This story was written in response to the Tracy Island Writers Forum's 2016 Halloween FicSwap. The request I received from fellow author LiGi: "Due to Jeff's desire to have every member of IR be able to work successfully on every piece of equipment, Gordon finds himself up on Thunderbird 5 at Halloween, unable to prank his family in the usual way. What, if anything, does he do…or does he wait until he gets back to Earth to try a prank? Or….does he get pranked in Outer Space?!"
Author's Note: EION is pronounced the same way as the word eon – /ee-yon/.
With apologies to Stanley Kubrick.
MANY MANY MANY thanks to Jaimi-Sam for her editing job. Any remaining mistakes are entirely my own doing. :-)
EION
CHAPTER ONE
EION PHASE FOUR
EXPERIMENTALINTELLIGENCEOPERABILITYNUCLEUS STATUS: GREEN
TIME TO INITIATION: 4.2 HOURS
"Well, that about does it," John stated with satisfaction as he sat back and cracked his knuckles, a huge grin on his face.
"Ah, you boys," Brains sighed, shooting him a disapproving look. "To, ah, use EION in this way is, a, ah, a waste of years of work." He pushed his huge blue glasses back up to the bridge of his nose.
John rolled his eyes and tsked dismissively. "Aw, come on, Brains, you're no fun."
The scientist raised an eyebrow but whatever may have been on the tip of his tongue to retort died in his throat as Brains' cell phone rang. He whipped it out of his pocket, got what John could only describe in his mind as a silly smile on his face, turned and fled from Laboratory Anteroom 5 as he answered it, "Hello, Carmen."
Barking out a laugh, John's eyes returned to the screen. It wasn't the weirdsville of Brains having found a girl so much like him everyone half-wondered if they were actually twins that amused him so much as it was that Brains never stammered when talking to her. His eyes returned to the old-school black and green monitor on the desk. It was actually the only color in the dark gray concrete anteroom.
EION PHASE FOUR
EXPERIMENTAL INTELLIGENCE OPERABILITY NUCLEUS STATUS: GREEN
TIME TO INITIATION: 4.0 HOURS
John hummed happily. "Well, Gordon," he intoned as he rose from his chair, stomach rumbling for a late night snack, "payback's a bitch." He switched the light off on his way out, leaving only the green words on the EION main monitor to light the room.
What he didn't see, as the door swished shut behind him...
3.9
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
EION PHASE FOUR
EXPERIMENTAL INTELLIGENCE OPERABILITY NUCLEUS STATUS: GREEN
TIME TO INITIATION: 0.5 HOURS
What he didn't hear, as he made his way through the main laboratory toward the exit, was the soft masculine chuckle that accompanied the change.
Gordon snuggled into the covers, doing everything he could to convince himself he was back in the bathyscaphe deep beneath the waves rather than out in space. The argument he'd had with John on the way here in Thunderbird Three to relieve Alan from his month's rotation replayed in Gordon's mind. He simply could not get Mr. All-Things-Space to understand that being a bazillion miles away from Earth in a place with a complete lack of oxygen – or any kind of air, for that matter - was nothing like being thirty-five thousand feet under the ocean's surface. The water was…well, it was better, okay? Better than space, by far.
He sighed and turned from his right side to his left. He'd forgotten to bring his favorite pillow, too. He hated being without his favorite pillow and Alan, of course, had had to point out to him immediately upon his arrival how he always said he slept better with that pillow. So now that was on his mind, too, front and center.Thanks, Al. Jerk.
While Gordon fully understood the need for all of them to be cross-trained on all of International Rescue's equipment, this particular 'bird was the one Gordon hated the most. Even more than Three, because at least she could be moved. Well, Five could, too, but not as quickly. If something came hurtling through space there wasn't much you could do but put on a suit and pray.
Space sucked, pure and simple.
The date-and-timepiece on the bedside stand quietly conveyed that it was 11:30pm on October 30th and Gordon's spirits sank even more. How could Scott have scheduled him to do his annual two-week tour of duty on Five at Halloween, of all times of the year? He'd accused his eldest brother of doing that on purpose, but when Scott had laid it all out for him, it'd been obvious that it was just happenstance based on the rotating calendar year their scheduling followed. Last year he'd been up here in the middle of September. Still, all logic aside, Gordon felt at this very moment like the entire Universe had conspired against him on this go round.
Halloween just wasn't the same without your brothers shooting you wary looks wondering what this year's prank would be. He was infamous for the Halloween ones, and truthfully didn't have a whole lot of time the rest of the year to do much prank-pulling between the maintenance of equipment and his own work and research on the side, never mind the actual rescues themselves and his occasional dabbling in Tracy Corporation business. But Halloween was always something he made time for, and as a result it had become a time of year that his brothers dreaded.
He snorted out a laugh as he rolled onto his back, remembering last year's fun involving grotesque mannequin heads that would've made slasher special effects artists proud, hidden in and around various pod vehicles on the same day that Scott, Virgil, he and Alan were meant to inspect them. It wasn't the heads themselves that were the prank, though…it was the red smoke bombs that had gone off when the motion-activated heads moved of their own accord, covering both Scott and Virgil with fine red powder that hadn't washed out of their hair for a week. Alan had been just behind Virgil when he'd gone to grab the one next to the Domo, so he hadn't been hit as fully, but Gordon had caught it all on video and still laughed his ass off when he watched the footage from time to time. He especially loved the "It was not girly!" scream that'd come from Virgil's mouth.
He sighed, flipping from his back to his left side to his back and then to his right side. Well, this year wasn't going to be nearly as fun without him being present on Halloween night, to be sure, but no doubt he'd have a few laughs at his brothers' expenses anyway as soon as this year's prank came off. It'd been everything he could do to only scowl when Alan's parting shot at him before disembarking the space station had been, "Well, at least this year Halloween will be uneventful!"
Gordon grinned as he closed his eyes. How long had they known him again?