Now it really wasn't normal for John to be on an earthbound rescue, but he'd been forced out of Thunderbird Five, due to his family thinking that all that synthetic oxygen was bad for him without some occasional natural oxygen, and the only way to get that was to go down the space elevator and stay on tracy island for a week while EOS handled everything in space.
How did he manage to get on a rescue, one may wonder, but the truth of the matter is both Alan and Gordon needed their rest because they'd both come back from two very strenuous missions, one in space, one in the sea, and were put off rotation for at least 48 hours. As is usual for International Rescue, a call came in for a rescue. And this call seemed like it would need more hands than Virgil and Scott had, so John tagged along.
The rescue was a simple one, a mining crew had gotten trapped in a mine that was now blocked off, and Virgil believed that two sets of hands for pod maneuvering would be needed so he and John drilled down around the mine to a stable location where they would be able to get the civilians onboard the pods with no more collapses of the structure. And, as is usual with rescues like this, it surprisingly went according to plan….well mostly.
You see John happened to be the author of one of the most used text books on astrophysics that was used in university, not normally a big source of fame but his face is on the "about the author" page. This normally isn't a problem at all considering John is in space, and how many students who study astrophysics are in rescues that involve the Thunderbirds, but this time it seems luck was not on John Tracy's side as one of the people he picked up in his pod, had studied astrophysics, and was now infact gaping at him.
John frowned as he brought the pod up to the surface and unloaded the passengers, however the one who had studied astrophysics, decided to stay and have a chat.
"You're John right? John Tracy?" She whispered with almost reverence in her voice. John shook his head, a big rescuer's smile on his face.
"Of course not, although you wouldn't believe how many times I get mistaken for a millionaire, you know if I had a dollar for every time a person came up to me and asked if I was John Tracy I'd probably be a millionaire" He chuckled, a little strangely because he wasn't used to acting but he hoped he passed it off.
She looked contrite and quickly apologized, shuffling her way off to join the rest of her team. John sighed a deep breath in relief and thoroughly planned not to tell anyone of this instance, ever.