Solar Flare
I'm supposed to be the soldier who never blows his composure
Even though I hold the weight of the whole world on my shoulders
I ain't never suppose to show it, my crew ain't suppose to know it
-Eminiem, 'Toy Soldiers'
It's true, I did extend the invitation
I never knew how long you'd stay
-Martika, 'Toy Soldiers'
The call, when it comes through, is patchy and full of static. The voice is timid, as if the speaker knows that it's somewhere it shouldn't be.
"Heh-hello? Can anyone hear me?"
John Tracy is drifting in a moment of zero-g sleep, catching a few winks as he does around the clock in order to stay alert more or less twenty-four seven, when he's on his long duty rotations. It's why that when he's home, he'll be the one up reading at three in the morning or passed out on the couch when everyone else is at the dinner table. His brothers joke with him about it, call him nicknames like 'Sputnik' and 'Spaceman' and 'George Jetson', but really, they're glad that he does what he does, because he's damn good at it.
The haptic feedback in his suit buzzes; he designed it to do so when his comm pings and he's been inactive for more than two minutes, since that means that he's probably asleep. Instantly, he's awake and all of his senses are available to him, as he's trained them to be. "This is International Rescue. What is your emergency?" His fingers are sliding along invisible screens, culling information from the very air that sustains him, as he tries to get a fix on the transmission.
The voice, when it comes again, is small and childish, female and English-not just speaking English, but with the tones of the British Isles. "Um...I don't know. I don't have one. Maybe?"
John blinks. Linguistic fillers like um and ah and like are not part of his language when he's working, so he's not used to hearing them over the comm. He's noted over the years that when people are in trouble, their language distills to the barest essentials. Fire. Flood. Trapped. Need help. So these three utterances (four, if you count the greeting) throw him for a bit of a loop.
"This is a secure channel," John snaps. "Clear the comm." He doesn't mean to be so brusque, it's just what has to happen in order for him to do his job. TB5's communications array has some of the strongest firewalls ever written (thank you, Brains), but there is always the possibility that someone has found a way in with malicious intent. At least two that come immediately to John's mind would stoop to using the disarming voice of a child-real or synthesized-for their purposes.
"Um...I'm not sure how to clear it."
Irritated at the loss of precious seconds that could be directed elsewhere, John frowns. "What do you mean, you're not sure?"
"Because I'm not really sure how I got on your comm, sir."
TB5 has parsed the signal, and John flicks his fingers in order to dial down on it. It's weak, simplistic in its composition, almost antique, really. Then the voice replays in his inner ear, the timid words, the unsophisticated diction. Sir.
"How old are you?"
"I'm eleven."
This raises John's ginger eyebrows halfway to his hairline. "You do realize you've broken into a private channel, right? You could get into a lot of trouble for that."
"I know. I didn't mean to." A pause. "I'm Emma. What's your name?"
"You've reached Thunderbird Five. It's a space station."
A giggle. "No, I mean your real name."
John hesitates. Not only is divulging the identity of the members of IR strictly against regs, but giving his name to a stranger feels too intimate, too intrusive. "I can't tell you, Emma," he hedges. "Just call me 'Spaceman.'" A smile touches his lips as Gordon's grin flits through his mind.
"Oh. Hello then, Spaceman. How are you today?"
"I'm fine." One of the disadvantages of living in space for months at a time is that normal conversations, the passing of words back and forth like a tennis match, slip away from John. It always takes a day or so for him to get the rhythm back when he's home, so the comm is silent for a heartbeat before he recalls what he's supposed to do next: "How are you?"
"Um, not good, actually."
John glances at the glowing green icon that means 'active comm line' on his readout. "Are you in a safe place?" He checks the weather around the signal, checks for anything that would say 'trouble' in the area, but there's nothing.
"Yes, I'm at home, in my daddy's workshop. He built the radio for me. I can't go anywhere, so he taught me how to talk on the radio."
The line between John's brows reappears and deepens. "Emma…" he hesitates. "Are you locked in somewhere?" This is a bit out of IR's milieu, but rescue is rescue. He calls up a list of child protection services, just in case.
The girl laughs. "No! Well there was the one time I locked myself in the loo, but that was a long time ago."
Relieved, John smiles and wipes away the list. "Okay. Why aren't you good today?"
"I'm dying." Emma's voice is matter-of-fact, the barest shade of sadness at the edges of the words.
It's as if someone's dropped an icicle down the back of his suit. This child, he realizes, has lived with the idea of her death for a long, long time. "I'm sorry," he says, and means it.
"I'm not scared...well, not anymore."
John finds he has to swallow harder than usual to get the next words out. "Can I ask what's wrong? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
"I have retinoblastoma-eye cancer," Emma clarifies, the complex word rolling out of TB5's speakers much easier than it ever should. "What color are your eyes, Spaceman?"
"Blue. Some people think they're green. Sort of inbetween, really."
"Oh. Mine are blue, too. Well, one is. They had to take the other one out." A long pause. "It...didn't help. The cancer's in my brain now."
Feeling as if someone has punched him in the stomach, John arches backward into a slow head-over-heels loop. He can just hear his check-in conversation with Alan later today: What'd you do today, John? Oh I talked to a child dying of metastasized cancer transmitting on an unauthorized comm channel, and you?
"Emma, I…" He completes the loop and reorients himself to the comm array. "I'm sorry." What else is there to say?
"Thanks. Me too." A sigh. "I wish I could come visit you. I always wanted to go to space. Did you always want to go to space?"
John glances at the rest of the comm, checking for reasons he'd need to drop the transmission, but the planet below is quiet for the moment. "Ever since I was your age-younger, even. My dad was an astronaut."
"My dad works on an oil rig. He's gone a lot, so he built this radio so we could talk to each other. Now that I have to stay home, I talk to lots of people, all over the world." There's a thoughtful pause. "That's funny, isn't it-now that I'm by myself, I meet all sorts of people. And now I've met you, all the way in space! That's so cool!"
"It is," John agrees, but his fingers are working again, probing Earth's atmosphere. He has a mystery to solve, and his supple hands and mind are on the move, making connections, checking, scanning-ah. There it is. "Emma, I think I know how you're able to talk to me."
"Really? How?"
John smiles. "I want you to do something for me: Look up what a solar flare is."
"Okay." There are a few moments of silence, followed by a metallic scraping and the clatter of a datapad against a table. "I've got it! Wow, that's awesome."
"It is pretty neat. However, it's unstable, so if we're not able to talk for a while-or you can't reach me again-that's why." To his surprise, the thought of not hearing Emma's voice again is a painful one. He makes a note of the frequency they're using, not that he would ever think of diverting any of TB5's resources for personal purposes, even if holding open an unauthorized comm channel isn't scandalous enough. Of course he wouldn't.
"All right." A yawn. "I have to go to bed now, Spaceman. Will you be there when I wake up?"
John checks the time where Emma is, and it's definitely past the time that he would have been allowed to stay up at her age. "Can't promise, but we'll see." A pause, then he adds: "Even if we can't talk to each other, I'll be here."
"You'll be watching, you mean?"
"That's my job, Emma." He brings his hand up, tracing the outline of the icon that contains her frequency. "I'm always watching."
Luck is with them, however, and for the next three days, when John isn't working and when Emma isn't sleeping, they talk. Only the barest discussion is had about her illness; when it started, a few comments about chemo and radiation, about her hair falling out and growing back, the friends she'd made at the hospital. John makes a personal note to himself to send a anonymous contribution out of his account to the hospital's ongoing patient care and research-nothing overt, but a goodly amount.
For the rest of the time, they talk about everything and nothing. She has a little sister and her mom is pregnant with a boy, due in two months. He mentions his brothers without giving too many details, and they chat about life as older siblings. She talks about her home, in a small village in the south of England; he tells her about living near the beach.
One night (on Emma's end, anyway), their conversation dwindles into a companionable silence. "Spaceman," Emma ventures, "Can you see Heaven from up there?"
The question blindsides John, and for a moment, he's unsure how to answer. He raises his head and looks at the vastness of the cosmos stretching out in every direction, then down at the planet below painted in swirls of blue and white. He's a mathematician, a physicist, an astronaut; his life is numbers and theories and immensely complex calculations. Faith is hard for John, but he still feels he owes her an honest answer: "I see the stars, Emma."
"Tell me about the stars, Spaceman." Her voice sounds sleepy, and he hears a rustle of fabric, as if she's snuggling into her bed.
"They're beautiful." He pushes into the gravity ring, letting his feet touch the metallic surface, and he presses his hand against the glass that from the outside reads INTERNATIONAL RESCUE in luminous white letters. "They're like diamond dust on black velvet, like milk spilled on a table."
"The Milky Way," Emma contributes.
"Right. It's a real thing." The ring slides, taking him around the circle of his small patch of universe. "I don't know if that's Heaven or not, but it is to me."
A few moments pass, and he's sure she's asleep, but then her voice echoes through the speakers: "I wish…I wish we could go to the stars together, Spaceman."
John's eyes fill with tears, blurring the view into one bright miasma of light. "I'm here, Emma. And where I am, you are."
The next morning, the comm is pinging non-stop, and John is once again in his element. The small voice is in the back of his mind through it all, even as he gives his brothers direction and takes requests for assistance. The days pass quickly, and then it's time to get ready for his rotation to end. The solar flare has long since passed, but he has the frequency of Emma's radio and the coordinates where it originated from. He also has a personal errand to attend to once he's Earthside.
He's been home for about six hours when he puts in a call to Lady Penelope. The Lady in question is delighted to hear from him, as she always is.
"How simply marvelous to hear from you, John," Penelope gushes, and John knows she means it. "When did you get home?"
"Just a few hours ago. Listen, I hate to ask, but-I need a favor."
"Anything for you, dear."
John blushes; he and Penelope have been friends for a long time, but her attention still has the capacity to fluster him now and again. "Can you find someone who'll put one of these together for me?" He sends her the schematics of a particular item, which makes Lady P's eyes widen slightly.
"Haven't seen one of those in yonks," she remarks. "I know just the person who'll be able to do it in a flash. When do you need it?"
"Friday would be great."
"Lovely. Shall I have it delivered, or-"
He smiles. "Actually, I'll come pick it up. It's a gift for someone."
This really piques Lady Penelope's interest, but though he can see her practically quivering with curiosity, she keeps her reply mild. "Of course, dear. See you then."
Friday arrives, and so does John, thanks to Virgil and TB2. Arrangements are made for pickup in a few days' time, and Penelope and John walk arm in arm up the steps of Creighton-Ward Manor as Virgil rockets away. Inside, the tea is already laid, and when they're settled in Lady P's fabulously mod suite, she presents John with a small cardboard box. "I do hope it meets your specifications," she says, as John opens the box.
Gently, John moves aside the tissue paper and withdraws a genuine International Rescue cap made of sky-blue wool edged with orange-gold piping. The old-style IR logo, white serif letters on a black circle, is crisply embroidered on the side. "It's perfect," he breathes. He has the cap's vintage twin at home in a cedar chest, just as his brothers all have theirs, the piping keyed to the colors they still wear over their uniforms. He looks at it for a long moment, then looks up and fixes Penelope with a small smile. "Would you be able to go for a drive this afternoon?"
Penelope's senses are highly tuned to the unspoken currents in a room, and her antennae are quivering. She's done a little of her own brand of digging since John commissioned the special present, but she doesn't have confirmation of her suspicions, not yet. "I'll have Parker bring the car 'round," she murmurs.
Parker is not surprised that John gives him coordinates rather than an address, but FAB-1 is more than capable of translating longitude and latitude into a spot on the map. The ride is quiet; even Sherbet is content to lay in Penelope's lap, dozing as the car skims its way over the road. John keeps the cap in his hands, his thumb rubbing the satiny surface of the embroidered logo, and gazes out the window. Soon they are pulling up to a small brick house with a tidy patch of grass in the front, and Parker stops the car.
"Here we are, Master John." The older man sizes up the house and the neighborhood as people poke their heads out to gawp at the luxurious car. "Reminds me of where I grew up as a lad."
"John," says Penelope, reaching out to touch his arm gently. "Shall I come with you?"
He thinks about it for a moment, then shakes his head. "No, thanks. I'll be okay."
He's dressed in black jeans and a light blue button down shirt today, brown chukkas on his feet and sunglasses hiding his blue eyes. His watch doubles as a comm, but it's a refined version of the chunky model he wears on the station. There's nothing remarkable about him today, nothing to mark him as part of International Rescue except the cap in his hand. He rings the doorbell, his heart pounding in his ears.
A heavily pregnant woman in her early thirties answers the door, blond and blue-eyed and looking like she's a refugee from an active war zone, despite her tidy hair and clothes. "May I help you?" she queries.
"Hi," John ventures, removing the sunglasses to hook them over his shirt pocket. "This is going to sound a little strange, but-is Emma here?"
The woman blinks owlishly at him for a moment, but then realization dawns and she brings her hand up to her mouth. "Oh-Oh my God, you-" She steps forward to grip John's arm. "You're her 'Spaceman.' She told me about you." A sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh escapes her. "I thought she'd been hallucinating, or dreaming, but-here you are."
John nods, pressing his lips together for a brief moment. "My name's John. John Tracy."
"How do you do, Mr. Tracy." The woman proffers a shaky hand. "I'm Marlee Browne. Emma's mother."
He takes her hand briefly, then holds out the cap. "This is for her. My brothers and I used to wear these when we were her age. I thought she might like to have one."
Marlee takes the cap reverently into her hands, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Mr. Tracy, I'm so sorry to tell you...Emma passed away on Tuesday."
Penelope has been watching John since he left the car, and although she can't hear the conversation, she knows the instant the news hits him by the way his tall frame sways just slightly. She forces herself to stay in her seat, her hands smoothing Sherbet's fur in calming little strokes. Parker clears his throat gruffly.
"Bloody cancer," he growls.
Penelope sighs, aching for John. "Indeed, Parker. Indeed."
Two years later, when EOS wreaks havoc on Thunderbird 5, she finds a file of a recorded conversation between Emma and John. It is Emma's voice that John hears when EOS tries to crush the life from him on the gravity ring. It is Emma's voice that makes him want to reason with her, to tell her she has the ability to learn compassion, friendship, and trust.
It is Emma's voice that saves John's life.
-end-