Edge of the World 2: Here Be Dragons

Corby (corbyinoz)

Summary:

Virgil and Gordon Tracy are missing, but they're not the only ones. Scott and John lead the way in searching for their brothers and the others who have disappeared, and the solutions they find to the challenges they face bring their own dangers...

Notes:

This is the continuation and conclusion of Edge of the World. If you haven't read that, this story will make far less sense.
Once again, thank to my estimable colleague and dear friend, Soleil-Lumiere.
And thank you to all who supported the first part of this story, I appreciate it more than I can say. I hope you enjoy the rest.

Chapter 1: Off the Edge

"Virgil? Thunderbird Two?"

Nothing. Everything in front of him was suddenly gone; it was surprising.

"Virgil, I have no visual. Come in on audio."

Silence.

"Are you there? Thunderbird Two?"

This shouldn't happen, but of course, such things did. It was the nature of communication across distances undreamed of in earlier civilizations; everything was fine and clear and then, things just dropped out.

A quick reboot through the relay. Drop in by the auto-servers.

"Thunderbird Two. Come in."

Nothing. That was a surprise worth a blink; not even static.

"Thunderbird Two. I am pinpointing coordinates and will send visual via – "

No coordinates.

No coordinates.

John's mind scrambled to catch up.

No coordinates means no ship, which means no – no source matter.

Thunderbird Two is not there.

John cleared everything with a flick of his hand, and called to EOS.

"EOS, I am attempting to communicate with Thunderbird Two. Can you locate and verify for me?"

'Am I to search in the previous coordinates?'

"Yes, that's the optimum place for a search parameter."

A pause, a silent rallying of a billion processors.

'I cannot find Thunderbird Two, John. In any sense correlative with my function. Thunderbird Two has ceased to exist.'

"There will be the location sensor in the main console that remains no matter what."

A beat. A turn of the earth beneath his feet. Iceland, to Greenland, to Canada, Newfoundland; the encroaching night a band of darkness circling the Earth from pole to pole across Europe as he sat above doomed sunlight.

"EOS, Thunderbird Two was transmitting from the point of lost contact. Can you search through the vector of the transmission to –"

'I have already done so, John. Thunderbird Two is not present in any meaningful sense.'

Blink. Pause. Swing and turn. Weightless. Unanchored.

"Virgil. Come in, Virgil."

"This course of procedure would seem to be contraindicated.'

"Virgil?" Later, it would bother him that he never called for Gordon. As if Gordon didn't matter, as if his name wasn't in his heart as well.

But Gordon wasn't the one he'd been speaking to seconds before.

"EOS, give me a scan of the area around that which held Thunderbird Two until two minutes ago."

'Scanning – I have an anomaly.'

"What kind of anomaly?"

'The spectrograph indicates a large area of previously unrecorded electromagnetic activity. The lengths of the electromagnetic pulses are dissonant with previously recorded electromagnetic disturbances. This is a truly strange phenomenon, John. Do you want me to play with it?'

She sounded interested, alert. She was good, but her program had yet to pick up the fact that for John this had just shifted from puzzling to alarming. She'd adjust her voice when she did.

"John, your heart rate has increased significantly. You are exhibiting signs of stress."

Well, that didn't take long.

A tap on his shoulder sash to redirect comms. "Thunderbird Five to Base. Come in, Base."

A pause, and then his grandmother's face appeared. For the briefest of moments, five year old John felt immediately better.

"Base to Five. Hello, dear."

Twenty-five year old John couldn't afford the comfort.

"Grandma, I need to speak to Brains. Can you put him on please?"

"Sorry, no can do. Brains has been in the bathroom for the last two hours. He says it's something he ate. Can I help?"

"You could try something for me. See if you can contact Thunderbird Two. There might be some specific interference between them and Five."

"Will do. Base to Thunderbird Two. Come in, Two."

The emptiness of the airwaves seemed as loud and as painful as scratches down a chalkboard.

Grandma's tone changed, and he hated that he'd brought this to her.

"There's no response, John. What's going on? Can I do anything else?"

"I wish you could, but not this time. Grandma, it's important I speak to Brains."

"Well, I'll go and see. But he didn't sound too good last time I checked on him."

She was gone, and John's mind was free to keep churning through the data, the possibilities, his options. He needed to think clearly and calmly, to do the job for which he was trained and to which he brought his natural proclivities of rationality and logic.

And beneath both, threatening to break through and destroy it all, lurched the drunken golem of his fear. He closed his eyes, tightly, for one second's worth of forcing it back.

"J-John! How can I help you?"

"Brains. You okay?"

"Oh, a little under the weather. Nothing I can't push through."

So to speak. In his head he heard Gordon's voice, as clearly as if he was standing behind him, irreverent as ever. It brought a spike of something skewed, something cold and sharp and wrong that he never wanted to associate with the thought of his little brother. He took a quick breath and kept going.

"Brains, I've got a strange one. I'm sure it's – I mean, there's bound to be an explanation. I can't get through to Thunderbird Two and she seems to have disappeared from my sensors."

"All of them?"

"Yes."

"Oh, my. That is highly unusual."

"I've got to be missing something. Brains, if I send you the EMF signature, you'll be able to figure it out, won't you?"

"I'll do my best, but – oooh."

"Brains?"

"It's nothing. I suspect f-food poisoning."

"I'm sorry to hear it. But do you think you can help me?"

"I'll get on it right away."

Brains left, to be replaced by Grandma, her expression one John could have predicted to within a wrinkle. Grim. Worried. Resolute.

"I don't like this, John."

"Neither do I. But those two are survivors, Grandma. If - if the worst has happened and Two is down, odds are they're floating in an escape pod in the North Sea, fighting over who gets to steer."

Grandma lifted her chin.

"If those boys have any say in it, they'll row to London if they have to."

"You know it."

Grandma Tracy's image disappeared, replaced by another in the corner of his eye.

"International Rescue, this is Colonel Casey."

John swung about to face the second comm unit.

"Go ahead, Colonel."

Colonel Casey stood, shoulders back, jaw tight, eyes as focused as ever.

"I'm contacting you to advise you that GDF has declared a no-fly zone in the North Sea."

The North Sea.

John's body felt empty, everything inside him hollowed out by the tension in her voice and those three words.

"Why?"

The briefest of nods at the question.

"We lost one of our planes early this morning, but it was unable to radio for assistance. It took some time to locate its likely point of disappearance due to unusual EMF interference."

Oh god.

"I have just been informed that the two search and rescue planes we sent out two hours ago have also disappeared. Until we know what is causing this, I have notified the council, the NATS and the European and US commercial aviation authorities that an area of 1000 square kilometres directly north of the UK is to be considered a no-fly zone until further notice." She looked down at something in her hand, nodded to someone out of sight, then brought her attention back to John. "I noted you logged in a rescue in the southern Arctic Circle this afternoon."

John didn't wait for the question. He didn't want the choice of a denial.

"Colonel – we have lost all contact with Thunderbird Two."

And she surprised him, because the immediate worry showed on her face for several seconds before she mastered it.

"John – that is very bad news. I am sorry to hear it. Have you managed to trace them at all?"

"I was in contact when they – when the transmission ceased, so we have a point of reference for searching."

"I see." She paused, then said, "I think we should coordinate our resources here."

"Agreed."

"I will send you what we have so far, although I admit, it's precious little."

"I've already asked Brains to begin analysing the EMF reading."

"Good. John, it is essential that we keep this area clear until we know what we're dealing with. Can I count on you to keep Scott back? I'm sure he's planning on coming here."

John swallowed, found his voice.

"I haven't actually told him yet." That hollowness inside was filling with something cold and dark and afraid. "I'll let you know how I go."