scans confirm three personnel on-board.”

“Three? Yeesh.” This was getting beyond irritating. “There’s me, just me. Gordon Tracy, ex-WASP by the way, now International rescue. I’m here on a rescue.”

“Unidentified vessel, remain where you are. WASP officers will be with you shortly. Do not attempt to resist their boarding.”

Gordon realised his mouth was open in astonishment, and he snapped it shut before tapping on his comm sash.

“Uh, Thunderbird Five, you getting this? John?”

At once the voice blared again.

“Your communication has been scrambled. You cannot call for assistance.”

“I’m not calling for assistance – look, maybe you should contact Colonel Casey. Of the GDF? She could maybe help you fellas figure out friend and foe.”

“Refrain from attempting further communication. Our divers will be with you shortly.”

In the middle of the blazing light Gordon could just make to three figures, distorted by the flare, swimming towards him. No doubt the boarding party so delightfully announced. The thought to activate the anti-intruder mechanism on Four and send a few shockwaves out into the water came and went. Whatever was going on, this was definitely WASP, and for all that they were making monumental idiots of themselves just now – really, buy-me-a-dozen-beers-in-apology level this stuff – well, they were still the good guys and his old comrades. Nothing for it really but to sit here and put up with the unbelievable incompetence on display.

“Fine.” He might have to put up with it but he didn’t have to like it. The tone was probably a bit surly, but hell. Scrambling the comms? Not cool. “I’ll put the coffee on.”

“Unidentified vessel – “

“Not unidentified, jackass,” muttered Gordon. The thought of possibly being held up like this with rescue victims needing medical assistance on-board sent another wave of annoyance through him.

“Release your airlock.”

“Yeah, fine. It’s open.”

He registered the airlock at the back of the vessel open by the control light as the divers apparently entered. Every ounce of childish resistance was galvanised in him now, and he refused to go back to meet them.

“You happy? Just me. Which you can see yourselves – hi, by the way – “ He waved towards the lights, still incapacitating anything much in terms of seeing ahead. “And now your divers have presumably verified that you got the one and only. Yeah, you can send the apology care of Kiss My Ass, Buttsville.”

The sound from the rear of Four was almost completely damped due to the sealing of each section.

“Yeah. So. Can I go now?”

“Unidentified vessel – “ at the first syllables, Gordon threw his hands up in disbelief – “scans now show six on-board. Please allow access to front section of the vessel immediately.”

“You know what?” It wasn’t often that Gordon lost his temper completely, but this was beyond a joke, and kind of embarrassing to boot. WASP, his old team, acting like such morons. Scott was always talking up USAF against WASP. After this, Gordon was almost ready to concede the point. “You can see I’m on my own.” He tapped onto his own scans. “You – “

Three people in the aft section, moving about, presumably searching in the lockers for the two others supposedly on-board.

And two others, stationary. He blinked.

“Okay, that’s weird. Okay, I’m getting that reading, too.” He set up a quick diagnostic on the internal scanning system. “Must be some kind of glitch.”

“You need to open your forward section now. The officers are authorised to use whatever force necessary.”

“Yeah.” Bemused, Gordon nodded. “Alright. I’ll just – “

And there was a flash, bright and hot, and the world pulsed hard and heavy and hurtful, every particle in him thundering and crashing down through his consciousness, wave after wave until everything, everything, was nothing.

Chapter Text

“Good news, Four. I’ll be standing by for retrieval.”

Swinging down to the module was really just one of the perks of his job. It looked spectacular and felt about the same, but was actually pretty safe, given the training and the safety harness.

Still – stylish slides were his kind of thing, so Virgil gave it his best as he dropped in on Four’s launch pad, sitting calmly on a placid sea, and reached for the homing device activator on the comm unit he wore on his arm.

Virgil liked the dry tubes. They were his idea, enthusiastically embraced by Gordon and Brains, and they worked. Quick and slick evacuation, able to withstand all kind of stressors, and delivering rescuees in seconds when it could take an unknown length of time in Four itself. He always had a tiny frisson of pleasure whenever they were used, because the design was so sweet and the result so downright effective, and those were two of Virgil’s favourite things when it came to design and rescues.

Now he watched with a little smirk of satisfaction as the first dry tube bobbed onto the surface, impelled by the small automatic motor within that was responding to the homing device he held up in the bright sunshine.

This was the way he liked his rescues – simple and straightforward and home by lunch.

The dry tube turned dutifully towards the module, and Virgil hit the button that sent the cable spinning out to latch onto it and drag it back in.

Nothing to it.

He stood easily on the deck of the module, allowing the slightest give in his hips to accommodate the gentle swell of the sea, looked out over the sparkling blue that surrounded him, and rubbed at his neck.

That was kinda weird.

Even though the bullet nick at the top of his trapezius muscle, right at the point where it joined his neck, had long since healed, the damn thing ached whenever he was on a tough mission. Made sense. Stress tended to end up at the top of the shoulders, so the idea the muscles there would tighten and pull at scar tissue when things got tense was all kinds of logical.

The only thing that wasn’t logical here was – this just wasn’t a stressful rescue run.

The sun was out, the sea was calm. The first person to be evacuated had just been pulled in tight against Four’s module, ready for retrieval.

A slight crunch as the tube connected with the lip of the module, then the cable pulled it up onto the steady surface and Virgil knelt down to release the clamp, ready with his trademarked, “I got you.”

So sue him. He liked ritual. Particularly when those words signalled a success, another person plucked from the wiles of the always untrustworthy sea.

Only this time as he opened the tube, he was forced to hold back the comment. The lid lifted to reveal a woman, who lay in there with a bag across her chest, and to his surprise and immediate concern was apparently unconscious.

That was not part of the ritual.

Between them, he and Gordon had worked out the protocols for using the dry tubes, based on experience and best practice. And what they both agreed upon was that putting an unconscious person in the tubes was not a good idea.

Quickly he reached in and checked the pulse in her neck. A steady beat there, but a flick to her cheek garnered no reaction. She was out.

Unconsciousness meant all kinds of things that required careful handling. Unconscious patients were kept safe and horizontal and oxygenated on Four until they could be brought to the surface and properly examined. An unconscious person put into a dry tube could wake suddenly to find themselves trapped in a metal container, moving god-knows-where or why, an instant recipe for panic and trauma. Not a good plan.

So had she lost consciousness on the trip up? Had Gordon missed something as he triaged the couple in the lab?

It complicated things considerably at this stage. Virgil had to clear the dry tube away to allow the next one up. And he had to move the woman, not knowing if there was an underlying injury that had caused her to black out.

But making quick and careful decisions was the marrow of good rescue procedure, so without wasting too much time he left her to jog over to a locker containing medical supplies and returned carrying a neck brace and oxygen mask. He knelt to slide the brace around her neck, supporting her head gently as he did so, then swiftly and surely secured the oxygen mask on her face. Her eyelids fluttered briefly as he did so, but she didn’t come back to full awareness.

“You’re okay. You’re safe. I’m with International Rescue, and you’re safe now.” He dropped his voice into its most soothing cadence as he adjusted the mask against the bridge of her nose. It meant he looked fully at her face for the first time, and as he did so something sparked in the back of his mind. He blinked. She looked vaguely familiar.

“Do I know you? Guess I’ll find out when we get the chance to chat. Just waiting on your friend now, he’s coming up any minute then we’ll get you both to hospital, get you checked out.”

A tiny frown then, as she struggled towards consciousness, and he kept talking.

“You’re safe, you’re fine. I’m just gonna shift you over here – “ as he bent his knees, slid his arms beneath her, and lifted her up, his thighs working hard to keep the movement as smooth as possible – “put you somewhere safe and sound while we get your friend up here to join us.”

Gently he laid her down alongside the wall of the module, well clear of where the dry tubes would be retracted to and with a thermal blanket tucked around her shoulders and feet. He pushed a stray lock of dark brown hair back from her face, checked her pulse again, then stood and returned to clear the first dry tube using the retrieval clamp, and wait for the second.

And then Gordon contacted him, and apparently a rescue just wasn’t a rescue until his brother decided to complicate things immensely.

“Aw, you’d really get your toesies wet?”

Ah, Gordon’s inimitable ability to be both admirable and annoying in the same fifteen second span of time. It was a gift.

“You better believe it.” If he could load that comment with as much intent and gravity as he could, maybe his little brother would read the underlying message – don’t screw around down there.

“FAB.” And Gordon was signing off, even as the second dry tube breached the waves and bobbed slowly on the surface fifty feet away. There was no time to ask him about the unconscious status of the woman before he was readying to retrieve the second person from down below.

Virgil tapped his sash.

“Five, you get all that?”

“Yeah. He really does know how to value-add a rescue, doesn’t he?”

“Do you really think there’s anyone else down there?”

“Doubtful. But he’s right. He should check it out.”

“Yeah.” Virgil sighed unhappily, then activated the retrieval mechanism again, seeing the dry tube turn towards the module like a lost puppy heading toward home. “There’s the second dry-tube. I’ll get these two secured. I’m not kidding, John, I’ll give him twenty and that’s it.”

“Understood. He knows that.” John’s voice was quietly amused. “And if he wants to come back and explore properly someday, he’ll know to stay focused this time.”

“Huh. We taking bets?”

John’s dry chuckle sounded in his ear as he bent to help manouevre the dry tube onto the platform.

This time as he opened up the lid, he met wide open eyes and a man who gasped, “Wow. Thank you,” before he even got to say his bit.

He smiled, and offered a hand.

“You’re welcome.”

The man gripped his hand and let Virgil help him up, swinging around to stand on wobbly feet beside him. Virgil clasped his shoulder.

“Woah, take it easy, pal. Take a minute to get your sea legs there.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s the problem,” said the man, and as he straightened up he grabbed Virgil’s wrist and wrenched Virgil’s arm up and around, spinning him in place until he was facing away from the man, an arm around his throat.

It was so sudden Virgil barely even cried out.

And then he couldn’t, because the woman was standing there in front of him, no sign of weakness in her face or stance, and Virgil had a second to think, “She was faking?” without having any time to summon a speculation as to why or what the hell was going on.

She had a kind of black box in one hand, a weapon of some sort in the other, pointed straight at him, and she was smiling as calmly as if they were at a tea party. She gave him a nod, as if to an old friend.

“Thank you. I’ll take your remote control now, Virgil.”

Chapter Text

Virgil had more than a few tricks to get out of a hold such as this jerk was keeping him in, courtesy of Kayo and many hours in the gym under her instruction, but the weapon and good strategy demanded he stay still, for the moment. He swallowed, and forced himself to take a deep breath, let it out, and focus.

“If this is a hijacking attempt, you’ve made a big mistake,” he said, meeting her calmness with his own. “You can’t just steal a Thunderbird.”

“Oh, I know.” So casual, and that was far more chilling than anger or desperation. “I’m guessing there is some kind of biological link to the control unit? Or at least, to the nano technology in your suits. I haven’t quite decided if it’s individualized, or if you have some common marker in each of your rather fetching outfits. But no matter.”

“I think you’ll find it is. And of course, everything I say is being overheard by others.”

She smiled, and waggled the little black box she held in her hand.

“It really isn’t. Your standard operating frequency? It’s being jammed. They’re getting a lot of static right now.”

Virgil lifted his chin, tried to make his voice as certain as he possibly could.

“If you think you can force me – “

“Oh, heavens, no.” That smile again, and she straightened her arm, bringing the weapon up into direct alignment with his heart. Something happened then, some infinitesimal shift in the way she held the gun, or the expression on her face, and Virgil knew, in that split second, that she was going to fire.

“Don’t,” he said, a word summoned from him without any conscious intention because the only thought in his head was, ‘Dead. I’m dead.’ A flood of adrenalin surged through his body and he broke the hold on him, even as he knew it was pointless, even as his brain coolly registered her distance and his speed and how he could never reach her in time to stop her killing him.

But he had to try. He -

He didn’t see her pull the trigger.

He only knew one half second to the next.

It was the difference between self and awareness and agency, and complete obliteration through pain.

Every atom in his body burned.

No control, or even thought of control. Some part of his mind registered that he was down, but only his shoulders and heels touched the floor. The rest of his body arced and spasmed, off the ground in a writhing, wrenching abomination of agony.

She was there, crouched beside him.

“I think I will wait out this phase. It doesn’t take long. Then you’ll be quite incapacitated, but rather less dramatic.”

He couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not. Her voice seemed to come through to him on delay, held up by the internal shrieking of his muscles.

“Now. That’s better. A little less of that flailing about.” She was doing something to his arm, but he couldn’t turn his head to see. She noticed, and nodded.

“I’m not going to explain all of this, because that would be very silly of me, and the point is, I’m really very clever. But I will let you know that this little device I have just attached to your comm unit here is reading anything and everything it’s linked to. It’s a data gatherer of truly remarkable capacity. I daresay Brains would love to get his hands on it.”

Brains? And she’d used his name, too. Who the hell was she?

She reached for his right arm and dragged it over his inert body to tap the control unit on his left to bring up the 3D control display.

“Ah. Quite simple, after all. I thought there might be some kind of encrypted password, but I see you do rely on the suit markers to activate. Well. This will be fun. I have always wanted to fly a Thunderbird.”

He couldn’t tell then what she was doing. He guessed she was bringing Two into position above them, but he couldn’t even roll his eyes. It was as though every molecule in his body was paralysed, vibrating in its place in pain and unable to do anything beyond that.

Time slid away from him, for a while, just another thing he had no control over. He had no idea how long he had lain there when he dimly realised that the module’s release platform was coming up into the secured position.

“Right. Well, I think we’re ready to go. But I’ll just take this first.”

She was pulling off the control unit and the gauntlet. It was a different kind of violation. He could hear Velcro being reattached, and figured she was wearing it on her arm now.

“Bring him, would you?”

Virgil watched helplessly as the man loomed over him before hoisting him up over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He supposed this would be ignominious in hindsight, but the thought came and went in a flash. Not important. His ability to focus had been as badly assaulted as his body, but he was used to disciplining both, and he forced himself to push past the existential panic of complete immobility, the moment of mortal terror, the sheer shockingness of it all, and think.

A fake rescue. Obviously. Gordon – what had they done with Gordon?

She may well be as clever as she claimed. Her behaviour was professional and every decision – except the fundamentally crucial one of taking on International Rescue – was clearly thought through carefully.

She knew him by sight. She mentioned Brains. She had considered the challenges of taking control of a ‘bird.

The man? Probably muscle. He hadn’t said or done anything beyond grabbing Virgil and now carrying him to – ah, of course. The cockpit.

Muscles dropped him at the back of the cockpit, positioning him against the wall. There was no need to tie him up; every attempt to move any part of his body voluntarily brought such fresh agony that all Virgil wanted to do was lie as still as possible, concentrating on keeping his breathing steady and deep and even.

Okay, so that was the status report. Question now was – what should he do about it?

First priority; Gordon. He may well be injured or trapped. The thought of a weapon like this being used against his younger brother brought a fresh kind of hurt to him. Perhaps there were more of them hidden in the lab after all?

Or – the whole thing about the voices was a ruse to keep Four away while they hijacked Two.

That made sense, and gave him some hope. If that was the case, Gordon would be sitting on the surface, wondering where the hell his ride went. In any event, there was nothing he could directly do to help Gordon at this point.

Muscles was sitting in one of the rear seats, watching him. That alone showed smarts.

He heard and felt the roar of Two’s drive engaging, and he knew she’d worked out the controls. It was impressive, if he was in the mood for being generous – which he was distinctly not.

So. Next priority. Warn Scott.

And that was a very simple matter, in theory. They had their distress code, it would take one simple tap on his sash and every IR receiver would pick it up, every resource they had would be galvanised to act.

And he’d do it, he would, except for the fact that his body didn’t belong to him anymore and his voice was off partying with his voluntary muscle control somewhere.

“Ah, I think I have it now. Very nice. Although I do note you’re still using the old ion filters – that’s something you should look at.” From the corner of his eye he could see her left arm, encased in his gauntlet, wearing his control unit, lifting up to flick the overhead stabiliser switches.

So many things he wanted to say to her, but all his efforts would be saved for three syllables.

“And I think I can see our friends starting to come to the surface below. Which means Gordon is almost certainly dead. I left a percussion bomb in Four. I’m afraid all that will be left of his somewhat limited brain will be offal jelly. No more mooning after Lady P.”

Virgil’s heart skittered in his chest. For several long seconds a black despair billowed through him, sparking pain wherever it went, the physical and the emotional inextricably linked.

Then he managed a long, shuddering breath, and despair became strength.

No! No, he’d refuse to believe it.

Two lifted and turned, preparing to depart, and Muscles glanced over at the woman, watching her work the controls.

“Alright. Well, that went pleasantly. Virgil, it won’t take too long to get to our destination. I must say, I’ve registered your speed at 7,000 knots before, but I didn’t realise it was actually capable of more. This really is an impressive machine.”

Now. His one chance.

He concentrated on lifting his right arm. It didn’t move beyond the fingers in his hand twitching violently.

Come on! He had to do better.

And he did, somehow lifting from his shoulder, almost shrugging his arm upwards to slide across his stomach. Then it had to bend from the elbow, slowly, too slowly, like moving concrete through treacle.

His ‘bird picked up speed, and Muscles remained enthralled. So not too smart, then.

Good.

With infinite, unbearable slowness, one finger reached towards his sash comm.

Two feeble taps. The sub-frequency activated.

Now, from somewhere, he had to summon his voice. He tried once, and nothing but air wheezed out. It was a kind of sleep paralysis nightmare while horribly awake, the urgent need to call for help and the complete inability to work his vocal cords.

This was bullshit. Too much at stake. Gordon – Gordon could be badly hurt. And this – this monster was stealing his ‘bird.

He took another breath and tried to swallow. His mouth was so dry. He worked his mouth, summoning spit, and swallowed again. This time he felt his throat moistened. And it was if the fact of it woke his voice, brought the concept of it back into his body’s awareness.

This time, when he needed it, it came. Raspy and weak, but there.

Three syllables.

“Bo kata.”
 

Chapter Text

“Okay, but what I don’t get is, if everyone knew that climate change was happening in the 1970s, why didn’t they do anything then?”

Alan’s disappointment at being denied a berth on Two had morphed over the course of half an hour into an increasingly bewildered anger at the contents of his history unit. Scott massaged his own forehead and answered without looking up from the latest financial reports on International Rescue’s operating costs. He found he could multi-task with those and listening to a mission’s unfolding, and it helped him not to micro-manage – something he was accused of relentlessly by each of his brothers and even Grandma on occasion. He preferred to call it keeping up with ongoing operating mission parameters. But since no one agreed with him on this point he had acceded, as graciously as he could (which meant with only an occasional grumble) and worked with his usual diligence at Virgil’s suggested strategy of doing sums while he kept an ear and eye on what was happening on the ground and in the air. Or under the water, as in this case.

“They should have, Alan. It was a number of different factors, as I understand it.”

“What kind of factors?” Alan was sounding progressively aggrieved. “I mean, how could you possibly ignore the science like that?”

For a boy whose life revolved around the practical application of scientific principles, this was going to be a hard one to grasp.

“Well – greed, mostly. Politics of greed. People didn’t want to start losing any of the money they were getting from petroleum based products. And they didn’t want to spend money shifting into renewables.” He frowned at the latest bill for terellium wire. That burnout in Three was gouging the budget almost as badly as it gouged the surface of the abandoned moon mine last month.

“But – but it’s science!”

“Yes. I know.” And why the hell did they have a huge bill for selenium this month? That one he’d have to run past Brains.

“And the evidence was everywhere. Huh. I bet they just didn’t care because it was other people in the Pacific Islands who were gonna get swamped first, right? And Bangladesh, the delta – but the hurricanes were getting worse, anyway. I don’t get it!”

“Thunderbird Five to Base.”

John’s voice was a relief.

“Go ahead, John.”

“Scott, can you get through to Two? I’m hitting static up here.”

Instantly, financial knots were dismissed and a physical one in his belly took their place. Static, nothingness – these were the soundtracks of scratch and silence that scored Scott’s nightmares.

“Base to Thunderbird Two. Come in, Thunderbird Two.”

Static, just as John warned.

“Base to Thunderbird Two. Virgil, can you read me?”

More crackle, the rhythm section of the universe that always filled Scott with dread when it took the place of his family’s voices.

“John, is Gordon still underwater?”

“He was taking time to check the facility they found.” John’s voice was grave. “I couldn’t get through to him when I last tried, but that could have been the lab itself. It was old, according to Gordon, probably used a lot of iron and who knows what kind of shielding in its construction.”

“Base to Thunderbird Four. Base to Four. Come in, Gordon.”

More static, only he heard a small exclamation under the noise from Five.

“What is it, John?”

“That’s odd. I’m getting the WASP transmission code. It seems like WASP is jamming Four’s signal.”

“What the hell is going on?” Scott drummed his fingers on the desk. Alan left his study hologram and came over to stand beside him. “Alright, John, I better talk to WASP command in San Diego, find out what they’re doing out there.”

“Already on it. Patching you through now.”

A surprisingly young-looking man appeared at the centre of the IR communication zone. Scott got up from the desk to go to it. The man spoke first.

“International Rescue. I thought I’d be hearing from you. I’m Rear-Admiral Pang.”

Scott had met Admiral Clovis several times and knew him as commander of WASP’s American forces. This man was new to him.

“Admiral Pang. Scott Tracy, acting commander International Rescue. I’ve just been trying to contact our operatives in the Pacific region of the Habomai Islands, specifically off Shibotsuto. One of our vessels is being jammed by a WASP frequency disabler. I need to know what’s going on out there.”

Pang nodded.

“My captain on site has informed me that an IR vessel has been targeted as part of an ongoing pursuit of two criminals. As I understand it, the vessel is currently surrounded by three WASP subs and refusing to answer direct contacts. It is believed the two fugitives are on board.”

“Wait.” Scott’s mind raced, making connections and decisions even as he tapped on his sash. “Kayo, I need my security officer now.” Then he addressed the WASP commander. “Admiral Pang, the vessel is Thunderbird Four. It is on a rescue mission. We received a distress call from two people trapped in an abandoned facility and responded thirty-eight minutes ago. The mission was flagged with the GDF, as per protocol. The pilot of Thunderbird Four is authorised to be there, and is in no way involved in criminal activity, I can assure you. But what I’m hearing is that the people we set out to rescue may be?”

“Yes. The two are responsible for a number of particularly well-planned and violent crimes across both Europe and the US. You may have heard of the First Responder Murders?”

Scott started.

“These two..?”

“We think so.” Pang’s expression was grim. “I don’t need to tell you why we’re treating this with extreme measures and all available resources. That vessel will not be moving.”

“Is it possible our operative is a hostage?”

Scott couldn’t see even the smallest of tells on Pang’s face, but somehow his expression shifted.

“Mister Tracy, if these two are the people we’re after, and reports are strongly suggesting this is so, the likelihood of your operative being alive is very slim.”

Kayo was beside him now, silent and swift as ever, and he had never needed her calm strength more.

Pang continued. “Their MO is brutally simple, and has proven highly effective. Always just the two of them. They rob a bank or other installation – it’s not predictable, they’ve hit a range of targets – and as first responders arrive, ambush and murder them and use their IDs to escape pursuit in the immediate aftermath of the incident. The IDs are always destroyed within thirty minutes. These two have assumed the identities of murdered police, ambulance officers – hell, they even used WASP IDs in the most recent robbery at the WASP Pacific command in San Diego - and their knowledge of procedure and codes is so good they’ve been able to slip away without detection from at least thirty robberies that we can guess at. And we only know of them because we went back through the files, coordinated with authorities across the globe.” The admiral looked to someone out of his avatar range, nodded, and then brought his attention back to Scott. “You need to understand how dangerous to the security of the world this pair is. They have left no DNA, no clues. The only thing that links these crimes is the brutal efficiency and ruthless killing. Always with an unknown device that we’ve started to call a disruptor, thanks to the sub-atomic damage it does. Tracy, this is the closest we’ve gotten to catching them in the act. My officers will be assuming that your vessel is controlled by a hostile and will take action accordingly.”

Kayo spoke up.

“What makes you think these are the people you’re after?”

He wouldn’t swear to it, but Scott thought he saw a gleam come into Pang’s eyes, something that would have been briefly acknowledged by a rabbit watching a swooping hawk.

“They killed two officers in their raid on the San Diego base, but not before one of the officers managed somehow to put a tracker onto them. Our subs have been following them. They’re trapped now, in their underwater hideout.”

John’s avatar appeared alongside the admiral’s.

“Base, this doesn’t make sense. My understanding was that the couple on the facility were dry-tubed to Thunderbird Two.”

Pang frowned.

“I was under the impression that there was only one operative in your vessel?”

Scott met the frown with a growing, and quite unconscious, glare.

“That’s right.”

“My reports tell me that our sensors are reading three on-board. Whatever may or may not have been dry-tubed, it was not in all likelihood our fugitives. They may well have sent the dry tubes out to throw us off their scent.”

John was joining in the unhappy facial expression party, and opened his mouth to say something, but Scott signalled quiet.

Nothing was adding up here, but for all Alan’s distraction and the dull intricacies of monthly bills, Scott knew damned well he’d heard Virgil welcome at least one of the rescued couple. It was more likely that Thunderbird Two was compromised than Four. But given the way Admiral Pang was talking, if they heard about Two he’d authorise an airstrike to take it out if it meant stopping these criminals.

“I can only repeat, Admiral, that Thunderbird Four is not a threat. If you would lift the jamming frequency from the area, we could make direct contact with our operative and confirm that.”

Admiral Pang’s mouth tightened briefly. It seemed to Scott to be the first response that wasn’t an implacable certainty. But as well as looking comparatively young, there was also the unmistakable air of nimble intelligence about the man. You didn’t get to be an admiral at WASP without having an ability to quickly adjust your thinking if the situation demanded it.

“That might be possible. You could identify your operative, confirm they are still in charge?”

“Yes, of course.” For crying out loud, he wanted to add, but managed not to.

“Can you tell me what weapons your vessel has?”

Alan, quiet until now but increasingly agitated, finally burst. “Weapons? It’s a rescue sub!”

Scott’s eyes didn’t leave Admiral Pang’s, but he heard Grandma’s “Hush, Alan!” and realised that once again, her uncanny sense of knowing when her family was in trouble had brought her to his side when he needed her.

He knew the military. He knew the man wanted information, not passion, and that reason would win where emotion was dismissed as irrelevant.

“Its only weapon is a forward demolition charge. From what my brother has told me that charge would only be a minor inconvenience if brought to bear against a steel-alloy coated sub.”

“I see.” Pang gave a short nod. “Very well. I’ll let the commander on-site know to release the communications channel just long enough for you to make contact, if you can. But I have to tell you, I don’t expect you to like the outcome.”

Scott didn’t allow himself a moment of relief. As far as he could tell, it was Virgil who was likely to be in trouble here, not Gordon, who was probably sitting safely in Four and providing plenty of ex-WASP banter with the subs surrounding him. The fact that he wasn’t going to tell Admiral Pang about his suspicions weighed heavily in his gut; lying to a senior officer, by omission or not, always felt utterly wrong to him. But if Thunderbird Two was compromised, a ‘stop at all costs’ approach would probably bring the plane crashing into the sea, with Virgil helpless on-board. International Rescue knew what Two was capable of. They had Kayo in Thunderbird Shadow, and Brains to coordinate a way of disabling the plane once it was safely landed.

His mind was clear, and made up. Maslow’s hammer applied here: to WASP, a stolen plane would look like a nail they could hit with their very effective hammer, also known as a sea to air missile.

“Thank you. We’ll work closely with you in any way we can to peacefully resolve this situation with our rescue sub. International Rescue out.”

The admiral’s image had barely disappeared before Scott whirled to Kayo.

“Kayo, I need you to take Shadow and get to Thunderbird Two. Stealth mode – they can’t see you. We have reason to believe those criminals Pang was talking about are on Two. We’ve lost contact with Virgil and the last we knew he was pulling up the second dry-tube.”

Kayo hesitated.

“What about the two extra people scanned on board Four?”

“Gordon was checking out the lab. There were reports of others down there. Maybe he found other people who needed rescuing?”

“Or maybe they’re other members of the gang?”

“Admiral Pang said they always operate as a pair.”

John cut in, looking troubled. “Then why isn’t Gordon replying to the WASP hails? You heard the admiral – Four’s not responding.”

“I don’t like this, Scott,” Kayo said. “This isn’t adding up.”

Scott grimaced. “Maybe it’s a glitch in their scanners. Look – we’re sure that one person was evacuated from Four and actually taken on-board Two. Virgil had eyes on the second dry tube, correct?”

“Confirmed,” John said.

“Let’s go with what we know. Once we’re back in contact with Gordon we’ll have a better idea of what’s going on. My gut tells me he’ll be in no danger. It’s Virgil I’m worried about. Kayo, I need you to find Two and follow it, see where it goes. Don’t try and intercept until it’s landed somewhere and I’m there as back up.”

“I’m on it.” Kayo ran past Grandma, now standing at Scott’s side with her hand on a miserable-looking Alan’s shoulder.

“But if this was their base, maybe there are lots more people involved that we don’t know about, and neither does WASP,” Alan said, his voice trying and failing to keep from cracking with worry.

Scott hesitated. It was a good point.

“John, did it sound like an operating base to you?”

“It sounded like an antiquated Cold War lab. I wouldn’t like to guess at the air quality, but as I understand it, the woman was not well when Gordon got her onto Four, and – “

A sudden crackle of static, bringing each of them to instant, waiting stillness.

Then, two words, in Virgil’s pained, breathless voice, and all doubt vanished.

Bo kata.

A brief flash of terror on Alan’s face, and Scott couldn’t swear his own hadn’t shown the same thing.

Bo kata.

Hacked. Literally, kite down.

Dimly, he registered John’s horrified expression, Grandma’s alarm. There was no time for any of it. He tapped his sash.

“Kayo, you get that?”

“Affirmative. What’s the plan?”

“As you were. I’m following you to the site right now.” He turned to Alan, his voice cool and sure now that the most pressing uncertainty was a confirmed problem with a solution waiting to be found. “Alan, I need you coordinating. Get Brains up here. I need to know anything and everything about the Bo Kata Protocol we can use in this situation.”

“I’m on it.” It registered again with Scott just how extraordinary this kid brother of theirs was. A minute ago he was a disengaged teenager avoiding homework; now he was a steady professional, stepping up to do an adult’s job. He took a moment to clap Alan on the shoulder, then ran for his chute.

It took him less than three minutes to get into the air behind Shadow. It would take him 15 minutes to reach the site of the rescue, at the southern end of the Habomai Islands. Kayo’s intercept time would depend on where Five’s tracking directed her, but she would fly in tandem with him toward the area until she heard differently. He used the time to review everything that he knew about the situation, and the process brought him little joy. Ordinarily, Scott’s mind would absorb a mission’s parameters, every factor known to him and every possibility he could conjure, and fire each one back and forth until they made a connection, reached some kind of pattern he could see clearly and negotiate, no matter what risk it offered. A path would appear through it all; dangerous, almost certainly, but coherent and present and real to him. If that path didn’t coalesce, Scott would stop. It was always a sign that something wasn’t coming together, that if he waited a little longer whatever it was that his mind couldn’t fit into the pattern would emerge as an impediment to the mission’s success.

Today, everything remained a jumble in his mind. So many things that didn’t quite make sense, that had to be bundled up in speculation, rounded off into maybe. It made him almost physically uncomfortable, and he realised he was scowling as One soared through a sky almost ironic in its clearness.

The two extra people, for example. How did that work? His glitch notion was feeble. Were there others waiting in the lab for Gordon’s rescue attempt? Did they overpower him in Four itself? Were they maybe waiting outside the lab, underwater and following the rescue? But then, the dry tubes were on Two and Virgil had invoked the Bo Kata protocol. So the bad guys were on Two, and it would make no sense for another two to hang around in Four. Unless they got caught by WASP’s unexpected appearance. Which might mean Gordon was still in the lab?

It made his head hurt. If he could only talk to Four…

He began to slow when Thunderbird One neared the site. Already, the unexpected had occurred – there were vessels down there, three dark ones with a blob of bright yellow in their midst. He wasn’t sure why WASP would come up like that, but it made his job much simpler.

“Thunderbird One to Thunderbird Five. Do you have access to the WASP sub yet?”

John’s avatar appeared, looking troubled.

“No. I have Admiral Pang, though. And he’s not happy.”

“Patch him through. And John? Hang around, I want you to hear whatever he has to say.”

John nodded, and Pang’s face suddenly showed alongside his. The first glance confirmed John’s comment; it was impressive, how Pang could remain seemingly composed while fury radiated through the airwaves.

“Tracy. The situation has changed. A pressure bomb has gone off on your submersible. You didn’t think to mention that in your defensive capabilities.”

Scott saw John’s mouth open in horror. His own body registered a jolt of ice throughout every part, but his voice stayed steady and low as he said, “International Rescue does not have any weapon such as you say. There is no pressure bomb aboard Thunderbird Four, unless someone else has brought it there.”

“I’m not particularly interested in its provenance. I’m more concerned at the fact that three of my officers are dead.”

“What?!” He’d thought Gordon safe. All his concern was with Virgil and Two.

“I have a retrieval team there now.” Pang paused to take a deeper breath. “There is no sign of the other two criminals.”

He’d thought Gordon was safe.

“You said – were the WASP – was anyone else on board?”

“As I said, one other was on board, the others have gone.”

“The one on board – are they alive?”

Pang’s expression grew sourer.

“Apparently. He has been arrested and is being interrogated on board Tiger Shark.”

“Interrogated?” Scott brought One to a stationary hover above the group of vessels below. He could barely look at the brave brightness of Thunderbird Four in the middle of them. “If there’s been a pressure bomb, he’ll need medical attention.”

“And he’ll get it. Once we have answers.”

“Admiral, you said I could contact the sub if – “

“The situation has changed, Tracy. I’m sure you understand that this is a criminal investigation that has taken the lives of five of my officers.”

Scott ground his teeth in frustration.

“May I speak with Admiral Clovis?”

“Admiral Clovis was forced to retire last week.”

“Forced?”

Immediately, Scott could see that Admiral Pang regretted letting that much information out. It was probably a mark of just how deeply distressed the man was at the loss of his personnel.

“Admiral Clovis is no longer with WASP.” Pang looked at something to the side of Scott’s eye-line, reading it. “I see that you are on-site now. I hope you understand that WASP will not tolerate any interference in its operations.”

“Admiral, I need to contact my operative!”

Pang glared at him, no longer willing to sustain any kind of façade.

“I am not authorising access to any of the WASP vessels for International Rescue at this time. This is no place for amateurs. And – “ he continued, as Scott began to protest once more, “I can assure you that in no way will I authorise your presence on-board Tiger Shark in particular. I could not guarantee your safety.”

“My safety?”

“Yes, Mister Tracy.” And if he’d looked grim before, it was nothing to the expression that hardened Pang’s face now. “One of the divers killed on Four was the sister of the captain of Tiger Shark. WASP Command out.”

The avatar disappeared.

“John!”

“I heard.” John’s hands were working below the sightline. “Arrested, he said, Scott. That most likely means Gordon’s alive.”

Until he heard the words aloud, Scott didn’t realise how badly he needed them.

John continued.

“I’m contacting Colonel Casey. She might have a way of getting some inter-service cooperation happening.”

“Good thinking.”

Truth be told, he’d only know for sure what was happening with Gordon when he saw him. He still couldn’t be sure that it was Gordon being held on Tiger Shark.

The numbers didn’t add up.

“International Rescue.” Colonel Casey’s dry, cool tone filled his ears, and he looked up to offer a strained smile to her face floating above his comms. “I’m hearing some rather alarming reports from the northwest Pacific.”

“We have a situation, Colonel,” Scott confirmed. “Our vessel may have been compromised, there are WASP officers who have been killed with a percussion bomb, and I can’t contact Gordon. I think he’s on-board the WASP submarine, being interrogated, but I can’t be sure until I get on there and see for myself. He may still be in the underwater lab. I don’t know.”

“I see. And how can I be of help?”

“We’ve hit a roadblock with Admiral Pang.”

Colonel Casey nodded. “The new acting head of WASP. Quite a formidable character from all I’ve heard. We’ve yet to meet.”

“I guess meeting for the first time to request a change of orders wouldn’t be your first choice?”

“It’s not ideal, no.” She frowned. “I can understand his reasons for not allowing you access. WASP are hurting, badly. It’s not a good time for outsiders to get involved.”

“And we wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s our operative and our sub that’s been attacked. Colonel, I’ve got to get down there. Is there anything you can do?”

One sharp eyebrow lifted.

“Is this you calling in favours, Scott?”

Scott grimaced.

“If I must. Colonel, this is an ongoing situation. I can’t make decisions until I know for sure that Gordon’s alive and okay. We’re involved whether we want to be or not. You know me, Colonel. You know I’m not a threat to their operations. We want to get out of the way, but I have got to get my brother to safety first.”

“I’m not supporting you in taking him from WASP,” she said. “They will need to question him.”

“Colonel, I don’t even know if he’s the one they’ve got. He may be trapped in the lab, hurt. I’m working blind here.”

She considered him, her dark eyes intent and intimidating, but Scott met their gaze with his own. Every ounce of persuasion he possessed – and he knew very well he had more than his fair share – was in that look.

“Very well. I’ll make representations on your behalf to Admiral Pang. On the strict understanding, Scott, that you do not interfere in their ongoing process of investigation and you obey any and all reasonable commands.”

“Reasonable commands. Got it.”

“Hmm. Why does that not reassure me? Scott.” Her voice was serious. “I am interceding on your behalf with the head of another branch of the service. This is no small matter. I need to know I can trust you not to let me down.”

Scott bowed his head slightly.

“You have my word. I just want to make sure my brother’s not dying or trapped down there.”

“Understood. Casey out.”

“Let’s just hope that works,” Scott muttered to John’s avatar.

“Colonel Casey is made of pretty stern stuff.”

“Yeah. Problem is, I think Pang’s the same. What’s that they say about an irresistible force meeting an immovable object? I guess all we can do is sit tight here until we hear back.” He tapped the comm unit on his sash. “Thunderbird Shadow, come in.”

“Thunderbird Shadow here.”

“What’s your status, Kayo?”

“I’ve found Thunderbird Two and am following it at a safe distance.”

“Things have changed, Kayo. A bomb’s been detonated on Thunderbird Four. I’m gonna be here until I see Gordon, one way or another.”

“Gordon! Is he okay?”

“I don’t know,” and boy, did he hate saying that about anything, but especially about the safety and whereabouts of his brothers.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Just what you’re doing. We still know Two’s been compromised somehow. We still know Virgil’s in danger. He’s your priority.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll stick to them like glue.”

“But don’t make contact! Kayo, if these really are the First Responder Murderers, they are utterly ruthless. And very clever. Once they land and find out they can’t get out, that’s when we’ll need to start negotiating. Until then, we need to keep well back.”

“Understood.” And she did. Not for the first time, Scott gave thanks for the discipline and smarts of his head of security. He trusted her, completely. The only trouble was, he couldn’t trust anything else about this situation, including his own reading of it.

And now all he could do was wait. His least favourite thing, and this time he was waiting impotently above the site where his younger brother had disappeared and could potentially be a prisoner, be badly injured, or be trapped in an abandoned underwater lab. Or, worst possibility of all, where he might be yet another casualty of the ruthless criminals who had killed so many already. The minutes ticked by, and Scott’s mind raced in a helpless circle, the pattern lost to him, the path completely obscured.

At last, when the tension in his gut was such that he found himself bending forward to ease it a little, the comm unit lit up and Pang’s avatar came through once more.

He seemed even less impressed than before, if that was possible.

“You have friends in high places, and you like to fight dirty. Two things I’ve learned about you, Mister Tracy.”

Scott returned the look.

“I want to develop the same good working relationship with you that I had with Admiral Clovis, Admiral Pang. But today, I would do anything I need to do to get down to that sub. You mentioned that one of the dead officers was the sister of the WASP captain?” Pang nodded, curt. “Then maybe he’ll understand my concern. That submersible pilot is my brother.”

That caught Pang unaware. His eyes widened slightly. After a hesitation, he nodded again.

“I did not know that. That – that does change things.” He lifted his chin. “Colonel Casey said I could rely on you to maintain discipline and obey authority down there. The first I can believe, the second gives me pause.”

Scott leant forward. “I will give you whatever surety you require to let me have access to my brother.”

“Alright then,” Pang said. “It seems increasingly clear to me that your organisation has been unwittingly caught up in this mess. You are authorised to enter the sub and speak to the captain. If your brother is not on-board, my people will assist you in any way you require to search the lab.”

“Thank you, Admiral.” The rush of gratitude through his chest was so intense it almost brought tears to his eyes. “I won’t let you down.”

“See that you don’t,” and the avatar was gone. Scott leapt from his seat and raced to the access hatch, tapping his comm unit as he did so.

“Five, I have access to the sub.”

“Good news, Scott.”

“The first today,” he agreed. “I don’t know if I will be able to be in contact once aboard, so I’ll leave liaison with Thunderbird Shadow and Two to you.”

“FAB.” John gave him a look, one full of trust and admonition and warning. “This is going to take some real diplomatic skills, Scott.”

“Like I told the good Admiral,” Scott said, readying his line to fire to the conning tower of the largest WASP sub sixty feet below, “I will do anything it takes to find my brother. Including bringing my best behaviour. Don’t worry, Five. I’ll bring him home.”

Chapter Text

His head was ringing like a bell.

Not the most original of thoughts, but now he understood where the phrase came from. His head felt as if it was literally some great, cavernous thing of metal that was reverberating, one sonic boom after another, like him and Big Ben were pulling an all-nighter, playing all the bell ringer hits.

Some guy across the table. Currently losing it, by the look of things. Neck straining, spittle flying. Not achieving a whole lot, ‘cos all Gordon had was the bell-ringing boogie in his head.

Couldn’t hear a damn thing.

Could feel plenty, though. His whole body was shaking, now he came to think of it, aching and shaking. Maybe he had bell ringer’s flu? That’s what it felt like, the worst flu imaginable, without the temperature but with added wrist ties, because really?

What the hell had happened to WASP since he left?

This guy across from him was a captain, no less. And Gordon knew how he should address him, the compulsion was strong, but his full-blown tinnitus was stronger. That, and a rising level of both annoyance and, oh hi there, nausea.

“Dude, I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m gonna be sick.”

One of the weirdest things about not being able to hear above your own inner bell-ness was a complete inability to time your offerings to the general conversation. There were two other junior officers – ha, cadets, suffer guys – standing behind him, and he had no idea if they were talking or not. All he could do was watch Captain Spittle and look for a moment when the dude had his mouth halfway shut.

Spittle started up again.

Good for him.

But the conversation was gonna get technicolour real quick if he didn’t top banging the table – wow, amateur theatrics much? – and get him a barf bag.

“Pal, Captain, whatever, I’m not kidding. I’m gonna hurl.”

And the mere thought of it could make him cringe, because he honestly thought the act of throwing up might take the top of his head off.

Didn’t seem to be getting his message through. Captain Spittle was pulling out a digital screen showing images of something and slamming it down onto the surface of the shiny metal table. Gordon knew these tables, knew the uniforms, knew that particular shade of pale gray-blue on the walls. So he knew he was on a WASP vessel, and therefore supposedly safe. What he didn’t know was why this dude was losing his ever-loving mind, and why he, Gordon, was not lying down somewhere warm and quiet because he also knew he was not fit for this particular folly. Something, somewhere, had gone very wrong, and he had no idea what or when but his body knew the collateral damage of it.

He closed his eyes, because the thought of shifting them so much as to look downwards to the table was enough to make his stomach roll.

And someone cuffed him on the back of the head.

It wasn’t a hard slap, by any means, but it sent the bells into a clashing frenzy, and he gasped and drew in breath in a desperate attempt not to empty his guts then and there.

“Keep your fucking hands off!” he managed to snarl, even as he thought, when I blow chunks, they’re all heading back there in your direction, pal.

Captain Spittle was all up in his face now, and holding up the little screen, with pictures of – that was Four. The interior of Four, and people in wet suits, masks off, on the floor, and their faces…

Their faces.

Whatever happened to them, it made their faces twist and distort and freeze there in a death mask of pure agony. Eyes – the eyes were gone, a burst of blood and matter. More blood from ears and noses. Hands at their heads. This was a truly horrific death, and it happened in his sub. Maybe…

Maybe it happened to him, too?

“God.” He didn’t know if his voice was soft or loud, but he knew he could barely frame the words. “What did that? Did I – I mean, was it the lab? Is it something in the lab? I gotta warn Virgil, I gotta let him know – “

A hand in his hair, pulling his head back, sending the bells off on a fiesta of fun.

“Asshole! Let go! I don’t know what this is about!”

Another shake, and now tears were coming, purely physical reactions to the pain, because Gordon was angry enough and sick enough to take them all on at this stage.

He tried to stand but was unceremoniously shoved back down. The images were thrust in front of him again, and he screwed his face up, tried to get away, but Captain Spittle held the screen up against his face, grinding it against his cheekbone. The pain of it met his own fury, and Gordon began yelling, even as it cranked up the pressure in his skull, even as the bells clashed and his stomach churned.

“Get off me, get off me, get off me!”

And, suddenly and astonishingly, he did.

Gordon peeled one eye open, panting against the nausea, blinking hard to try to get focused through the tears.

Only to see the one thing he would have wished for if he’d had the chance to wish.

Scott Tracy, his eyes full of demonic blue hellfire, lifting the captain up against a wall with one hand while holding the other up in a back-off gesture at the others.
Everything in Gordon’s body slumped in relief. Including, it seemed, his pyloric sphincter, because the next thing he knew he was doing exactly what he’d warned them about. He had no chance to stop it.

But he could, at least, twist in the chair to find one sorry looking cadet with his hands still in fists, clearly too green to know just who the hell he was dealing with. And make good his own internal threat, all over him.

Things got better at once, even as they got physically worse.

Scott helped him up and supported him, hip to hip, and muscled them both the hell outta Dodge. That was good. That was better than good. But the fact of standing and moving sent so much pain into his head that little noises of ow-ness kept escaping him.

Scott may well have been saying something but Gordon couldn’t tell and didn’t care. He wanted horizontal and still and warm, please. He gripped onto Scott’s chest and waist and tried to make his legs move in the direction and speed his brother was asking of him, but it was about all he could do not to drop all effort and be dragged along like a sack. One corridor after another, and he was right, this was a WASP sub, but the thought gave him no comfort. WASP shouldn’t have been tuning him up like that. Should they?

What happened on Four? Why was Scott here? Where was Virgil?

Officers and crew alike flattened against the bulkhead as Scott stormed them along to wherever they were heading. Probably One, he guessed, and that thought was not really a happy one, because that would mean sliding on cables or jumping onto chair lifts or some other act of derring-fucking-do and honestly, that just sounded hellish to Gordon. He felt pulped. All he could do was stumble along and hope that when they reached wherever they were going there was nothing left in his stomach to annoy Scott with.

But Scott surprised him. They didn’t head upwards. Instead, there was a sharp left turn and - oh, wow, sick bay. Yes, please, thank you. And a high, white bed, more like a sheet covered shelf, and Scott was lifting him up and onto it and gently taking off his breathing apparatus and letting him – at last, at long last – lie down on it, slowly and carefully, because his head was a bell made of eggshell that somehow never cracked even when it felt like it did. The sub’s surgeon came over to them, a woman with a severe face but that air of easy competence that experienced officers wore like armour and that Gordon just needed to see right now.
Scott was making earnest Scott faces and yabbering on. Well, that was what Scott did, after all, and Gordon was used to applying a strict filter that ignored all the boring-Scott bits and focused on the need-to-knows. But now nothing was getting through, and Scott didn’t seem to realise that.

“Hey, Scotty? Thanks for the rescue. Awesome timing.” He’d caught Scott in full tirade, he could tell, because his brother’s mouth was caught in a funny kind of mid-rant ‘o’, but if he waited for Scott to shut up they’d be here forever. “But, just so you know, I can’t hear a damn thing.”

Scott’s mouth shut sharply. And if Gordon thought his brother was pissed before, well, here was the complete Scott meltdown, complete with laser eyes and mouth of steel.

Scott began working his fingers until Gordon blinked and his brain kicked in to recognise the patterns. He was using uni-sign, the universal sign language for the hearing challenged. Each of the members of International Rescue were fluent enough for basic communication in a rescue situation.

“Sorry, Scott – again?”

:. How long you unable to hear?.:

Gordon worked his fingers carefully. In his state he could end up signing ‘go shag a donkey’ or something if he didn’t take it slowly. And then he realised, moron, I can still speak.

“Since I woke up on here.”

:. They knew? .:

Gordon gave a kind of half shrug, which probably looked weird, considering he was lying down.

“I told them. Kept telling ‘em. They really didn’t want to listen.”

That was Scott’s cue to glower so hard the sub’s surgeon almost flinched before bending over Gordon to shine a completely unnecessary light into his eyes.

“Ow. Enough.”

Scott moved in closer so he could put his hand on Gordon’s shoulder and squeeze. That meant, ‘this is for your own good’. Or ‘suck it up, princess’, depending if you were in his good books or not.

But Gordon could tell that Scot was furious on his behalf, not at him, so he took the kinder definition and subsided, even as Scott’s gentle pressure felt like a vice on his collar bone. He swallowed hard and tried again.

“What happened? There were dead guys on Four. WASPs, I think? They had pictures…”

Scott nodded, grimly, his mouth a tight line. Gordon looked to his hands to watch as he signed, and it occurred to him, through the pain that made his brain hurt just to think, that Scott was keeping his signing as obscured as possible from the surgeon’s eyes.

:. Concussion bomb. Killed three. .:

“How did they get on board? When?”

:. What do you remember? .:

“Huh.” The surgeon was feeling around behind his ears now, shining an otoscope into his head. Gordon reached up to feel the wetness in his ears, and watched without surprise as his fingers returned covered in red. “Not much. Where’s Virgil? He okay?”

Scott’s mouth got even thinner, and instinctively Gordon tried to sit up, managing to bang heads with the surgeon, who glared and pushed him back down. The whole exchange sent his stomach reeling.

“What is it? Where is he?” Fourth of five meant you needed to be able to read your older siblings as a simple survival mechanism, and Gordon’s tone grew sharp. “Don’t even think of lying to me, Scott. Tell me.”

The briefest of tells to let him know that yes, Big Brother had been considering a deflection, then Scott signed, :. Two’s signalled Bo kata. Kayo is following them right now. Don’t know anything else to tell you. Hoping you could tell me. Notice anything about the people you rescued?.:

“I – “ People? People they rescued. The surgeon placed a thermometer on his brow and tapped on the tiny comm unit on her wrist, recording vital signs and ordering pain relief, he hoped. “There were – Russians? Russians, yeah, old Russians. Old dead Russians.”

He caught Scott sending a worried glance to the surgeon, and if he wasn’t painfully aware that it would not be a happy move for his stomach’s sake, he would have rolled his eyes.

“I know what it sounds like. They were there, all down there. In the creepy lab. Dead Russians, maybe fifty?”

:. Okay. The couple you rescued? .:

And he tried, he really did, but he all he could summon up was some place dark, and scary, and full of death. Everything else was a jumbled series of flashes, without context and so without meaning. A bag? Someone picking up a bag? Using the dry tube, reassuring someone. Radiation readings. A long, dark shaft, a stuck door, light bouncing off – dead hands.

“I don’t know. Everything’s a bit of a mess in the old noodle. Sorry, Scott. Are they missing too? They got caught up in – uh, bo kata? Is green dork okay?”

Scott looked unhappy, and Gordon tried again, understanding dimly that this mattered in ways he couldn’t yet fathom and it was nothing that could be shared with WASP. He closed his eyes, looking for some focus, some balance, but only briefly. Without his sight he was completely isolated, and even those few seconds of blackness left him disoriented when he opened them again, because the sub’s XO was suddenly standing there, talking to Scott. Of course he hadn’t heard the man enter, and Gordon realised that people were going to be appearing and disappearing without warning for the next while.

And closing his eyes brought his body’s state to his full attention, and he realised he felt worse. Cold, achingly cold, and that wasn’t something he was much used to anymore. The island was always warm, night and day, and the IR suits were designed to maintain homeostasis, whatever weather conditions they were operating in. Sure, put them mid-Atlantic or way up north, way down south, and after enough hours they’d be glad of a hot shower at the end of it. But here? On a climate controlled sub? The ice shouldn’t be gripping his ribs as it was. He shouldn’t be opening his eyes to look about for a warm blanket or five.

Scott and New Dude were still having a free and frank exchange of opinions, so Gordon knew he’d have to be proactive here.

“Hey, Scott? Think I could get a blanket?”

He watched as Scott went from full on glare at the XO to full on mother hen mode, and it would have been hilarious if Gordon wasn’t increasingly aware of how his body felt like it had been put through a blender and poured back into his suit.

The surgeon was talking to Scott now, who was shaking his head, doubtful, and it was all kinds of annoying to not be hearing the conversation directly.

“What’s she saying?”

:. How’s your pain? One to ten honest. .:

Well, at this point he was in no mood to feign nobility. He’d take a full pharmacopeia for starters, then move on to the really freaky options if he must.

“I’m looking at eight and rising. Scott, I feel worse. Like I got pounded all over. And I’m real cold. Freezing.”

Scott nodded, then gestured at Gordon’s suit.

:. Doctor wants look at you. Scan not clear. .:

The thought came to him, at once and horribly, that his blue uniform was the only thing keeping him bodily together; that whatever happened to the others on Four had happened to him, too, and only Brains’ brilliant creation was keeping his organs where they should be, relatively speaking. He took a slow, deep breath and tried his damnedest to will away the mental images of soupy lungs breaching the wall of brittle ribs to flow onto the bed around him.

“Yeah, okay. Just – just real slow?”

But he must’ve forgotten who he was talking to. Because when Scott stepped in to begin by rolling him onto his side so the zipper down his back was exposed, the movement was as firm and gentle as a mother lion with a cub. He’d forgotten just how good Scott’s hands could feel, soothing away hurts and fears, and immediately he was a child again, with big brother Scott in charge, taking care of him.

He’d never wanted it more.

The uniform was peeled away, and Scott suddenly stopped, with Gordon’s shoulders and most of his chest exposed.

“What? What is it?”

Scott opened his mouth and then shut it, tightly, before continuing to fold back the uniform to his waist. The surgeon came in close then, and began to press on Gordon’s belly. He knew the pressure wasn’t hard, but the first touch had him gasping. Pain, ricocheting through his body, and it didn’t stop even when the surgeon’s hands lifted from him.

He was aware that Scott was flapping his fingers up by his face, and Gordon tore his eyes off the surgeon to stare wide eyed and uncomprehending at whatever Scott was signalling. The fingers slowed, grew more deliberate, and somehow coherency started to form in Gordon’s traumatised mind.

:. No meds. Doctor not sure. Not long. You can hold on. .:

Was that an order or a question or a statement?

But yeah. He could hold on. It’s what they did, right? The Tracy brothers. When people died or disappeared, when bodies got mangled, when they got hijacked or pulverised or just plain beat, they held on.

“Sure, Scotty. I’ll just chill here. Get it? Chill?”

And it was the right thing to say, because for just a second the worry that was everywhere on Scott right now, in everything he did, lifted just long enough for a quick eye roll that Gordon would call affectionately annoyed.

And that was his favourite flavour of Scott. Especially when everything else was so very, very frightening.

Chapter Text

Virgil remembered being with his dad in New York one time. Some high end restaurant, famous for its fifty different ways of preparing steak. He remembered watching as the chef prepared a three inch piece of the meat in front of them, pounding it down into a wafer thinness before slicing it up into strips for their speciality of the house, steak tartare. Flesh, membranes, the whole innate structure of the meat reduced under steady and consecutive waves of hostile pressure. The whole thing went a long way toward deciding Virgil’s vegetarianism, but the other thing he could draw from it right now was that he knew how that steak felt.

From where he lay sprawled against the rear wall of Thunderbird Two’s cockpit, he could see the back of her – whoever she was, whatever agenda she carried so malevolently – as she piloted his ‘bird. Beyond that inherently upsetting sight were patches of brilliant blue sky. He could tell, from the way those patches gradually darkened over a period of half an hour into night, that they were travelling east. And south. He didn’t know how he guessed that, but if asked he would say south. Which meant they were crossing the Pacific, from Japan to the Americas. Perhaps South America somewhere? They’d been flying for an hour or more. Hadn’t they? If she was cruising at 7,000 kilometres per hour, the Pacific would soon be crossed in a couple of hours, so perhaps then they would head down the continent?

He wasn’t gathering this fuzzy data for any purpose beyond keeping his mind working under the insidious temptation to collapse and simply stop.

There was no need to look for intel for International Rescue’s sake. The Bo Kata Protocol had been engaged. That meant Kayo was behind them right now, easily tracking the big bird as it headed to wherever it was going.

Just the tiniest flicker of doubt, at that point. His thinking was so fractured – past, present, pain, repeat – that he wasn’t completely sure if that tap on the sash, those two murmured words, had actually happened or were about to.

Funny, thinking of his dad. Because there he was, standing over by the woman, looking back at Virgil with that kind of quizzical expression he sometimes had when his sons were doing something nonsensical or stupid or just plain weird.

A blink, and he was gone. Only to reappear closer to him, kneeling down to share that same look, no doubt wondering why his son was sprawled at the back of his ‘bird like a broken puppet while two criminals did the Patagonian run with his girl. Hallucination Dad brought more worry than comfort, despite the involuntary warmth he felt when he remembered the fondness underneath that look of bemused surrender, because Virgil needed to know his mind wasn’t as disassembled as his body seemed to be. Whatever that weapon was, it packed an horrific level of damage, and whether it was temporary or – please god, no – permanent, he knew he would find it hard to forgive someone capable of conceptualising, constructing, and then deploying it.

Speaking of… he managed to shift slightly in order to look past his silent father so that he could keep an eye on her. She seemed to sense it, and turned a little in order to give him a smile.

“Not very pleasant, is it?”

Muscle Guy grunted, and stood to come over to where he could prod at Virgil’s legs with a large boot.

“Get used to it,” he said, and the air of complete unconcern was as chilling as the effects of the weapon now riding his body. The apparition of his father vanished with Muscle Guy’s comment, and Virgil could be grateful for that, if nothing else. And there was nothing else, except –

Behind Muscle Guy’s face. In the far corner, at the rear of the cabin, high up on the wall.

Kayo.

Great. Now he was hallucinating a tiny version of his sister.

One whose hologrammatic eyes keenly took in every aspect of the cabin and its occupants before quickly coming back to him and giving him a raking once-over.

Bo kata. Thunderbird Five would have activated the self-contained communication portal embedded and inconspicuous on the back wall, an action that allowed whoever was tracking Two to monitor everything happening in the cabin of the aircraft. It was a moment of relief as he realised his message got through. And that Kayo was close by, and no doubt Scott, too.

Only … he would have frowned, if his facial muscles didn’t feel permanently frozen into what was probably an expression of gormless surprise. Only, there was no need for Kayo to let her avatar appear on board. She would have been linked in to the system by John and then she could survey the interior of his ‘bird as much as she liked, with its occupants being none the wiser. So why expose her presence like this? Was she really there? It made no sense.

And then she finished her appraisal and gave him a sudden wink and thumbs up, and he knew.

She’d taken the risk to send him reassurance, let him know his signal had been caught, that his rescue was underway.

She did it for him.

A tiny burst of warmth, a firefly under pack ice, sparked in his chest.

Until it was quenched by a second thought, so dreadful he would have gasped if his chest could expand enough to accommodate the gesture.

She was here because she was afraid for him. She was so afraid she’d broken procedure.

And she’d only be afraid if –

Gordon. What happened to Gordon?

“Oh, is that you, Ms Kyrano?”

The woman wasn’t even facing their way. She was working assiduously on the device she had attached to the console, leaning forward a little, occasionally peering out below them through Two’s forward windows. Yet she spoke with conversational assuredness, not even bothering to turn and let her eyes confirm her query.

“I knew you’d be along presently. Has Scott turned up yet in that little silver phallic object of his?”

Kayo’s eyes widened, but only for a second, before she responded, smooth and professional.

“Thought I’d check in. You’ve taken one of our planes and one of our people. That’s not something we can let happen.”

“But it has happened, hasn’t it? Come on, Kayo, don’t be dull. So far these Tracy boys have been as dismally thick as I expected, but I do have higher hopes for you.”

Virgil’s heart thudded in his chest, and at last his brain began to clear enough through the white nothingness clogging the smallest thought that he could work the situation with some trace of his usual thoroughness.

The woman had called him by his name. Possible that Gordon had mentioned him – you’ll be met by a guy in a green sash, goes by the name Virgil – so not a totally remarkable occurrence. But then she’d mentioned Brains. Hadn’t she? Had his addled mind made that up? And now she spoke to Kayo with an air of familiarity that was confounding. And there was something else, something she’d said that went beyond any kind of speculation about secret research in GDF databases, something personal…

“Who are you?” Blunt and to the point, not Kayo’s subtlest foray, but internally Virgil cheered the question. He needed that answer, too.

The woman swung around in her seat.

“You tell me,” she said, simply.

The quickest of in-drawn breaths.

“I know you,” Kayo said.

“Yes, yes. Everyone’s offered that brilliant observation. I was rather hoping for something more substantial from you, Kayo. You’re the intel person, after all.”

Kayo was good at what she did. Virgil knew that as an article of faith. She was brilliant, conscientious, courageous. He never had to question her capacity in her role within IR, and the fact that something flickered across her face against her will for the merest half-second would never be anything he held against her. And yet, it undoubtedly happened; for the briefest of moments, high on the wall, an expression of utter confusion was there to be seen.

“You were at the weather station. With Fischler.”

“Brava.” The tone was dry. “But then, it was always probable that a woman would be the only one capable of defeating my super-power. Care to guess what that is, Incapacitated One?” She crooked an eyebrow at where Virgil lay. “No, I thought not. The synapses still firing blanks, right?”

“Fischler is in on this?” Kayo’s voice held a world of ‘eyes on me, bitch.’

“I doubt Fischler is in on his own life, let alone mine. No, poor man, I embedded an intractable code into his programming. The weather bots would have worked beautifully otherwise. Imagine that.”

Kayo’s face was set now. Virgil knew the expression. He doubted if Kayo ever realised she got it, but it was the look of a predator, circling her prey; eyes darkened, jaw tight, the focus complete. If he had enough internal awareness left that wasn’t devoured by pain, he would have found it reassuring.

“Why would you want to sabotage something so beneficial?”

The woman cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Because I needed to observe Shadow, of course. Hadn’t quite gotten enough data about that little beauty. And you gave me a perfect show, so thank you.”

Virgil had never seen a mouse slap an eagle before, but if he had, the effect would no doubt have been something like Kayo’s involuntary recoil.

“You couldn’t have known I would be among the ones to respond.”

The woman smiled, pleasantly. Then she turned back to the controls.

“Well, we’ve arrived. You’re no doubt about to do something thrillingly clever. Off you trot.”

“You’ve got nowhere to go.” But it wasn’t triumph in Kayo’s voice, not even threat. He couldn’t feel colder, it wasn’t possible to do so and retain consciousness, but something twisted in his belly. His sister by choice, one of the most purely competent people he knew, was baffled and uneasy and afraid, and he needed surety. He needed confidence.

He needed – dammit, he needed to help. He closed his eyes and focused on drawing one foot up enough to attempt a roll onto his stomach. Every ounce of strength he could will into action, mental and physical, every muscle and nerve and sinew that he could activate, every jolt of his heart and rush of his blood that existed within him he willed towards his right foot, to lift it and flatten it and use it as a pivot.

His foot jerked.

The woman ignored both of them. Muscle Guy left Virgil’s side and went to buckle in alongside her.

“Don’t forget,” she said unhurriedly to him, and he nodded.

Virgil felt the deceleration as she eased back the throttle.

“Wait.” Kayo’s eyes narrowed. “I remember now. You - you were on Fireflash.”

From where he lay, Virgil couldn’t see the woman’s expression, but her voice conveyed it well enough anyway. Mild amusement.

“Better. But not full marks, Ms Kyrano. I saw you on the Estrella Grand Hotel fun-ride. And the first time I met International Rescue, I experienced the dry tubing so neatly utilised in recent memory. You might like to consider that as you run back to Tracy Island to lick your not so inconsiderable wounds. Metaphorically speaking.” The woman glanced backwards. “It’s never happened to me, but I imagine being outwitted burns quite a bit.”

Two’s VTOL engines fired, and it began to settle downwards until its landing struts connected with the Earth’s surface. A touch more, and the engines died.

“Well, here we are. Now.” The woman swung back to face them. “Who is Beau Carter?” She looked directly at Virgil. “I heard you summon him before. Some operative of whom I am not aware?”

All the wasted effort of his abortive foot move was summoned again for one final gesture.

Virgil smiled.

It seemed to amuse her.

“Good for you, brave little man.” She stood up, nodded to Muscle Guy who picked up the device from in front of them and then moved out of Virgil’s eye-line, down below the control panel. She raised her own eyes to Kayo’s tiny avatar. “Right. So I suppose this is where we begin with the futile little dance that begins with you telling me I can’t get out because Two is in lockdown and ends with us leaving Two because if we don’t, plaid boy is dead.”

Plaid?

And suddenly the line that had been nagging at his brain, the amorphous realisation lost in the white dough that was his thoughts, took hard, clear, frightening shape.

Mooning over Penelope. She said that. About Gordon.

Scott hadn’t known about that until he was directly told, and that only in the last few months. Gordon’s crush on Lady Penelope was something his brother had done everything he could to keep hidden. Virgil knew because ‘everything he could’ didn’t include Gordon keeping his mouth shut about it on the way home from long, tiring rescues. But as intel went, it was pretty damn intimate, inner circle, Tracy and Lady Penelope only stuff.

And this – this woman, this cruel, calm, brilliant monster knew about it.

It was the most purely terrifying moment of Virgil’s life. A vertiginous swooping death spiral of all his certainties, unmooring his reckoning, disassembling his expectations.

Who the fuck was she?

It was written on his face of course, his catastrophic realisation, and she saw it.

“Something coming to you, Virgil? My super-power, perhaps? Tell me who Beau Carter is, and I’ll tell you what my super-power is.”

He looked up towards Kayo. Her face was grim, but resolute.

“So let’s skip all that,” she said. “Virgil is our only priority.” Virgil made a sound of distress, and her eyes quelled him. “Our only priority. We want him back safely.”

“You’ve okayed this with the grown-ups?”

“I am in constant communication with the other members of International Rescue. We are in complete agreement. As long as Virgil is left without any further harm, you may leave Thunderbird Two and we’ll make no attempt to stop you.”

“Hmm. That’s an excellent offer, and I gladly accept.” The woman smiled again. “Of course, I am leaving a percussion bomb much like the one that reduced sweet little Gordon into strawberry jam. Remote controlled, naturally. I’ll give you – what? Twenty seconds? Make it thirty. Thirty seconds after I’m clear of Two, and then I’ll detonate it. Entirely up to you if you decide to focus on grabbing me or him.”

“There’s no need!” The strain in Kayo’s voice was evident now, but Virgil barely noticed.

All he could hear, over and over again, were those three words. Gordon. Strawberry jam.

What – what did she - what could that mean, other than…

“I know. You’re all about rescue, not law enforcement. Still. I like built-in redundancies. I daresay I’ll meet Beau Carter soon enough, so I suppose I can tell you my super-power, Virgil, and you can get Brains to figure a way around it. Remember. Thirty seconds, once I’m clear. Now. Activate the lift, please, Ms Kayo.”

There was a silence, a stillness, something that echoed where Virgil’s heart had been. Then, slowly, the lift taking the woman and her sidekick began to descend.

“My super-power is simple, Virgil.” They began to disappear, through the floor. “I’m a plain, forty year old woman. That makes me invisible.”

Chapter Text

“What’s the story with his ears?”

The surgeon nodded.

“It can be permanent, but if that’s the case, we have synthetic eardrums, of course. But usually, this kind of damage will repair itself, given time. I’ll need to examine him properly to have a better idea of the extent of the damage.”

“So what can be done in the meantime?”

“Once I get imaging done to check for neurological damage, pain relief. General analgesia, because whatever weapon this was it has caused significant disruption to his entire nervous system. S2s won’t cut it.”

Can’t be site specific when an entire system is compromised. Scott’s hands tightened into fists, unconsciously. Anger had flared so quickly in that room at the sight of Gordon being monstered. All his promises to Colonel Casey, to Admiral Pang, to John, to himself – all gone in one incendiary burst that had transported him across the room and onto Gordon’s abuser in a fiery wave impossible to resist. It had taken every lesson ever learned about control to simply hold the man off his brother, rather than pound his face into mincemeat.

Turned out the man was the captain. Turned out Scott Tracy had no more self-discipline than a hot-headed teen.

Turned out that making enemies in a confined space when your brother was going to be at their mercy? Not such a smart strategic move.

Now Scott was left asking for favours, again, on behalf of his young brother whose only crime was risking his life while trying to rescue someone – when, if given a free hand, most of the sub’s entire contingent would be perfectly happy to hand Scott his ass, with or without the benefit of medical attention afterwards.

If he stopped to consider Colonel Casey’s response to all this, he might even prefer offering the crew a free hit.

So, naturally, to avoid introspection and internal abuse, he went on the offensive.

“I need your word that he’ll be looked after.”

And yeah, okay, that was probably undiplomatic, but he knew he had to get going and it was getting harder and harder to leave Gordon as he knew he had to. The XO standing beside him stiffened a little.

The surgeon was unfazed, but the slight glint in her eye let Scott know she didn’t appreciate the demand, even if she understood the motivation behind it.

“The Hippocratic Oath holds, Mr Tracy, even at 20,000 feet under. Besides,” she added, “not that it makes any practical difference, but I believe you said he’s one of ours?”

“He was in WASP, yeah. Until a hydrofoil accident just about destroyed him. You’ll find he’s got an artificial spine, pelvis, whole lot of limbs. And an artificial nervous system too, come to think of it.”

“Thank you for letting me know.” There was an undercurrent to that suggesting perhaps it was information he should have offered somewhat earlier.

“Right. Well, I’ll – “

“Hey?” Gordon was still awake and aware, which was unfortunate but necessary, while tests were still being done. Scott could only guess how appealing a knockout drug would be just about now, but the guess was informed by the way Gordon’s shoulders were hunched, the way his legs were drawn up on the bed and his arms were tucked in tight against his body. “What does she say about my ears?”

:. That they stick out like a monkey with a bad haircut. :

“Ha. Jealousy is a sad emotion, Scott. You gotta rise above it.”

Scott grinned, a wholly artificial look but one he knew his brother needed right now.

:. You are going be fine. Might take time. But you will get your hearing back. :

And Scott could tell, by the involuntary drop of Gordon’s shoulders, just what that confirmation meant to him. It was the only clue; his expression remained relentlessly, rigidly cheerful.

“Yeah? Well, yeah. Good. That’s good. I mean, you know I like to hear what people are saying about me. It’s always good for my ego.”

He was trying so hard, and in a jagged second it took Scott back to the days after Dad’s disappearance, when Gordon’s mask was secured firmly in place and set to hopeful, fine, everything’s going to be okay. That shiny, hard surface only ever appeared when Gordon was well out of his depth and slowly drowning, but didn’t want to drag anyone down with him.

It banked Scott’s anger again, even as it cracked his heart. He wasn’t sure exactly who or what he was angry at – there were too many targets competing for attention - but he knew he couldn’t visit it on the brother lying in pain on a sub’s sickbay bed. Better to take that growling surge of energy and use it to propel him to where he needed to be.

“You’ll look after everything?” When Scott nodded, Gordon gave a brief thumbs up. “If I think of anything I’ll get it to you. Still all kinda messed up – brain, ears, whatever – but I bet I’ve got something lurking in this noodle of mine that can help.”

:. You need rest. : Scott stopped signing long enough to raise a finger in an ‘Ah-ah-ah!’ gesture, a Big Brother language all of its own, then returned to uni-sign. :. You will remember more if you get sleep, rest your brain. Heal. :

He leant over and squeezed Gordon’s shoulder.

“Virgil.” He mouthed the name clearly, and Gordon nodded his comprehension. :. Be okay. I will get him. :

“Yeah. I know you will.”

It was an outrageous promise, one he was in no position to give, but Scott tended to use statements like that as scaffolds for his future actions. He built structures out of ridiculous assurances and bold assertions, and then he dragged everyone else up with him, rung by ephemeral rung.

Before he could change his mind he turned his back on the brother who needed him but could cope to go and find the brother who needed him and was still in danger.

The XO dipped his head towards the corridor, and Scott nodded, falling in behind him as they left the sickbay and headed through the narrow passages until they came to a small office. Scott followed him inside, acutely aware of his actions and his promise to Colonel Casey.

She was going to be a very unhappy commander of GDF.

The XO turned to face Scott in the office. He was a relatively small man, with bright blue eyes to match Scott’s, and yet his air of quiet authority filled the space.

“I’ve been instructed by Admiral Pang to share whatever information I judge necessary for the apprehension of these criminals.” He met Scott’s look with a frank one. “I know you’re withholding something of your own.”

Scott kept his face as bland as he could make it, but his mind raced. He was used to dealing with competing imperatives. It didn’t usually happen while an experienced and very savvy, not to say pissed, naval officer glared at him from two feet away.

“I just need to get on my way.”

“Not staying to oversee the search of your vessel?” The XO gestured briefly in the direction of where Thunderbird Four would be secured to the sub. Scott hesitated, but the XO continued.

“No. I figure they’re on the other aircraft. Thunderbird Two. Right?”

Scott willed himself to stay still, to keep his breathing even. He even offered an innocent blink or two.

The XO sighed and ran a hand over his face before dropping into the seat beside the small fold out table.

“Look. Let’s try for some inter-service co-op here. Doesn’t do either of us any good to withhold information at this point. Your man’s down the corridor in a world of pain and my commanding officer’s under sedation in his cabin. Effectively, I’m in command. And I am giving you five minutes of my precious time because I think you know more than you’re letting on. So what say we put cards on the table?”

It was a less combative approach than Scott had feared, given their brief but intense exchange at Gordon’s bedside. He recognised the enormous pressure the officer in front of him was under, and found enough fellow-service goodwill to summon a brief nod and a compromise of sorts. All the while his brain shuffled desperately through the information he knew and tried to categorise what he could and must not, on pain of Virgil’s death, show.

“If we’re going to be honest, I didn’t catch your name back there.”

The XO nodded, unsurprised.

“Commander Dov Rapp. Time’s critical here, so I’m going to tell you what I know and then you’re going to tell me what you know. Agreed?” Before Scott could answer, he continued. “We got the call about the robbery and murder at WASP Pacific command, followed the tracker here, found a small sub obviously from International Rescue, found an aircraft equally clearly Thunderbird Two. Saw two metallic objects jettisoned from Thunderbird Four – the big black number on the sub’s hard to miss – no life signs, figured them to be stolen material taken from the San Diego base.” At Scott’s slight frown, his eyes narrowed. “You weren’t expecting that?”

“Keep going.”

“Alright. So we’ve got the First Responders trapped. We know their MO is to take over the first vehicle that responds to a robbery. We contact the pilot of the submersible, who lies to our faces about the number of people on board and immediately confirms to us, in our minds, that Thunderbird Four is compromised. We secure the vessel and go in to arrest whoever’s on board. You know how well that turned out. Or maybe you don’t. Here.”

He proffered a small tablet that turned out to hold an image of the WASP crew after the percussion bomb had finished with them. It was a sickening sight. Grimly, Rapp put the tablet down on the table and then tilted his head slightly. “And all this time Thunderbird Two is sitting up top. Then it takes off.” He leant forward, calm and deadly. “So tell me where I’ve got my figuring wrong. The First Responder murderers were in those jettisoned containers. Somehow they masked their life signs. They got onto Thunderbird Two and took control of it. They then proceeded to fly that aircraft south east as fast as she could go. No, the skipper didn’t notice because he’d just seen his sister and two other crewmembers killed in an ambush. Kind of thing that can take a man offline for a while. So I guess what I’m asking is – you got anything that is going to stop me from calling an immediate worldwide strike on sight for your aircraft?”

Scott took a deep breath, information spinning frantically in his mind, then summoned a question of his own.

“You still tracking her?”

“You mean the aircraft? Or the criminals?” Rapp’s lips tightened. “Why?”

“We are. I’ve got an operative on her tail as we speak. Are you tracking her?”

A frown. “I have all the tracking systems in GDF and WASP at my disposal. What do you think?”

It was like a ray of feeble but very welcome sunshine into Scott’s world.

“You’ve lost her, haven’t you? That’s why we’re having this conversation instead of me being in a brig somewhere.”

There was a pause, and Scott unconsciously squared his stance a little.

“You want my help to find Thunderbird Two.”

“I would hope that your own sense of duty would get you to that point.”

“I have duties to lots of things, Commander. One of them is to the pilot of Two -”

“I understand your concerns, Mister Tracy, but – “

“ - who happens to be my brother.”

There was immediate silence in the little cabin. Scott could almost hear the commander’s mind whirling through his own options in turn. He decided now was as good a time as any to double down.

“That crew member in a world of pain in the sickbay? Also my brother.”

A wry look that said don’t be a dumbass.

“Yeah. I guessed. I had your brother’s face scanned, found out who he was. I was on my way to inform the captain when you decided to intervene.” The briefest flicker of dark humour crossed Commander Rapp’s face. “I suppose I should apologise for what I said to you when we were in that sickbay. I’m not going to, because we don’t take kindly to people who board our vessels under sufferance and proceed to get our captain in a chokehold. But you’re making a little more sense to me.”

Scott looked directly into Rapp’s eyes and made his decision.

“Cards on the table? International Rescue’s following Two. My brother’s on that plane and he is my first and only priority right now. I’m going back to my craft to join our other operative in making sure we get him out in one piece. I can travel so fast in stealth mode you’ll never be able to track me. Once he is clear – once we have him safely on board, we will join with you and GDF and put our tracking system in your service to hunt these people down.”

“You don’t care about what happens to Thunderbird Two?”

Scott shrugged, still holding the other man’s gaze.

“We built it before, we’ll build it again. My brother’s safety is non-negotiable.”

“Then tell me this. Why is it that you can track Two but we can’t?”

“I don’t know. I need to get back and start talking with my people, find out what’s going on. My best guess is that these criminals have some kind of scrambling device that can neutralise the GDF systems but can’t block ours.” Scott gave a wide gesture. “We’ve got multiple fail-safes, multiple communication avenues, and our systems aren’t readily accessible.”

Another touch of wryness on Rapp’s face. “Not sure I’d describe our tracking system as accessible.”

“You have – what, fifty thousand personnel? More? A hundred bases worldwide? That’s a lot of points of possibility.” Scott allowed his own grim smile. “We do things differently.”

Commander Rapp tightened his mouth, then gave a brief nod.

“If I let you go, my head’s in a noose. You assaulted the captain. I’m making a decision here I’m going to have to justify, because if I kick it upstairs we’re going to be losing precious time. You can go, Tracy. But I need your word that you’ll bring us back in once your brother’s been retrieved.”

“You have it.” Scott put out his hand; after a brief hesitation, Commander Rapp gave him his.

“Head in a noose, Tracy.”

“You’ve got my brother in your care, Commander.”

Commander Rapp’s expression lightened a little.

“That’s true. And your submersible.”

A quick tap at the door was followed by a young cadet putting her head around it.

“Sir, we have preliminary reports on the devices we found on the sub.” She gave the quickest of glances at Scott, and Rapp understood.

“Go ahead, Parajingham.”

“Yes sir.” She came fully into the room, and offered a small tablet. On the screen was the image of a device that caused Rapp to twist his mouth briefly.

“That’s the percussion bomb. Damn things were banned fifteen years ago.”

A second device slid into view, and Rapp raised his eyebrows in question to the cadet.

“They’re not sure, sir. It’s not tech with which anyone is familiar.”

“How can that be? The scans have been sent to SD?”

“Yes, sir. They’re still working on it.”

“Thank you, cadet.” She left, and Scott took the opportunity to follow her out. At the door he paused.

“I’m guessing that I’m kinda out of favours with WASP right now.” At the gleam in Rapp’s eyes, he added hastily, “Any chance of getting the scans of those devices? Maybe sent to Colonel Casey at the GDF? We’ve got an expert of our own.”

“I’ll think about it. You’d better leave before I regret several of my choices here.”

Scott almost went, but another compulsion stayed him.

“One more thing?”

The look on Rapp’s face would have stopped almost anyone else in sheer terror, but Scott had always possessed a kind of brazen goodwill that ignored intimidation in favour of polite but adamantine persistence. It had been a specialty of Dad’s, too.

“Can you let them know that the guy in sickbay, he’s a WASP?”

Rapp ground his teeth, but gave the briefest of nods.

“Now get off my boat.”

“Yes, sir. And – thank you.”

“Go.”

Even Scott couldn’t withstand that final salvo, and he ducked quickly out into the corridor, momentarily confused as to direction. As he stood there getting his bearings, unsure if he should feel relief or if the reasons to worry had just cranked up another notch, he caught Rapp muttering something under his breath.

“Hell of a family you got there, Tracy.”

Yeah. It was. And Scott was going to do everything in his power to keep it that way.

A few hostile glances as he pushed his way back to the conning tower exit, a few shoulders deliberately meeting his, but generally the WASPs maintained a professional demeanour and let him through. It was impressive, in a way. Wasn’t often you could choke out a sub’s captain and make it out to the surface in one piece, but their training held.

He passed the sickbay, and the temptation to look in again almost won, but he set his jaw and kept going. Gordon would be sedated now, with any luck, and they’d said their goodbyes, in their own way, already. His focus had to be on what was to come.

Two young WASPs stood aside at the foot of the conning tower, and he scrambled up the ladder to the open hatch. Breaking out into the fresh air felt like a kind of rebirth. He took a good, long breath of it, and then an appreciative scan of One, glistening in the mid- afternoon sun above him, aligned with the currently motionless subs. He spared a quick glance at Four, locked in a powerful clamp to the Tiger’s side, sunny yellow against the Pacific blue and now the site of cold-blooded murder.

He tapped his sash, and at the same time fired his retractable line to One’s belly.

“Thunderbird Five, come in. John, what’s the situation?”

John’s voice, calm and sure and strong, was another kind of fresh air.

“Kayo’s handling it. How’s Gordon?”

“He’ll be okay. WASP will look after him and Thunderbird Four for now. Where’s Two?”

“As far as I can tell, they’re tracking toward Peru at the moment.”

“Peru? Anything more specific?”

“South of Lima.” A pause, then, “Gordon – you’re leaving him there?”

And Scott knew that John would figure it out. He’d promised him that he’d bring Gordon home. A quick tug on the line and then he was flying up to his ‘bird, feeling the same sense of rightness that he always did when he was once more on-board and settled into the pilot’s seat. He checked her status, turned her around to face east- south-east, and engaged the thrusters before answering.

“Gordon needs more attention than I can spare. He’s better off staying where he is just now. It was a close miss. If it wasn’t for Four’s bulkhead – if he’d opened the hatch or gone through into the rear…”

“Understood.” People sometimes missed John’s anger in the smoothness of his delivery, but Scott heard that crisp undertone that told him his brother was working up a head of steam within Five’s confines. “Scott, Kayo’s made contact.”

That was an unpleasant surprise.

“She did? Why? I told her not to.”

“I don’t know. But this woman… she’s something else.”

“We were contacted by a man. The woman was incapacitated?”

“It’s the woman who’s running things. Scott, what she’s doing on Two – I can see it, but I can’t stop it. She’s gone into Two’s system, she’s stripped out every bit of data in there.”

Scott frowned into streaks of darkness as One’s speed blackened the sky around him even before he approached the edge of night.

“Can’t EOS stop her?”

“No.”

It took several seconds for Scott to process that, and when he did all his pent-up fear and anger and worry burst through into his voice.

“No? What do you mean, ‘no’? I thought you said EOS was the most advanced AI on the planet!”

“Scott – “

“No, John, this is unacceptable. This woman kills people, she nearly killed Gordon, she’s got Virgil and Two and you’re telling me she can access our systems and we can’t stop her?”

“Yes, I am.” When Scott’s voice went high in his anger, John’s always went low. Now his voice sounded like it was coming from the Marianas Trench. “And yelling about it isn’t going to help.”

Scott found himself wishing he’d taken a swing or two at that captain down below. Maybe then the band of steel across the top of his shoulders threatening to crush his chest wouldn’t feel quite so tight.

“Alright. I guess – alright.” Several deep breaths helped. Slightly. “So Kayo’s broken protocol to contact them on-board. Has she learned anything useful? Do we know who this woman is?”

John’s voice mellowed in recognition of Scott’s effort. Ordinarily, it was annoying how much John could assume an almost parental level of soothing approval. Today Scott ignored it.

“Well, yes and no. Kayo’s intervention has meant that we got a full face scan of her, and EOS ran it through every known database. There’s nothing there. As far as Earth’s systems know, she doesn’t exist.”

“A woman capable of cracking Two’s system would have no problem taking herself out of any other one.”

“Exactly.” But John didn’t sound as pleased as he usually was when the two of them were in agreement. “But here’s the thing; Kayo recognised her. And so did I.”

“You did? So who is she?”

“I can’t tell you that. But I recognised her from the group we rescued on Fischler’s weather station. After the incident I looked at the footage from Thunderbird Shadow. I didn’t pay any attention to her at the time, but seeing her again on Kayo’s feed… I got thinking. And then she confirmed it.”

A tic of exasperation entered Scott’s voice, and he didn’t try to disguise it.

“Confirmed what?”

“Scott – we’re dealing with something new here. This woman, she was also on the Estrella. And by what she has said to Kayo, I think Gordon rescued her from that underwater research base that we lost thanks to The Hood’s earthquake weapon. It’s how she knew we used the dry tubes.”

Possibilities – frightening, confusing, enraging possibilities – tumbled through Scott’s mind, looking for a resolution, finding chaos. At last one question coalesced among the whirl of facts and guesses and fears.

“Does she work with him?”

“The Hood?”

“Is she a partner we never saw coming?”

“It would make sense, in some ways.” John was rarely tentative. Scott heard the doubt.

“But you don’t think so?”

“Honestly? No. She’s smarter than him. I can’t give you any firm data, but if she was working with him then I think she would have acted differently. She could have helped The Hood when Kayo was battling him on the Estrella, for example.”

“Hmm. Maybe. John, get EOS to scan every bit of footage we have from every rescue over the last year. Let’s see if we can find some kind of pattern.”

“I can’t access Two’s external camera, or Four’s, just now.”

“Just get what you can.” Scott looked approvingly at his speed, noticed the darker blur of night enfolding him. “I’ll be with Shadow just in time to capture this woman. I didn’t tell WASP about Bo kata, but once she lands and is trapped on Two, she’s mine. We’ll hand her over, but not until I know exactly what kind of game she’s - ”

“Uh, Scott? They’ve landed.”

Satisfaction and relief swelled in him. Somewhere in his mind the image of a criminal heading Two straight downward into the Pacific Ocean in a deadly spiral of spite rather than being caught began to recede into his nightmare bank.

“Good. So now she knows she can’t get out. You can go ahead and activate the sub-etorphine.”

But John was frowning.

“Kayo’s recommending we let her go.”

“What?” Scott was already unhappy that Kayo had broken protocol to contact the woman; the anger that had simmered through his body for over an hour now began to wear his voice. “Why would she do that?”

“Scott, she’s saying that Virgil appears paralysed. She can’t tell what’s wrong with him, but he’s not moving, and his eyes are – she’s saying they’re glassy. If Virgil’s been hit with some kind of nerve agent, any new incapacitating gas released into the cockpit could have a severe adverse effect on him. And if we can’t knock these two out, we can’t leave them trapped with Virgil. There’s no saying what they’d do to him.”

“So we let them go?” It wasn’t quite a bellow. There was no reason for John to wince like that.

“I’m not detecting any vessel nearby.”

“Where are they?”

“Fourteen degrees, 43 minutes south, 75 degrees, eight minutes west. On the Nazca Desert plateau. There’s – there’s really nothing there. Why would she..?”

“Alright. We let them out of Two. Kayo closes in, re-takes Two, sees to Virgil. I’ll keep track of the First Responders, keep an eye on them so we can let WASP know where they – “

“Whoa. She’s leaving a bomb. With – oh, no. Scott, she’s giving her thirty seconds!”

And that was the moment the bubbling rage in Scott turned to ice. The image of the crew’s remains on Four held his internal eye so vividly that for several seconds he couldn’t respond. He heard John’s voice echoing, but Virgil and Kayo were the lifeless figures slumped to the floor, their eyes exploded from their heads, their ears obscured with brain matter.

“Scott? Scott! Thunderbird One!”

“Yes. Yeah, I’m here.” Here. Tearing across the sky, across the ocean. But not close enough. Still minutes away, when thirty seconds was all Virgil had, when thirty seconds was just time enough to trap Kayo as she tried to climb up into Two.

“Kayo’s close. She’ll get him out, Scott.”

The word was gritted out of him.

“How?”

“When I said close - it seems like Kayo’s landed on top of Two.”

Chapter Text

Tanusha Kyrano could hear her dead father’s voice, and whenever that happened she knew she was either utterly at peace, or utterly at war.

It didn’t take much to know which it was right now. The pounding of her pulse told her that. And the tale it told was a simple, devastating one.

Her brothers were hurting.

Kyrano was the axis around which she gravitated, and when he was gone she felt the loss of more than his love. She spun helplessly out of orbit, searching for a centre, something solid in a world suddenly without connection, without his quiet, careful love at her core. It was Jeff Tracy who took her into his family, themselves still grieving, and gave her a new life where she was no longer the sole recipient of anyone’s focus. She became part of the messy wonder that constituted the Tracy home, and although it took her two years to find her place in it, when she did it gave her more than she could give in return.

All she could do in thanks was offer her own fierce, wounded love. And her life, of course. How could she not? The love was a constant. But each one of the Tracys meant something different to her, each one brought something out of her or took something from her in their own way.

Grandma taught her to believe in the world again. She was solid in a way Kayo craved, and Grandma Tracy was the first to break through that lost little girl’s fog and bring her close by the hearth.

She admired and respected Scott but regularly found herself pushing against him, testing him, testing herself. She put her once-fragile trust in Virgil’s strength, something she understood utterly, and depended more than she could ever tell him upon his gentleness, something she only glimpsed haltingly in herself. John was so different to her that she regarded him with a kind of awe, and sometimes told herself she wished she was more like him in his calmness (it wasn’t true, but the delusion was a harmless one). Alan frequently confounded her; she’d never been a teenager, not like him, so she never quite knew how to deal with a boy who managed to be simultaneously gifted and vulnerable, sweet and cocky, and sometimes he gave her permission to have fun in a way she never had before.

But Gordon… Gordon brought out something completely different in her. Gordon teased, and argued, and competed with her in everything. Fighting. Eating. Climbing. Once he even challenged her to a sleep-off. Gordon was the one who pushed her in the pool. Gordon was the one who short sheeted her bed. Regularly. Gordon was infuriating and insufferable.

It was for Gordon that she twisted Shadow into an entirely unnecessary spin above Fischler’s weather station after saving his life. Again. (And yes, she kept score). She knew he’d see it, just as he’d seen how she threw Thunderbird Four around in a display of her superior piloting skills in the underwater city. In the midst of lightning and chaos she’d taken the time to flip Gordon a bird – literally – and it had handed the woman below her a perfect view of Shadow’s capabilities.

Her father would have disowned her.

Gordon was the one who sat beside her on the peak of Tracy’s Island and listened to her talk about her father. Gordon was the one who forgot her birthday but remembered odd anniversaries and left her crazy little presents outside her door to commemorate them. He was the one who, when beaten in some ridiculous contest between them, would sigh dramatically then give her generous and whole-hearted applause instead of the pouting she secretly wanted, and every time that sudden good-natured acknowledgement would sap her moment of its victory.

She didn’t articulate it and wouldn’t want to if she could, but for all that she measured herself against the brothers in multiple ways it was obnoxious, annoying, warm and funny Gordon who made brotherhood via sibling rivalry a reality for her. And that carved him a place in her heart that was all his own.

John told her he’d be okay. Scott had seen him, and he was an authority she could rely on. But Scott had also left Gordon behind, and that made her stomach tighten when she heard it. She knew her eldest brother all too well; Scott liked to have the rest of them where he could see them, preferably tucked under his metaphorical wing. If he left Gordon behind in the middle of this uncertain and chaotic situation, that could only be because Gordon was too unwell to be moved.

And then the woman spoke about Gordon being ‘strawberry-jammed’, and the image was so vivid for a second that she felt her control slip sideways. A second, no more, but it shook her.

It startled her into coming up with her desperate strategy.

Landing on the roof of Thunderbird Two was just one of those brilliant ideas that sometimes came to her.

Often, as now, they were accompanied by her father’s voice - quiet, calm, certain. He was her war chief and her counsellor, and she heard him say “Look to the roof, little one” as clearly as if he were sitting behind her in Thunderbird Shadow.

She knew the moment she thought of it that it was the right call. The woman – whoever, whatever she was – would be focused on landing Two for the first time, and as much as Brains tried to reduce the sound and impact of four VTOL engines firing into a diffracting bubble of superconductive air, the noise and the movement would be distracting. Kayo would bring Thunderbird Shadow down as lightly as a dragonfly on a giant, moving lily pad.

It only remained for her to follow that voice and find the same kind of calm that it represented to her.

Because Kayo raged.

Her father gave her thousands of hours of training, and a mastery of her own body that meant she controlled it without thought, without conscious effort, obeying the dictates of an instinct untrammelled by fear or self-regard. She was a pupil bound by love and respect and she worked to please him, again and again, from an age so long ago she couldn’t remember a time of self. She did please him, she knew, in so far as his own discipline would allow him to show it, and yet she could never master the one thing above all others he wanted her to conquer.

She could never quite cool the burning of her dark and ravenous heart.

Now, she felt it, her failure pumping in time with her blood. Anger. So much pure anger that slight tremors shook her hands even as she lined up Shadow to drop onto Two’s broad back, as she listened to the woman mock her and manoeuvre her and treat Virgil – strong, brave, kind-hearted Virgil – like an inconsequential piece of discarded meat.
Just like the woman had treated Gordon.

Just like she’d murdered those members of WASP, as callously and coolly as bursting flies with a percussive flyswatter.

Kayo took a long, slow breath, searching within herself for the quiet pool at the centre of her spirit. The one left for her by her mother, found for her by her father, filled through the years with patience and silence and grief. Her father directed her there when he sensed her anger, sent her thoughts that spoke of deep coolness, dark stillness.

He couldn’t know how often she found flames dancing across its surface.

“Thunderbird One, what’s your ETA?”

Scott’s avatar popped into existence above her dash. He looked harried and intense and determined, as he ever did.

“Eight minutes behind you, Kayo.”

“You know I can’t wait for backup.”

“I heard.” His voice was grim. “Thirty seconds…”

“Is plenty. Don’t worry, Scott.” Her eyes left him to focus purely on the plane beneath her, feeling her own speed drop to almost nothing as she hovered above it, fifty metres from the earth below. “I’ll get Virgil out.”

“That’s our only priority.”

“You could keep track of her. John’s got the exterior cams, he could – “

“John will keep an eye on her as much as he can, but that’s not what we’re here for. Kayo?”

She didn’t bother sighing. She replied as crisply as Scott could ever hope for, but her hands tightened on the controls, and her wayward heart burned ever darker.

“FAB.”

Slowly, carefully, she aligned herself with Thunderbird Two, waiting for the exact moment – and then it came, as the big aircraft made an off-centre landing, as dust flew up around them both and Shadow dipped down to connect with Two’s hull just before the larger engines were silenced. Her timing was perfect.

But her rage burned.

“Thunderbird Five, do you have control?”

John’s avatar now, joining Scott’s.

“Copy that. The Bo Kata sub-routine has handed over all systems of the craft as designed now that it’s safely landed, and I am now in full control of Two. What’s your call, Kayo?”

“I need the top hatch open the second she’s clear. She won’t risk leaving herself too close to a percussion bomb. By the time she comes out from under Two I need to be in there.”

“I have exterior cams.” John allowed himself a slight frown. “She must have an aircraft somewhere close by, but whatever stealth mode she’s using, the sensors are not able to pick it up.”

“Great.” Scott’s expression said exactly what Kayo was feeling. “Another piece of tech we know nothing about.”

“Let’s wait and see. There might be another plane coming in to pick her up.”

“You seeing anything like that in the sky?”

“Uh - negative.” John turned his focus towards her, and if his voice still held that steadiness she admired, his expressive eyes told her something else entirely. “Kayo, EOS has calculated your timing in there. It’s going to be tight.”

“Since when is what we do anything but?”

“Kayo, what John’s trying to tell you…” It was unlike Scott to fall silent in mid-sentence, and it was unsettling. Kayo hurried to fill the gap.

“I know. I need to be fast. I’ve got this, Scott.”

“No, that’s not – that’s not where I’m going with this.” Scott took a visible breath, and suddenly Kayo really didn’t want to hear whatever he was going to say.

“John, I’ll need you to be ready to close that top hatch as soon as we’re clear. The more barriers we have between us and the bomb – if there is one – the better.”

“Kayo, listen to me.” And that was Scott’s doomsday voice, and she knew she just had to let him say this. “If you run out of time, get yourself clear.”

She was shaking her head even before he’d finished.

“If you think I’d leave Virgil –“

“That’s exactly what you’re going to do. If you can’t get him out, get out yourself. I don’t want – “ Scott swallowed, but when he continued, his voice was iron given breath. “I can’t lose you both. You need to promise me.”

The furnace within blazed, sparks flying outward as the bellows were pumped, but Kayo’s face was cold, and her own words cooled as they left her, each one a lie.

“I promise, Scott.”

He didn’t understand her, and she suspected he never would. What he was asking of her was simply impossible. If Virgil was somehow booby-trapped or just proved too difficult to manoeuvre as a deadweight, well then – she’d sit beside him, she’d wrap her arms around him, and she’d go find her father with one of the best people she knew by her side.

Suggestion of anything else was foolish.

The woman was now talking about super-powers. Kayo held her face as still as she could whenever the woman looked her way, which was insultingly rarely. It was a small comfort that the murderer beneath her didn’t suspect that a three-way conversation with two unsuspected participants was lacing through her venomous rant. When she needed it, Kayo had enough control to allow dismay and uncertainty to appear through her avatar. This woman had to believe that her adversary was rattled.

Inside her was nothing but contempt and fury. And a cold, clear sense of what needed doing and how she would do it.

“They’re in the lift,” John said. Unnecessarily, as Kayo had eyes on them as they disappeared beneath the floor, but she appreciated the reminder that John was monitoring every heartbeat of Two now.

She released the mechanism that opened up the space directly behind her in Shadow, heard the cover slide back and seat come up. She’d bundle Virgil into that, throw herself into the front seat and bring down the canopy. From in the compartment at her side she pulled out a grappling line, one that would attach first to the underside of Shadow and then to her belt so it could take all the strain of lifting both their weights up through the hatch and onto the top of the aircraft.

In her mind, skimming across that deep pool, she counted every action against the precious time.

Drop down into Two, one second. Run to Virgil, bring him into a sitting position, tighten her thighs and lift him over her shoulder – eight seconds. Back to the hatch – four seconds. Detach line, aim, fire, reattach to belt – two seconds. Lift through Two, through hatch, onto roof – four seconds. To Shadow’s wings, drop Virgil into back seat, drop into pilot’s eat, release canopy - six seconds.

Twenty five seconds. She’d leave Shadow in flight mode - there might be time to pull back the controls and put space between them and the body of Two before the bomb detonated. One second to reach forward, pull the controls back, four seconds of flight meaning eighty feet – this would work.

She leapt lightly from Shadow and waited by the open hatch. Poised. Predatory.

“Kayo, they’ve reached the ground. She’s sending the lift back up.” John’s voice tightened. “Thirty seconds! She’s just said thirty –“

But Kayo was already gone.

She swung herself down through the hatch. It occurred to her that the floor of the cockpit could be booby-trapped, but the thought came and went as she released her fingers from the edge – she didn’t have time to investigate and she wouldn’t leave Virgil anyway so what difference did it make? Her soft-soled boots hit the floor and she pivoted, heading straight for where he lay immobile by the back of the cockpit, and nothing went off or zapped across the surface so the thought of traps returned to focus on Virgil’s body. The woman had left him in Two when she could easily have dropped him from 20,000 feet into the Pacific. Kayo didn’t know the name of her but she already knew that this was a woman who left nothing to chance and wasted no opportunity.

Inside her mind a metronome counted off the seconds, as she’d already done, and she was faster by half a second than she’d planned as she reached him.

His eyes found hers.

Worry. Regret. Not for himself, of course, but for her being here. It was almost – almost – a good thing that he couldn’t begin any futile arguments, could do nothing to resist her as she scanned him quickly and ran her fingers lightly down the sides of him, behind his head, looking for some device, some hidden piece of malevolent tech. Nothing. It could be on his back, of course, but that would be as it would be. She had done as much as she could – now it was an act of courage and sheer faith in the universe that had her taking his shoulders and lifting him into a rag doll’s upright position.

He fell against her shoulder, and her hands ran down his back. Nothing.

Time to focus on her own body. She brought one knee forward, braced the other, bunched her muscles and rose upwards in a dead lift of almost ninety kilos that sagged either side of her shoulder, threatening to pull her off centre, taking all her strength as she steadied and straightened.

Ten seconds gone. Slow.

But she ran with more sureness than she feared she would, reached the central point beneath the hatch where she could look up and see Shadow’s undercarriage, pulled out the grappling line and lifted her hand above her line of sight, fired the grappling line upwards in five seconds. Fifteen of thirty. Better.

Line connected and locked on. Hand and line coming back to her belt –

The console blew.

A sensation of power, a backhand from the air itself. Her feet lifted from the floor. A suspension robbed of thought, of being, until the terellium floor came at her and slammed her from the other side.

A sudden juxtaposition of hard and soft - Virgil landing beneath her, a grunt all that came from him.

No breath.

Smoke, skittering light – wires, spitting and flaring in a cockpit suddenly obscured, suddenly tilted and shifting as she tried to get up, as sharp pain shocked her body even as the unexpectedness of it all shocked her mind, as she scrabbled for reason while her fingers scrabbled for purchase on a floor now treacherous with pieces of metal and the complete disorientation of concussion.

And through it all, somehow, the metronome ticked on.

And when she brought her mind back from wherever the blast had taken it, she heard it.

Twenty.

Above her, through the black swirling smoke, the brighter darkness of the night sky filled with stars, and disappearing into it towards Shadow, the small triangular shape of the grappling line handle obeying the retrieval release pressure her hand unwittingly dealt it as it was torn from her grasp.

There was yelling in her earpiece, two different voices. A name, again and again.

Status report? Come in?

Kayo.

Kayo.

She was Kayo, Virgil lay beside her, and she was about to die.

The hell she was.

“John! Reverse the lift!”

“Kayo, are you – “

“Send it back down!”

The rage was hers to ride, now. It cleared smoke and pain with its own furnace blast, and she tried to stand with its force.

Her leg buckled.

A quick glance down her body and she saw the damage done.

Crawling it was then.

She focused on her hand, made her fingers flex and release, felt her body assume its rightful place as her weapon of choice, no matter how pierced or battered.

She forced herself to slide about so that she was facing the lift well. Grabbed Virgil’s foot. Heard a faint protest from behind her, ignored it.

Twenty four.

This was messy and bloody, but that was a media she could work with. It was an act of sheer will that saw her crawl across the floor of the cockpit, dragging Virgil, until the lip of the lift well was there and she could keep pulling him over it, calf and thigh and butt and then gravity took him and she followed.

It was a long enough drop that she had a moment to think, oh shit. An awkward ten foot drop could kill. This was –

Thirteen.

Thirteen feet and twenty-seven seconds.

Virgil landed with the careless grace of the drunk or the dead. She braced and so broke, her wrist snapping under her, her helmeted head slamming into the metal, again.

And then there was no action to be taken except wait and count, and with no one thing to be done she lost every other thing that had meaning for her. The lift was too slow and the numbers too high, and for a moment, the longest second of her life, the fear consumed her, took her mind and her self and scattered them in shredded particles so that all she knew was one eternal, inward scream.

She didn’t want to die.

And she didn’t want to die like this, already destroyed, already lost.

It took the last fragment of her will for her to find him, standing by her pool, looking at her as he hadn’t done for so many years but as she always remembered, could always conjure when her need was greatest and his strength was her only shield.

“Fear is the greatest illusion. It has no power here. It does not exist. Be at peace, little one.”

Somehow, even now, he was smiling.

“Yes, bapak,” she whispered.

Thirty.
 

Chapter Text

By the time Scott heard the explosion of the bomb in Thunderbird Two’s cockpit, he was seven minutes away. Seven minutes was not a long time. Hell, Gordon could hold his breath for seven minutes. Scott timed him once, as Gordon lay still and calm on the bottom of the pool. In seven minutes, Grandma could tell the entire genealogical history of the Tracy and Morrison families, so far as it was known. Brains held the family record of seven minutes and ten seconds for speaking without repeating himself or using an um or an ah. Virgil could even get out of bed in seven minutes, on a good day.

Now seven minutes was a week to Scott and felt like a year.

As he came in to land on the empty, eerie plateau he could see a dull orange glow through the top hatch of Two, and billowing out of it swirling clouds of smoke visible only as they swallowed the stars.

Once landed, he could see the lift was completely down to its fullest extent, and that two figures lay unmoving on it. Scott’s concept of the relativity of time was useless in the fact of that sight. It seemed to him that he had never unstrapped himself more slowly, or grabbed the med-kit more clumsily, or ran more feebly, than he did in getting out of One and into the cold night air of the Nazca plateau. He’d never run through chest high molasses, but now he could tell anyone who asked what it felt like. If seven minutes was a year, then the final fifteen seconds was time suspended into irrelevance. Nothing could get him as fast as he needed to be got to his brother and sister, lying motionless beneath a crippled plane.

He reached Virgil first, after an aeon.

He thought him unconscious. Perhaps dead. Virgil was face down, unmoving, his eyes closed. From metres away Scott strained to see any kind of sign that his brother was still breathing. Still theirs. Not taken by a woman he was beginning to think of as a monster, a woman maybe still near them on this plateau but almost entirely out of his focus just now.

“Virgil?”

He knelt and placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. It was then that he saw the shrapnel buried deep into the back of Virgil’s thigh, and even as his mind processed that, he realised that Virgil’s eyes weren’t closed – they were screwed shut, his mouth a thin line of pain that was opening as if to suck in air or squeeze out a word.

“Virgil? Just hold on, buddy. You’re okay.”

The tiniest of head shakes, and now that Scott was attuned to Virgil’s status, he understood what that cost him. He leant closer, his head down level with Virgil’s.

“What is it? I’m here, what is it?”

And through the tightness of that grim mouth, Scott could hear him.

“Kayo.”

Of course.

“She’s right here, Virgil.” He gave his shoulder a squeeze, gentle but sure. “I’ll go check.”

The smallest of nods.

There was silence in Scott’s earpiece, but he knew it demonstrated not absence but an almost inhuman level of restraint. John, for whom data was oxygen, was helplessly listening to this, and probably trying to watch it on Two’s exterior cams, if they were still functioning. All the useless questions were dying stillborn in John’s mouth, and Scott appreciated the clarity and focus it allowed him, even as one small part of his mind acknowledged what it must be costing.

John could deduce Virgil’s status by the fact that Scott had exchanged words with him, however brief and breathless. Kayo, on the other hand –

She was lying on her back, and with the hellish glow from above Scott could see how torn she was, how unnaturally still. Virgil’s thick suit had probably protected him to a large extent from all but the biggest of pieces of metal the explosion sent flying across Two’s cockpit. Kayo’s suit sacrificed strength for flexibility. It was thinner, lighter, and now Scott saw it was pocked and peppered with ugly scraps of metal, glistening black in a way that his experience told him was the night’s rendition of blood.

He scrambled to her, his mind blank of anything but one prayer: alive. Be alive.

Black on the inside of her helmet. Scott pulled his own flashlight from his belt and the black instantly leapt into a deep red.

“Kayo? Kayo, can you hear me? It’s Scott. I’m here.”

I’m here. And she looks twelve, just a kid, just my baby sister. And I screwed up, I should have been faster, I should have been here…

“Ow.”

Scott’s heart thumped, hard, in his throat.

“Kayo?”

“Ow, Scott. Officially ow.”

Now John’s voice burst through, unable to be contained any longer.

“She’s alive? They’re both alive?”

In two seconds Scott’s world went from suspended animation to fast forward.

“FAB. Both alive, both with shrapnel wounds, both possible unknown injuries from the blast. John, I’m evacuating these two immediately. I need you to let me get clear then retrieve the lift, close the hatch, and shut down Two, rob that fire of oxygen. We’ll get Max to check it out. That was no percussion bomb, and she may well have left something else behind. Where’s the nearest GDF hospital?”

“Hospital Regionale de Ica. But you’d be better getting them to HNAL in Lima.”

“FAB. Contact them, tell them I’m bringing in two patients, one with severe shrapnel wounds, one with possible nerve damage from an unknown agent, both with possible spinal and head injuries. Then contact Brains, get him to – “

A soft roar, impossible to conceal in the still night air of the empty plateau, and a flurry of dust rising a hundred feet away broke Scott’s fierce concentration on Kayo’s injuries. His head jerked up and he stared towards where an obviously cloaked aircraft was taking off, no doubt with the woman and her companion on-board, gloating, all the information from Two safely tucked away in her possession.

“John! There’s a plane taking off directly east of our position, no more than a hundred feet away. Have you got it?”

A second, two, then John’s frustrated voice confirmed what instinct and experience had already told him.

“Nothing showing on my systems. Whatever she’s using, it’s got us beat.”

“Take every piece of data you can. Anything. It’s displacing air, it’s sending up dust – maybe Brains can find something in the pattern of displacement.”

“Understood. I’m running every scan we’ve got. You wanted me to contact Brains?”

“Yeah. But hold that thought. It can wait.” Gently, he bent back to Kayo. “Got a spinal frame for you. I’m guessing you did a little interior flying up there."

“Mm. Dropped too. Lift.” She was fading, he could tell, fighting hard to stay with him but hurting so much it was only her own brand of stubbornness that was keeping unconsciousness back. He opened the med-kit and took out a hypo-shot, one capable of penetrating suit and skin and bringing immediate analgesic relief.

“Got the good stuff here. I think you’ve earned it. Then I’ll get you on the spinal frame, onto a gurney, and onto the best ride in the galaxy, with yours truly as your personal pilot. No inflight movies, but this stuff means you won’t care.”

She managed a smile, even with her body pierced and battered, and it shook his heart the way Gordon’s bravery had. Then she frowned, concentrating, suddenly urgent.

“None for Virgil.”

“It’s alright, Kayo, we know he got hit with something weird.” She sighed softly, a duty to inform and protect done, and he kept going. “Give this to Virgil? No. Hell no. What has he done but lie around, let us do all the work?”

He gave her the shot, and her tiny smile grew wider as the instant soothing of all her pain magically swept through her body. Scott had been on the other end a time or two. He could relate.

Quickly he pulled out the other gift from the med-kit. A collar, two inches thick, that he carefully slid around her neck before pressing the small button at its nearest side. Immediately tendrils of terellium alloy, flexible and strong, flowed upwards to grip her skull, snaked down the line of her spine before branching out to wrap around her shoulders and pelvis, immobilising her in ten seconds of technological wizardry.

“There. You’re wrapped and ready to go. I’ll be right back.”

Leaving her, he slid back to Virgil.

“How are you doing? Still great? I can tell, you’ve got that ‘don’t make me get up, it’s too early’ look about you.” It occurred to Scott that, if he’d taught Gordon plenty over the years, maybe he’d picked up some pointers from his little bro in return. This brand of inane chatter was pure Gordon, but he’d seen it work so often he’d begun to adopt it when the occasion demanded. Astonishingly it seemed that mindless jocularity could sometimes do what crisp Air Force efficiency couldn’t. Even now he saw that Virgil’s middle finger was curling upwards, a huge effort in the circumstances and one that lifted about thirteen metaphorical stone off Scott’s shoulders.

“Hey. None of that or I’ll tell Grandma. Alright. Let me get a spinal brace on you. Then I’ll see the first class passengers settled and after that I’ll come back for cattle class. Think nice thoughts about me while you wait.”

Something burst in the continuing fire in Two’s cockpit, and Scott instinctively put a hand on Virgil’s shoulder. To protect him, or to comfort him. He couldn’t tell, and it didn’t matter, because both were his task, claimed since boyhood, and he knew the pain that his craft’s demise was bringing Virgil was on a whole other level to whatever that woman had done to his body.

“Scott! I’ve got a lock on her.” John so rarely sounded excited, it told him just how hard this episode was for his younger brother. In the background Scott heard artificial indignation in a child’s voice.

“I think you’ll find that it was me who isolated the heat signature, John.”

“Yes, EOS, thank you. EOS has got a heat signature growing in the aircraft. It’s approximately 100 metres away, about 30 metres off the ground.”

“Growing?”

His mind made the connection even before John gave it voice.

“The aircraft doesn’t seem to be moving. It’s just – holding there. Scott – that heat could be the charging of a weapon.”

People spoke about the heat of battle, and that always suited Scott. All his life, for as long as he could remember, there was a fire in his belly to bring passion to his work, banked coals in his heart to warm his family, and another, less welcome fire that nipped at his heels ever since he realised his father was a hero, and the child of a hero could only ever run to catch his shadow. If he wasn’t much for self-reflection, he could yet recognise that a battle was a life, in his terms.

But there were other times, like now, when heat leached away and left something very different.

Mortal dread cooled the bubbling lava of his soul into something cold and dark and hard.

“Alright.” He said it softly, to himself, to Virgil, to John and the endless night and to her, waiting like an invisible spider hanging in the sky, toying with the flies beneath her. “Alright. This is what we’ll do.”

Putting the collar back in the med kit, he swung on his squatted heels, calculating.

“Thunderbird Five, I need you to relinquish control of Two and take over One. Two’s not going anywhere and I need your complete focus on One. Understood?”

“Taking over control of One now, Scott.”

Did John know how comforting it was to hear that sureness, that steadiness? Scott should tell him one day.

“I’m bringing Kayo into the hold. Keep watching that craft. Tell me the second anything changes.”

“FAB.”

Another squeeze of Virgil’s shoulder, but he couldn’t meet his eyes. The plan was forming so clearly in Scott’s mind that he knew it was right, knew to trust it and to follow it. But the risk and the stakes were outrageously high, and even though he could see it all laid out before him, even though he knew the plan came from the experience and hard-won knowledge that together made instinct, he knew, too, that it could be the worst thing he’d ever done.

He hurried to Kayo, and bent down to get his arms beneath the thin frame that now held her.

“Come on, Kayo. Time to get you out of this night air, into a nice warm Thunderbird. I’ll even let you pick the in-flight music, how’s that for an offer?”

She smiled at him, dopily, as he flexed and lifted, shifting her weight until it felt right then starting into the kind of steady trot known to rescuers the world over.

One stood solid in the moonlight, the silver dulled but all too visible against the darkness of the plain, occasionally brightened by a flare from inside Two’s cockpit. Not that optics mattered; what this woman had shown him of her technological prowess told Scott that she no doubt had One targeted to within a centimetre, and would have done in the blackest of nights. He brought Kayo to his craft’s belly and set himself and her into the lowered access seat.

“Take us up, John.”

At once they were lifted up and into One’s cockpit. From there it was a matter of stepping into the hold.

The interior of One’s hold was only rarely used to transport victims, but the possibility always remained so six pull-down emergency beds were concealed in its walls. Scott grabbed the first and released it, then eased Kayo onto its surface. He smiled down at her.

“I am just wondering which one of you three is going to be the worst patient when we all get back to Tracy Island.”

“Gordon.”

“You think?” He pretended to give the idea thought as he reached into the medical cabinet. “I don’t know. Gordon kinda learned the rules the hard way. I’m thinking Virgil. You know he’s going to be going crazy lying around, not able to check in on everybody every five minutes.”

“You’re right.” Her voice was soft and strained, filtered through smoke and stress and meds until it sounded far away, a child lost in a wilderness he couldn’t see. “Virgil.”

“Glad we agree. We can give Grandma a head’s up.”

Hesitation, a coward’s pause; he wanted to say, you do trust me, don’t you? You do know I wouldn’t risk you if I could see any other way? And he wanted her blessing – no, her absolution, for if this all went so very wrong.

Unfair to burden her, and he never would. Instead, he gave her a Scott Tracy Special, a grin so cocky it made military commanders all over the globe clench their fists on reflex.

“Right. So, first passenger stowed, let me just go get the other one and this very special flight for those disappointed in Thunderbird Two’s service will commence. You warm enough? Okay. Be right back.”

And he had to swallow, hard, as he turned away because it felt like lying and he knew exactly why.

A hover-stretcher grabbed and then back down to the plain, so flat but deceptively difficult to traverse thanks to the fist sized rocks that covered its surface. Deliberately he pushed aside the biggest, clearing a path as best he could straight back to where his brother lay helpless on the ground, the blue of his uniform showing as the fire burned above.

“What’s she doing, Five?”

“No movement. The heat level’s rising. Seems she can shield her engines, but not her weapons.”

“Interesting. Might be something we can get Brains to investigate there.” When the future was in the stakes piled on the table it was important to talk about it, keep it alive. “I’m getting Virgil now. John, I need you to listen carefully. I’m going to put Virgil in the retractable seat and then I want you to send Thunderbird One straight at that heat signature.”

“Er – say again, Scott.”

“The second I say Virgil is secured, you are to start retracting the seat and head One towards the heat signature. Straight at her, John, fast as One can go.”

There was a silence. A man less remarkable than his brother would have exploded, but John was of the rare breed who thought before he spoke. It took him an impressively few seconds to figure it out.

“Shadow.”

“Yep.”

“That’s a high-risk strategy.”

“Tell me about it.”

Another silence, this one more condemnatory. Or so it felt to Scott.

“Are you sure?”

“It’s the best call. We don’t have many options here.”

“Understood.”

“Straight at her, John.”

“Understood, Scott.” The faint disapproval was for Scott’s repeated directive; he should know, that tone said, that John knew his part and would do it the best he could.

“Getting Virgil now. Hey.” This to Virgil, waiting with a mouth tightened in pain or condemnation, Scott couldn’t tell. So far he’d done nothing for Two or its pilot, and it was about to get so much worse. He lowered the stretcher to the ground beside him. “Okay. We’ve got a plan. I’ve got a plan,” he corrected. “But it means I can’t put a spinal brace on you. I gotta get you into the seat, and that won’t happen if you’re stiff as a board. What I’m going to do is put a neck brace on. How does that sound?”

Like the shittiest bargain ever offered. I’ll spare you complete quadriplegia in exchange for the chance of paraplegia as we go. Deal?

There was a question in Virgil’s tired eyes, and Scott couldn’t ignore it.

“The woman’s waiting. We think she’s charging a weapon. I plan to get you and Kayo on-board One and throw it at her. What do you think?”

Virgil was clearly doing just that, and finding it hard.

“Don’t…”

Don’t use me as a distraction. Don’t leave me helpless in an unmanned aircraft. Don’t risk my legs, my life.

So many don’ts at Virgil’s disposal. They made Scott’s persuasion sound desperate and deceitful.

“Hey, I know, I know it sounds crazy, but I think it will work.”

A huff of irritation, and Virgil tried again.

“Don’t… get it.”

Oh.

“I’ll be running for Shadow.”

A moment, and then Virgil blinked. It was almost impossible to tell, in the flickering, fickle light, but Scott thought there was a flash of comprehension in his expression.

“Ahhh.” And then, unmistakable, one side of his mouth quirked in classic Virgil approval, the sort laced with a devilry always unexpected in one so even-keeled. “Chicken.”

Yes, it was a playing chicken. Against an unknown aircraft, in a Thunderbird capable of 24,000 plus kilometres per hour. Maybe if he was sitting in the pilot’s seat, Scott could share the humour of it. But all the risk was on his family, not him. That was what hurt him, even now, as he gave a matching grin awful in its insincerity and set to fixing the brace around Virgil’s neck. This time, the skeletal support gripped the head and shoulders only. Any damage further down the spine, well – that was one of those risks that Scott was placing on someone else, one of the knives he was pushing into his own gut.

“Ready?”

Another blink, more tired, if that was possible.

“On… with it.”

“Okay. Virge – when I get you strapped into the seat, I’m getting the hell out of there. John will retract it, but he’s also gonna be punching the forward drive. You’re going to be exposed for a few seconds, but you’ll be secure.”

“No.”

“No?”

An indescribable sound of frustration, and Virgil tried again.

“I… know.”

“Oh. Good. Okay. Why don’t you just jump on the stretcher while I stand here looking pretty.”

Even as he said the words he got his hands beneath Virgil’s shoulders and butt and half-lifted, half-slid him onto the stretcher. The smallest of sounds from Virgil, a bitten off cry that no doubt by rights should have been a scream, and all Scott could do was pat his chest.

“Wasn’t too bad. Let’s get you over there. John? We’re moving. I need to know the second anything changes.”

“Will do. We’re watching her, Scott.”

It was unnecessary to remind him, Scott knew, but sometimes words were all he had to buttress the impossible plans in his head. Carefully he brought the stretcher along, grateful for its smoothness, its strength in transporting his incapacitated brother. Scott couldn’t allow himself to think about the injuries that might be hidden under Virgil’s suit, the damage being done to his internal systems by whatever the woman had used on him. He couldn’t think about Kayo bleeding in the hold, that particular piece of shrapnel sticking up from her belly, oozing dark blood and deep threat. He couldn’t think about Gordon, alone on a submarine, unable to hear, twisted in pain, with only strangers to care for him.

All his focus had to be on the now and the plan and the fact that death was waiting, 100 metres away, but unsuspecting of the desperate moves about to come into play.

They were almost at One, and sweat trickled down between Scott’s shoulder-blades. As soon as all three were together, they were open to attack. The woman couldn’t get a clear shot while they were gathered under Two, but now – now she could take out One and each of the IR operatives with a single blow.

It all depended on her intentions, and how quickly he could do his job and get clear.

“We’re almost there, Virgil. I’m going to do this fast. Understood?”

“Yeah.” Whispered, but strong.

“John – you ready?”

“Ready at your signal. Scott…”

“Yes?”

“Just – run like hell.”

Scott gave a dark chuckle.

“You better believe it. Okay, and we’re here. I’m gonna get you into the seat now, Virge. This – well, it’s not going to be fun. Just hang on.”

He braced himself for the strain of lifting Virgil and the sound of pain it would rip from him. In one swift movement he swung Virgil off the stretcher and into the retractable seat. The cry of agony sounded in the place Scott couldn’t be just now. He’d find it later, in his nightmares, when he had that luxury of time and existence.

A slam of a shoulder restraint, a yell of “Now!”, and then the seat was lifting up and Scott was leaping off. Instantly the air displacement had him tumbling as One’s engines roared into forward thrust, as the exhaust hurled him head over heels across the rocky plain only for him to find his feet and his balance and his own speed, running as fast as he’d ever run in his life, in the dark and the cold and the certain fear of death fanning the lifelong flames at his heels.

He couldn’t look. He couldn’t look.

But he would hear.

If he got this wrong, if the woman was too quick to react she would fire her weapon anyway and One would be hit with whatever she had. If she was too slow to react and the two craft collided, the sound would be so great it would blot all other sounds for the rest of his days.

All he could do was run.

One’s engine noise filled his ears but time was immersed in that molasses again and he couldn’t tell if it had been burning for two seconds or twenty. He fumbled for the grappling line and fired it at Shadow, living its name in the light of the fire, setting on top of the dying Two. It connected and he ran faster, still not yet at an angle where the retraction would give him wings.

No sound of collision behind him. It was long enough now, surely? He was almost there, that had to be ten seconds at least, and ten seconds in his baby – well, that was 200 kilometres.

“John!”

“She blinked. As far as I can tell she’s about five klicks away. One’s heat blurred her signal for a bit, and I’m not sure we’ve got her again. Scott, hurry.”

He didn’t need the urging, but he felt a calmness coming down over him, even as he put in a last burst of energy before hitting the retrieval on the grappling line. His body was lifted into the air towards Shadow, and yet it couldn’t match the soaring of his heart.

Virgil and Kayo were clear.

“Scott, she might be targeting you now.”

“I know.” That felt good, hearing his own assessment confirmed. He brought his feet up to meet the top of Two, released the grappling line and let the momentum vault him into Shadow’s pilot seat. The plane was in flight mode; all he had to do was slam the canopy closed, lean back and drag the wheel and the aircraft into the sky.

Shadow sprang straight up, three hundred metres in three seconds. He was horribly cramped, his shoulders rounded and knees up against the dash, but he didn’t care. It felt like flying a paper glider, so smooth and light was the action, and best of all he knew that if anyone was in danger now, it was him.

Shadow was responsive in a way he hadn’t ever felt before. The slightest touch had it banking and lifting, and he set about learning what it could do as he soared higher, even as he stayed directly above the burning wreckage below.

“Scott, what are you doing? Get out of there!”

“We need to keep track of her. Have you got that heat signal again?”

“Scott – “

“I made a promise, John. I can’t let her get away.”

“Scott!”

“I promised we’d do everything we can to help. It’s my fault she’s got this far. We can’t lose her now.”

John’s voice grew deeper, slower. When Scott spun out of control, John threw down an anchor and stood against the wind.

“Listen to me. I’ve contacted the GDF and WASP. They know the situation. I’ve passed on the heat signature, the last known coordinates, everything we have. You are needed on One, Scott. Kayo and Virgil need you on One.”

Flittering above the target in this tiny plane, trapped by a promise, by the need for closure, by the desire for revenge. By the hurt of the burning plane below him and the harm to the people he loved.

And here was John, a cool breeze blowing him to where he needed to be.

“I hate to leave the job undone.”

“It’s not our job, Scott. Our job is saving people, not catching them. And if it’s any consolation, you still have to find One and do a dangerous mid-air transfer from Shadow.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“That is a consolation for you, isn’t it.”

“Yeah. It actually is.”

A heavy sigh from far above him.

“I will never understand you. But you need to get going. I’ve sent One’s coordinates and an intercept flight path for you.”

Admiral Pang’s face came vividly into Scott’s mind, followed by Commander Rapp’s. He was too relieved for guilt, but there was a moment of genuine regret.

“We’ll have some bridge mending to do after this one.”

“Some other time. Kayo and Virgil.”

“FAB. Heading there now. And John? Thank you.”

“For talking some sense into you?”

Scott made a tired sound somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh.

“For trusting me.”

“Oh. Well. That I can do.” A silence, then a sigh of his own. “It’s playing chicken that is giving me grey hairs.”

Chapter Text

There was no percussion bomb.

John was not at all like Scott. He knew that his older brother had a noble but sometimes narrowly focused mind, so that when Scott encountered the venal or corrupt he was as much affronted as angry. Deep inside Scott there still existed a ten year old with balled fists crying “It’s not fair!”, as if that accusation was enough to give the universe pause.
John didn’t think in terms of fairness, or chance. When people bewailed their fate in becoming trapped in a swaying cable car, a hundred feet above the ground, John didn’t see bad luck; he saw the iron-clad, irrefutable laws of physics, those that bound the entire universe, and so the situation became one of tired machinery, stressed metal, sub-zero temperatures. John’s mind was ordered but capable of encompassing vastness, and that well-disciplined thinking kept him functioning when the data before him was chaotic and rushed.

But the woman’s brazen mendacity, her unthinking readiness to throw lives into the hazard without a shred of honour- well, that offended John’s need for order and accuracy in a way he found difficult to define. It wasn’t as though he consciously expected people like The Hood or The Mechanic to follow any kind of moral code. And yet, he supposed, on some level he did. He had a sense that what had transpired on the plains of Nazca would not happen with either of them; that if they said that there was a thirty second window of safety, they would not lie about it. He wasn’t sure where this belief came from. It seemed to him that both fought furiously with whatever they had at hand, and both employed subterfuge when they could. And yet, deep on some juvenile level next to Scott’s claim to fairness, John believed that if either one ever gave his word, he would keep it.

Everything that happened to Kayo and Virgil and Gordon was predicated on the idea of taking what International Rescue did and subverting it, using their own honour and courage against them, and it left John feeling uneasy, unmoored.

In space, no one can hear you complain.

Well, that used to be true on Five, and a comforting aspect of John’s solitary existence as well. Generally, John kept his self-talk brief and his external chatter to the point, and even when the vastness of his isolation beckoned towards rambling soliloquies, his comments to EOS were usually disciplined and short.

For the last few days, however, he had been prone to sudden outbursts of irritated conjecture. And his unsettled utterances were met and received by his crewmate, an AI of almost infinite accessibility but undeniably finite wisdom.

“You need to stop floating,” she said.

It was true that he had adjusted the gravity on-board so that he could grab each portal edge and throw himself forward in a faster circumnavigation than usually possible. And that he was doing these circumnavigations almost compulsively, swinging around his home like a trapped firefly in a jar.

“I can’t pace.” Since John had long since stopped thinking of EOS as anything but a sentient being, the need to justify himself to a conscious machine he thought of as female was real for him. “Unless I turn the gravity up and start stomping. And I don’t think the headache would be worth it. I’ve got enough headaches already.”

“Probably because you’re not sleeping enough,” EOS said, sounding exactly like an annoyingly percipient eight year old.

“Are you watching me while I sleep?” Not even John could pretend that wasn’t a whine.

“Of course.” How did an artificial program manage to build itself the capacity for smugness? “And you do it far too little for maximum mental alertness and physiological renewal.”

“I need more zeds. Got it.” John pulled himself through the food preparation area and into the next arc of Five. “I would love to have more sleep. But while this fiasco is still playing 24-7 in my head, I doubt I’ll get it.”

“I don’t understand why thinking about the same data set repeatedly is an advisable course of action.”

“It’s not,” and a wry acknowledgement coloured his words. “But humans do this. We replay events trying to figure out where we could have done better. And sometimes, just to re-imagine them with a better outcome. Or worse.”

“And has any of this helped? Have you found a different response that would work more effectively?”

“Well, no.”

“So you have lost sleep which is inarguably beneficial in exchange for speculation and reminiscence which is evidentially useless?”

“What can I say? I never claimed humans were renowned for design efficiency.”

“Obviously not.” Sniffiness now. “It’s a wonder you evolved enough to create me.”

“You know, I can remember Gordon saying the exact same thing to my father during one teen fight.”

“You are not comparing me to Gordon!”

“No, no. Perish the thought. I doubt you’d think it a good idea to TP the front hall of the Coniston County middle school.”

It made him smile, and the fact of it brought a quiet internal acknowledgement. If he had been free to complain to nothingness in the past without fear of rebuttal, that loss of freedom was more than compensated by the way his crewmate and friend could bring a new perspective and healing moment of humour as circuit breakers to his punishing thoughts.

Because punishing they certainly were. A carousel of what ifs, why nots, how comes, and, spectacularly, what the fucks?

This woman, the one Virgil called Her and She with a venom John could not recall ever hearing from him before, was still at large. The fact of it curdled in his gut whenever he acknowledged it. International Rescue had been soundly beaten, whipped, and if it was a game they were neither designed for nor disposed towards, the defeat still stung.

“How did she know so much?” It was not the first time he’d voiced that question. “She knew Virgil had attended Penelope’s flat after the Luddite attack. Is Lady Penelope the leak?”

“Obviously, your enemy has an effective source of information.” EOS skirted the concept of a ‘superior’ intelligence source; he couldn’t swear to it, but John was largely convinced he’d somehow programmed a creature capable of developing its own form of vanity. “But it is not likely to be Lady Penelope.”

“I’d bet my bottom dollar against it,” John agreed. “But we need to keep an open mind. Parker, then?”

“A higher level of possibility.”

“Someone at Creighton Ward Manor?” He gave a light shudder. “I can just imagine Lady Penelope’s response to any of this.”

Not to mention Gordon’s.

“I just wish we had a visual of her.”

“With Two suffering so much damage it’s only to be expected that the on-board cameras failed.”

“Yes, but…” He was aware that his tone matched the eight year old voice surrounding him. “It’s so darn frustrating. The Estrella was destroyed, the magnetic blowout at the Quantum Research Centre in Switzerland wiped all their recordings. Even Fischler’s weather plants were wrecked. If we just had an image of her face, maybe we could track her down.”

“I am receiving vision from Tracy Island again, John.”

“About time.” The omni-scope unit, a small cube that sent clear 180 degree images and full audio was apparently now freed from the towel carelessly thrown onto it by someone (starts with G, rhymes with ‘gnawed on’), thus until this moment negating the entire point of it being along for the ride with the inhabitants of Tracy Island. Said inhabitants were away from the house, and Virgil had kindly suggested bringing the unit into action in order for a thoroughly rattled John to keep tabs on them all.

Instantly, the space before him was filled with the colours and sounds of his family at play in a setting so ridiculously beautiful it looked like a travel agent’s manufactured ad spot. It should have been idyllic. That the scene vibrated with a tension even John could see from thousands of kilometres away was entirely due to the reason why it was happening.

IR was offline, out of action. In part it was a simple physical practicality; two of its members were unable to get out of bed without swearing, and the other couldn’t hear. Gordon could work with visual messages, of course, and John knew Scott had briefly considered okaying that; but Two was in the process of being recommissioned, so any rescue would only be useful within a relatively close proximity to Tracy Island, given Thunderbird Four’s optimal speed of 500 kilometres per hour. And in the end his reluctance to put anyone in the field who wasn’t a hundred percent settled it for him. If the visual comms failed, Gordon could be at risk. A person long used to a lack of hearing would know how to function expertly in those circumstances and could do the job well – but Gordon was only just beginning to adapt to the condition he was currently in. A shadow appearing in the corner of his eye still caused him to jump. No way would Scott allow Gordon to risk himself in that state.

He explained all this to John as if asking permission, even when John agreed immediately with his reasoning. It was a sign of how badly this woman had unnerved them all that Scott Tracy was second-guessing a straightforward decision like that, and it was why John scanned everyone before him now with an eye more anxious than benevolent.

Even from space, John could see Scott was trying very hard to relax. But when ‘trying hard’ and ‘relax’ were in common vicinity there was generally little hope of that happening.
Especially when someone as downright frightening as a woman who had outwitted the GDF, Interpol, WASP and International Rescue was still out there, a woman so unscrupulous she had offered a deal designed to kill as casually as if playing a particularly charming game.

John’s family had a perfect place for their doomed attempt at relaxation. Beside the larger of the two ocean pools on the far side of Tracy Island, in the shade of the untidy group of ylang ylang trees that overhung the smaller. Gordon had loudly vetoed the notion of anyone swimming in the rock pool he so carefully husbanded until it was a magnificent microenvironment full of life and colour. So it was to the neighbouring pool that everyone had trekked when Gordon said, repeatedly, that he would go seriously crazy unless he got out of the god-damned villa and its god-damned air-conditioning and into some real god-damned sunlight.

Of course, the thing is that Gordon loudly told everyone everything these days.

It seemed that the silence of the underwater world was the only silence Gordon could embrace. The imposed silence of his current existence was not one that he could tolerate to any extent whatsoever, and so, being Gordon, he began filling his days with the vocalised gems of his own internal monologues. This was a development equally alarming, annoying, and amusing. After catching the tail end of Gordon’s unconscious ruminations about Lady Penelope, Scott proposed cancelling her visit as an act of brotherly charity. A slapped face would do his healing eardrums no good at all. But Lady Penelope insisted, as Lady Penelope was inclined to do, and so now everyone but Gordon spent their time acting as loud and instant overrides whenever Gordon’s comments became too revealing, and Penelope spent her time pretending she didn’t hear most of what he said.
John tracked around the site using the omni-cube. It was a beautiful spot, no doubt about it. The ocean today was calm, a slow, low mass of brilliant blue, and based on the readings coming through on the screen beside the images, the heat was softened by a breeze John could see riding over the water. Even if going there was Gordon’s idea, it was a good one. And yet…

“EOS, give me a bio-scan of the area.”

“There are eight humanoids and one dog within the vicinity,” EOS said.

“And an electronic scan?”

“No devices other than IR issued ones within a two kilometre radius.”

The same answer he’d received that morning, and the redundancy of the effort was both obvious and pointless and likely to be repeated, again and again, until the essential breach of trust was somehow mended in his isolated heart.

“They’re safe.”

“Yes, John.” And somehow now she sounded softer, compassionate, a wise child giving him a verbal hug. “Insofar as isolation and surveillance can make them, and notwithstanding the possibilities of human frailty in the natural world, they are safe.”

John sighed.

“I know how irrational this is. Some of this. On the other hand, this woman has technology we can’t figure out and intel we can’t track down. It’s not irrational to worry about that.”

“Except for the fact that worrying itself does no good and actively works to debilitate the worrier.”

“Yeah.” He swung around on the spot before bracing against one wall. “I think we’ve had this conversation. And I agree. Humans could benefit from an off-switch some days.”

“John.” Something different in her voice, a kind of alarm. “I have received a message.”

He pushed off from the wall, alert.

“A distress call? They might not know we’re offline. We can forward it to the GDF through the – “

“No, John. I’ve received notification of an automated message. It is not from any official channel. Or from any radio frequency. It has just appeared in my memory unit as a data file.”

“What? No. That’s not possible.”

“It manifestly is possible if it has occurred. Should I open it?”

“You’ve scanned it?”

“It is only a data file, no harmful spyware detected.”

Strange, how the notion of actual present threat calmed him in some way, cleared his thinking.

“Isolate it. Completely. We need a contained environment. I’ll reconfigure a handheld so it is quarantined from the network. Give me five minutes.”

Five minutes, with his heart thumping and his mind scouring the probabilities, the possibilities, the reality.

“Alright, EOS, it’s ready.”

“Transferring now, John.”

“Right. Got it.”

“John?”

It was odd, and alarming, to hear that kind of uncertainty in EOS’s voice.

“What else?”

“There is a call. On that same frequency I picked up from the Habomai Islands.”

That name would forever signal failure to John, and his first instinct was to close it down. His deep instincts told him that nothing good would ever come from that place, and the temptation to shut it down, turn it off, step away was strong.

But his deepest ones prompted courage. For John, to turn away from knowledge was to turn away from life. Whatever the message was, whoever was calling, they brought with them intelligence that he and IR might need, even if it lay in how it was delivered, what was omitted.

“Alright, EOS. Put it through. If it’s them, I want to hear what she has to say.”

And as the woman’s acerate voice filled his little bubble of existence in the cold emptiness of space, as he overlooked the world beneath his feet and monitored the passage of a billion electronic signals each second, John listened and realised and felt the kind of terror that comes with the true helplessness of blindness in the face of deadly threat.

***** *****

There had been no percussion bomb.

Not on Two.

Scott shifted on the small patch of sand that held his butt and thought of C4 and fake distress calls and devices that made scanners read human presence when there was none. It was a particularly cruel maze his mind was running, one that remained full of dead-ends no matter how many times he tried it.

“No! Come on, Brains, just stick your head under. It’s awesome, I swear.”

“It’s not that I d-don’t trust you, Gordon.”

“So why won’t you?”

“Well, I j-just don’t trust you.”

But of deeper concern was the freefalling notion of fallibility. Scott was, of course, thoroughly aware of his limitations – at least, those he’d encountered and mapped to date. He was also aware of science’s limitations, as a statement of profound essentiality. And yet, somewhere along his path he had come to have a faith in the combined abilities of his family that produced a level of belief closer to certainty than their activities warranted. Scott just fundamentally knew that International Rescue would overcome the forces arrayed against them, be they natural or human. To be proven spectacularly wrong was humbling – no bad thing in itself – but also destabilizing. And it showed in the little tableau before him, beneath the ylang ylang trees, beside and in the beautiful Pacific Ocean.

His eyes travelled from one member of the family to another in an unceasing circuit.

“Grandma! Tell Brains to trust me!”

“I can’t hear you, Gordon.”

“Hey, that’s my line, Grandma. And – wait.”

He spent too much time, these days, taking an endless inventory of the people he loved, and it was nothing he could stop, even with the use of mind techniques he’d relied on for years to help him find equanimity. It should be enough, to have all his earthbound family here, in his eyesight and safe, if not necessarily well. It never would be, not with International Rescue out of action, not with that woman somewhere out there, free to continue doing whatever it was she intended on doing.

“S-stop pulling my l-leg!”

“I’m not, I swear, Brains, you gotta trust me.”

“Uh – Gordie, I think he means Lady Penelope.”

“Oh. Hey, Penny, why aren’t you pulling on my leg? I could handle that.”

Part one of the mission to seduce Brains into the joys of snorkelling. Okay, even in the midst of his worry for three members of his family in particular, and the state of the world in general (because Scott could worry at a galactic level), he could manage to find this a little funny. He gave a genuine snort of amusement, and was secretly delighted to hear Kayo join in from where she lay nearby.

A be-masked Brains was clinging with one hand to Gordon’s shoulder, a Gordon who effortlessly trod water in the centre of the rock-pool, wearing water-polo type guards to protect his ears. With the other hand Brains was trying to wrangle both the boogie board he was half-lying on and the snorkel, which swung in and out of his mouth as the water kicked and splashed against him. On the other side of him Alan, on another boogie board, sat and translated everything Brains was saying into uni-sign for Gordon’s benefit, a task regularly interrupted by the need to steady the board.

And somewhere underneath them all Lady Penelope, an expert diver, was wreaking mischief.

“Just let go of the board and get down there. Seriously, Brains. You’ll love it."

“Gordon, I am trying but the waves make it impossible!”

“Not impossible, Brains. You gotta loosen up, buddy. You’re stiffer than Scott’s upper lip here. Just go with the flow. Be one with the water. You’ll just rock along on top and see all kinds of good shit. Er, I mean, stunning environmental displays of coral efflorescence.”

“Even if I can’t hear you, Gordon, I heard that.” Grandma’s voice, delivered horizontally.

On the far edge of the pool, where the inrush of water provided the most turbulence, she lay spreadeagled on the surface in a perfect reverse dead-man’s float, picnic things forgotten in mid-packing. He wouldn’t begrudge her the relaxation he couldn’t find himself. More than any of them it had been Grandma and her ineffable patience and sense and faith in positivity that had brought them through the last ten days.

Although how she could hear anything with her ears underwater… that was just one of those kind of cool, kind of creepy superpowers Grandmas had.

Superpowers.

Invisibility.

That woman.

“Scott, if you grind your teeth any harder you’re going to frighten the parrots.”

Scott gave a self-conscious chuckle and glanced over to where Kayo was lying, careful in her healing but calmer than he’d seen her in a while.

“I know. Can’t seem to shut things down.”

“Hmmm.” She sat up, slowly but without wincing. That was something Scott could take comfort in. The thought of her as she had been, lying on the lift, the cold empty air of the Nazca plateau chilling him less than the sight of the black slashes on her body, in her helmet. “International Rescue’s offline, you know. It’s okay for you to be, too.”

All of it was superficial, the doctors said. Superficial meant that no organs were impacted, no bones broken. It made her injuries sound trivial, mere grazes, when in harsh reality they were twenty punctures of her suit, twenty jags of metal into her body, twenty half-inch deep tears of her flesh. Without the protection of the IR suit, she would be shredded, dead as no doubt intended.

Virgil had been luckier. In one of those acts of chance alignment that Scott couldn’t bear to dwell on too long, the pilot’s seat of Two had taken the brunt of the explosive force directly in Virgil’s path. His ‘bird protected him, he said afterwards, and no one could argue the point or wanted to. Kayo’s body, exposed to the left of it, was not so fortunate.

“Doing my best. Hard to, with this bunch of – “

A squawk and a flurry of water, as Brains came off the board.

“Sorry, sorry! Here, grab my hand – there you go. Thought you had the balance there, big guy.”

“I thought I did too, but it’s like I told you, Gordon – water as a medium lacks the kind of d-density I prefer.”

“Gordon’s got plenty of density for both of you.”

“Al? What was that?”

“Nothing, you’re doing great.”

Scott looked over to where Virgil was immersed in the pool, his arms supporting him, his body floating in the gentle push and pull of the ocean as it softly surged and receded through the broken sea wall. Sombre, but uncomplaining. Only Virgil knew the depth of his ongoing discomfort, and he wasn’t telling. His body did, though; the way he gathered himself before getting out of a seat, the way he paused whenever he adjusted the line of his torso to pick something up, even at so gentle an angle as off the piano stool. He described it as being like the flu, a constant ache but nothing he couldn’t deal with. Funny how, like the flu, the ache was contagious; Scott felt it every time he watched his strong, active brother shuffle like an old man around the villa.

“P-promise me you won’t hold me down?”

“You want me to hold you under?”

“What? N-no, no, don’t do that!”

“Alan! I saw that.” Scott managed a glare, and Alan quickly corrected his signing, but not before giving an unrepentant giggle. Gordon caught the meaning the second time, and his voice grew less exasperated, his essential kindness showing through the chaotic cheer.

“Oh. No, I promise. I really, really do. I will make sure you’re okay. Cross my heart and hope to die. Hmmm. I wonder where I would hope to die? Hope to die on a yacht in the South Pacific after a threesome with Penelope and – “

Alan splashed him, hard, and Gordon’s befuddled outrage made Scott and Kayo laugh. It even made Sherbet open one eye blearily before huffing to himself in disgust and settling back into sleep, sharing the shade with them.

“Alright.” Brains nodded to himself several times, took a deep breath, and pushed the snorkel into his mouth and his head into the water.

“No, Brains, just breathe normally! Just – Alan, can he hear me?”

“It’s like watching a slow-motion car crash. I can’t look away, but I know it’s going to end in tears.” Kayo closed her eyes and let the sunlight, dappled through the ylang ylang leaves, shift across her face. “Hey, you didn’t tell me how the meeting with Colonel Casey went?”

“Ah.” Scott sent her a rueful grin, even though she wasn’t looking. “You heard the term ‘carpeted’? I’ve still got the burns. I was definitely not her favourite blue-eyed boy.”

“Aw. Poor you.”

“Poor me is right. Sliced and diced by Admiral Pang, then chargrilled by Colonel Casey.”

Kayo opened one eye to look at him.

“But we’re okay, right? I mean – “

“Yeah. I didn’t destroy the goodwill completely. International Rescue will be okay, once we get operational again.” He watched as Gordon swam beside Brains, helping him to stay steady as he ventured his head below the surface. His voice grew lower. “And I wouldn’t change anything I did, anyway.”

“So did you say that to the powers that be?”

Scott chuckled, softly. “Really? No, I had my cap fully in hand. I know no-one believes it, but I can be diplomatic, when I have to. I totally saw the error of my ways, repented of my sins, and promised to behave forever and beyond.”

“Uh-huh.”

They both laughed again, and Sherbet whuffed his displeasure at the disturbance where he lay between them.

Then John’s voice came through the tiny speaker, one of fifty embedded around the island and in the villa to ensure that everyone could be reached wherever they were, at a second’s notice, and Scott’s belly tightened automatically.

“Scott, I need everyone back in the command area. It’s urgent.”

“Understood, John. I’ll round them up.” He gave Kayo a rueful look. “So much for relaxing.”

She was frowning at the omni-cube.

“We’re not online at the moment – what do you think it is?”

“Don’t know, but we better get this lot moving. Alright, everyone. Alan! Get your brother. And tell Lady Penelope. We’re going back. Grandma!”

A wave from Grandma signified acknowledgement, and Alan’s whine of “Awww, how come, Chief Brody?” let him know that the other group in the lagoon heard. Virgil’s nod and careful rolling over told him that he was preparing to drag himself out of the water, painful and slow as it would be.

Scott got to his feet and brushed the sand off his shorts. He bent down and picked up the omni-cube, grabbed the towel behind him, and then offered a hand to Kayo to help her fight her way to her feet. He hid his wince as he saw her mouth tighten, her jaw clench. Too much damage in this family. Too much pain. It brought a helpless kind of rage to go with the pinging sonar of fear John’s command had summoned.

Whatever it was, he promised himself, he’d make sure it didn’t hurt any of his people. Whatever it was, whatever it took.

Never again.

*** *** ***

It was kind of funny that the one place Gordon could find his feet these days was the place where his feet didn’t need to be found.

Gordon understood water and its moods; the messiness and muscularity of it. The world shifted beneath and around him constantly in water, and somehow his body adjusted to it, so that a boogie board became a leaf, waterskis became roller blades. There was a natural sway and swirl that he joined, and he could never quite empathise with people like Brains when they interposed their bodies on it with such lack of grace. Made no sense to him, when the water was so kind.

Treachery was found on land.

It was also kind of funny, (if you thought about it), that Brains didn’t trust him on the water, because Gordon trusted him on land where everything was so wrong these days. His arm was across Brain’s shoulders and he tried as hard as he could to convince himself and everyone else that this was simply an act of camaraderie after their water escapades, instead of being the one thing that guaranteed he wouldn’t stagger from prop to prop as they made their way through the hangar beneath the mountain. His hip was in close against Brains’ and his weight was slewing in that direction and he hated the way he was relying on someone else, again, for basic walking. It reminded him all too much of a time when walking meant swinging between rehab bars, and that was a time he had resolutely put behind him for years now. Ruptured eardrums and vertigo and ongoing headaches – a natural triple act that Gordon was beginning to hate almost as much as he hated not being able to hear just what the hell was going on around him.

Now, for example. Scott had ordered them all back to the house, just when Brains was getting his confidence happening. That part he got, thanks to Alan; but uni-sign couldn’t convey tone of voice, it didn’t tell you if anger bubbled under the words, or exasperation. Or fear. He could read something in Scott’s body language, a tension for sure, but he didn’t know if they were going back because there’d been some kind of argument, or because Scott had something planned, or because Scott had shit on liver and decided to share it with everyone ‘cos he was good like that.

He couldn’t hear the echo of their footsteps in the hangar, which somehow looked lonesome now that all their ‘birds were grounded and felt even weirder in utter silence. He liked coming down here ordinarily; it was a place of potential, a place where at any moment their craft could roar into life in order to save another. Well, maybe not roar in Four’s case. She was quiet and deadly, like Grandma’s farts, but usually when he passed by her in the hangar she looked like she wanted to get out there, zooming through the deeps, going where no one else could go. Now? Hanging in the water, still, abandoned, she looked like she was embalmed, not waiting. An insect in amber.

They made their way up into the living area, and Gordon wasn’t surprised to see John’s avatar already in place at the centre of it. John was online more often than not these days, checking in to see if they’d brushed their teeth and gone to the bathroom. Not that he called it that, of course, John was too cool to be caught out fussing. Or so he thought. Gordon would roll his eyes if he thought he wouldn’t immediately face plant. Eye-rolling was just vertigo’s open invitation to roll the whole world with it. He’d learned that the hard way.

“Thanks, Brains,” he said, as he slid into his seat and waited for the world to realise it could stop moving around him. He hoped he hadn’t said it too loudly, but chances were he had, because Scott was grimacing, which he tended to do a lot lately whenever Gordon opened his mouth. That was another of the weird things. There was more than his own stupid feet out of balance in the Tracy world, and he was counting the days until his stupid eardrums got better and his hearing came back.

The one good thing about John being a perpetual Great and Powerful Oz in the middle of the living room was that EOS was fast and smart enough to render everything said by and to him onscreen. That made life immensely easier. He suspected Alan’s translation service was as dodgy as he would have made it had the tables been turned.

-Thanks everyone. Sorry to ruin the beach party but we’ve had a message from the pair who gave us so much grief recently.

Well, he really didn’t need to use a qualifier there. ‘The pair’ would do. Who else would he be talking about, with that kind of expression on his face?

“Hey, EOS?” There might be a gap in conversation, who knew, but if he didn’t just jump in there he’d be waiting forever. He took off the ear guards and sat back carefully against the seat. “Could you please colour code the transcription line? Help me keep track of who’s saying what?”

-Certainly Gordon. What colours do you suggest?

“IR colours, I guess. Pink for Penelope. A really nice one. Blue for Scott, teal for Kayo, green for Virgil, red for Alan. Purple for Grandma, orange for John. Brains can be black, ‘cos he’s the only one who says anything that makes sense most days.”

Uh-oh. There was that filter thing Scott had been jabbering on about last night.

The invisible screen below John’s avatar shifted to become more opaque, and the text of John’s opening line was suddenly orange against the tinted background. But a jagged line of italics crossed it, heavily bolded.

-Am I to presume, Gordon Tracy, that I should not have a part in this conversation?

“Oh. Uh. Right, yeah. Sorry, EOS. I - er, I just thought you should choose your own colour. Since you’re doing the words and everything. Heh. Nice save, Gordo.”

At once, brilliant gold writing appeared.

-This colour is satisfactory.

“Thanks, EOS, that’s great. Now if you could tone down John’s hair a little, we could take these sunglasses off.”

Someone snatched his sunglasses from his face from behind, and gave him a flick on the head at the same time. Ah. That would be Grandma then. Probably deserved that one.

And now Penelope was sitting down beside him, putting a hand on his arm, and maybe she was telling him to shush or maybe it was to tell him she was here for him, but either way the fact of it instantly calmed the unspoken agitation that underscored his existence these days. She was just good like that.

-Right John. Go ahead. What is this message?Dark blue and serious. Gordon could almost hear it in his head, the way Scott would be bracing himself through his tone of voice, all no-nonsense, tell-it-to-me-straight.

-This is exactly how the message appeared in EOS’s memory unit.

-To International Rescue; you have proven yourselves surprisingly resilient. Or perhaps supremely lucky. In either case we doubt if you wish to take us on again. We now have all of Thunderbird Two’s specifications, we have access to your internal servers and we have complete knowledge of your entire organisation. Should we wish to do so, we could render you utterly inoperative at any given time. However, we have no interest in pursuing you. We only trust that, now you are completely aware of the exact situation, you will equally have no interest in pursuing us. Both parties can reasonably continue doing what they intend without interference from the other. The term is entente. The more educated amongst you could explain the meaning of this to the less able. There is

-Brains is this right? Can she get into our servers?

EOS didn’t use exclamation points. Gordon mentally supplied at least two on Scott’s behalf.

-No not at all. The Bo Kata protocol initiates an immediate isolation of the core system and the activation of a dozen firewalls. She’s undoubtedly brilliant and has some significantly advanced technology but nothing she did indicated the level of advancement required to bypass the protection John and I have put in place. To the best of my knowledge this claim is a bluff.

Huh, Scotty. What colour is bowel-loosening relief?

A green cursor meant Virgil.

-But she was able to fool our systems. WASP’s too. That device on Four that made us think there were extra bodies on-board. That’s pretty impressive stuff. How do you know she can’t hack into our servers given what she got from Two?

Colour me bitter, Virgil. He sent a sympathetic glance his brother’s way, but Virgil was too busy glaring at nothing to notice.

Red, and just looking at Alan told Gordon how worried his youngest brother was, how the fear would be finding its way through into a tremulous edge at the end of whatever he had to say.

-And she knew so much about Two. She knew how to fly it you said so Virgil. She had everything figured out.

-Uh wait a sec. John held up his hands. There’s more of the message. It finishes with: There is much to be gained in agreeing to keep within our own spheres of influence, and much, for you, to be lost. Signed H. A. Martia.

-Is that ‘martia’ as in martial, or

-Mar- tee-a. It might be Spanish?

-H. A. Hayley Anne?

-Helen Aretha.

-Spanish remember. Maybe Hernandez something.

-Heavy Artillery.

He didn’t need the colour to know that was Kayo.

“Huh. How about Horrendous Asshole?” Gordon raised a hand in pre-emptive protection. “And don’t thwap me again, Grandma, I’ve got a bitch of a headache.”

Now everyone was looking at him, with that expression he couldn’t name but had grown to hate. He ran a quick review of what he’d just said, and winced. It was the swearing. Ever since he’d been back near people who resembled his old comrades the bad language endemic in the service had resurfaced. “Uh, sorry Grandma. Sorry everyone.”

But Penelope was squeezing his arm, and Alan had jumped up to disappear somewhere and Virgil was putting a hand on his forehead. Gordon swatted it away. And then Alan was back, and offering him a cool gel pack, and okay, that was something that looked a bit of heaven just now.

“Thanks, Al. Sorry for the interruption. Yeah, so, moving on. Everyone stop looking at me. So do you think H.A. is the guy or the gal? Sounds like her to me.”

-Don’t they teach you kids anything at school these days? Grandma could bring the sting even when she was in purple print. Hamartia. From the Greek. Ignore the initials business it should be one word. Well I guess a Humanities major has its uses after all.

Immediately beneath John a line of gold appeared.

-Hamartia. From the Greek word hamartano. It means to miss the shot or to make an error. To fall short in gaining an objective. Some authorities claim it means the failure of a hero thanks to an essential fatal flaw in his nature. Others argue that it refers more to an accidental injury or omission that brings the hero down.

-Is she suggesting that we have – what an internal flaw? Outrage in blue, but Gordon was watching, and he saw Scott get to his feet, braced again. That was his big brother, seeing a threat and facing it.

More purple.

-I’d say she’s suggesting that she used us against ourselves.

-What do you mean Grandma? Alan was getting creeped out, Gordon could tell by the way he was starting to hunch his shoulders, the way he looked around at everyone just to make sure they were all there.

-Well I wasn’t there. But going by your incident reports I’d say she relied on your own natures in order to plan her scheme. She knew she would separate Gordon from Virgil if she suggested someone else needed rescuing. That meant that Gordon could be used to decoy WASP.

“Wait, so this is my fault? I couldn’t just – “

-Sweetheart it’s not your fault. She was counting on you being too kind and too thorough not to check out the possibility of someone else being hurt.

-You’re saying Virgil’s thought, left unfinished as his face grew horrified.

Scott threw out a hand, dismissive. This is pure arrogance. She knows our reputation is all.

-No. She knows us. John, and now the fear Gordon sensed earlier was pretty much out there.

-Bullshit John. Scott put his hands on his hips, in fighting mode. That’s exactly the kind of thinking she wants us to do. This is classic mindfu er fudging that’s all it is.

-No. No it’s not. Virgil looked as distressed as Gordon had ever seen him, and a kind of icy shiver rolled down his own spine, because Virgil was generally as unflappable as they come, and now?

“He’s all kinds of flapped,” and that must have been a muttered out-loud thought, because Penny was shushing him, finger to his lips.

-I forgot. I don’t know how but I … there’s so much that is hazy from my time on Two and I’m sorry I’m so sorry Scott.

-It’s okay Virgil. Just tell us. What did you forget?

-I should have Virgil’s head was in his hands, and the iciness was everywhere in Gordon now. Alan was putting his hand on Virgil’s shoulder. A kind of shudder, and then Virgil raised his face again. I’m sorry. Gordon Penelope I’m sorry. I forgot. Until now.

“Me?” Okay, he couldn’t hear it, but he bet that was a squeak, because seriously? Whatever was happening to Virgil it was freaking them both the hell out.

-She knew things she couldn’t possibly know. Yes about Two and about IR but worse. She said when she thought she’d killed you she said that you

He was saying something with his eyes that Gordon couldn’t read, and didn’t want to, anyway.

-Gordo she said that at least you would stop mooning over Lady Penelope.

-Virgil. Grandma, because he saw her say it, and he knew by her expression that she was upset.

“It’s okay, Grandma. I mean, Penelope knows how I feel about her. She knows that I …” And then Penny was gripping his arm, hard, and he turned puzzled eyes towards her a half second before the reality of what he was saying came over him.

This was something private. This was something only the people in this room could conceivably know.

The woman had been at half a dozen rescues that they knew of. She could have taken notes about International Rescue at each one. She could have observed and recorded and spied.

But she couldn’t know something so personal, so intimate.

She couldn’t.

-That’s why I called you all back.

-It wasn’t the message?

-That was part of it, but she followed it up with a direct line. The same frequency she used to contact us that first time from the Habomai Islands.

And distress was flowing out of John, vibrating at a frequency that Gordon could hear after all.

-This is what she had to say to me ten minutes ago. I’ll play it for you.

The format of the words on the screen changed to something boxed, neat, fully punctuated and contained in a single, deadly message.

‘International Rescue. John. You’ll pass on a message for me, like the good little messenger boy you are. Tell my informant that I’ll need an update sooner than we planned. Send it to the usual. They’ll know what I mean. Oh, and by the way, I do hope Alan put on plenty of sunscreen. You’ve all been cooped up so long, I’d hate to see the child burn. It’s why I stay in the shade so much myself, of course. Well, must dash. HA, signing off.’

Was that silence? That blank screen. That look in John’s eyes.

Deafness was sometimes an all-purpose Faraday cage, one that protected the inmate by blocking out the world. Sometimes not hearing the conversation that wasn’t happening was a blessing.

Of course Scott would be the first to break the moment. Of course.

-She’s trying to psych us out. That’s a classic psych move.

-But that thing about Alan.

-That’s a guess, Virgil. That’s just a good guess.

-I agree. I c-can assure you that there is no electronic surveillance on Tracy Island. I would s-surmise that she is guessing.

Grandma. I guess there’s no way to know for sure.

-No Grandma we’re not going down that rabbit hole. I’d stake my life on every single person in this room and if Brains says there’s no electronic spying that’s good enough for me.

-But how did she know Scott? About everything? We can’t ignore this. One thing is a guess two things is good research but three?

Gordon knew that Virgil was hurting, every day, but this was a different kind of hurt, and by the way he was on his feet, arms across his ribs as though hugging himself, it was a hurt that went beyond the bone.

Scott was staring at him. His jaw was forward, his chest out, but there was nothing behind the posture. Alan’s feet were drawn up onto the seat, and his chin was on his knees. He looked deeply unhappy.

Brains was pushing his glasses back, then taking them off, his face troubled. Grandma had her hand to her mouth, and that always made Gordon’s sense of security collapse in a heap.

He turned to Penelope. Her classical profile, her pure skin, her deep blue eyes, and he needed her to smile, needed her to squeeze his arm and say, “Well, this is all rather tiresome,” in that way she had that made it seem as though it was all the merest inconvenience, the flimsiest of nuisances.

But she didn’t meet his eyes. Her gaze was travelling the room, and this wasn’t the diplomat full of sangfroid that met so many of the challenges they shared. This was the look of a woman measuring those around her, hard, judging, cool. She was questioning each of them, as a good agent would, because this wasn’t adding up and unthinking trust no longer applied.

The look passed over each one of the Tracys, over Kayo, over Brains, over Gordon himself, and the iciness turned to nausea and a deep, deep unease.

Suddenly, nothing in Gordon’s world was pure.

Nothing at all.