Hello all!
Once again I am examining a little too intently the minds of the Tracy's and, as a result, have produced three stories. These three stories, each posted separately, will try to see through different perspectives of the same people (if that makes sense).
What goes through the minds of the rescuers, the rescued and those who must save themselves without the help of genius technology?
I hope you enjoy!
Any comments and constructive criticism is welcome!
Boann
Disclaimer: I inherit no profit for this work of fiction and I own no characters, names or places over which prior copyright has been claimed.
"All right!" Alan exclaimed, kissing the piece of paper he held in his hands.
"Good news?" queried Fermat, catching up with Alan's long stride as they moved through the halls of Wharton Academy.
"You bet! All that practise with John paid off! Mrs Hamilton gave me an 89 on the geography test!" Alan said jovially.
"That's g...g...amazing!" said Fermat. "John will be p...p...he'll wanna hear about this. You should call him from the dorm."
"Where do you think I'm going, Ferm?" Alan said, speeding up even more so that Fermat was forced to jog.
"Alan! Wait up!" called the boy genius.
But Alan paid no attention. Fermat didn't mind though. An achievement like that was something Alan deserved to be excited about. After a long stretch of miserable scores and disappointments, Alan had worked harder than ever. Swallowing his pride and asking John for help with study had been a big step for the youngest Tracy, and finally his work had paid off. What better way to end the term before the Christmas break?
Slowing to a halt, Fermat could only smile as his best friend continued his rush to their room.
TBTBTBTBTBTB
"Hey Alan, good to hear from you!" smiled John from the other end of the vidscreen. "I assume the test results have come back."
Alan couldn't hide the goofy grin plastered across his face. "They certainly have!" he beamed.
From the smile on John's face, his brother was obviously pre-empting good news. "And? Don't keep me in suspense, kiddo!"
"I got an 89!" exclaimed Alan.
John's mouth formed an 'O' before finally stretching into a smile bigger than Alan's. "Oh my God, Alan! That's great! Well done, sprout!"
"Thanks for all of your help, John," Alan said, sincerely. "I couldn't have done it without you."
"Rubbish, Alan!" John waved a hand to emphasise the point. "I just read over your notes and gave you a few pointers on how to structure the essay. You put all that work in and it has certainly paid off. Dad and the boys will be so proud of you."
Alan lowered his head to hide his blush. "Thanks," he smiled. "I really feel great, John. You know, I really think that after everything that's happened, things are really starting to look better."
"What did I tell you? Who's a genius?" said John.
After the Hood's invasion of their home earlier that year, it looked uncertain as to whether things would return to normal, especially for Alan. The nightmares, the bruises and the constant fear of their nemesis' return had proved to be difficult to remove from their lives.
"Yeah," murmured Alan.
"So, what's new down there? Have they finished those extensions yet?" asked John.
Wharton Academy had been extending many of their buildings, including the gym and sports grounds. Being heavily involved in the athletics team (which had been encouraged by his father to help relieve any remaining stress), Alan was extremely anxious for the renovations to be finished.
The young boy shook his head at his brother's question. "Nope, not yet. Hopefully they'll be done soon though. At the moment we can only use the fields and I kind of miss the workouts we used to get in the gym."
John 'hmm'd' his response.
"By the way, are you all packed and ready? Transfer is only a few minutes away," Alan reminded him.
John laughed. "You bet, sprout! You called just in time. Gordon's due to arrive for duty in less than ten minutes. It'll be great to jump into that pool."
"Better at home than here," mused Alan. "It's still snowing and it doesn't look like it'll stop anytime soon."
"I know," smiled John, peering off-screen. "The way the charts are looking, it doesn't look likely to clear over the next twenty-four hours."
Alan rolled his eyes and sighed. "It's so not fair that you can see everything from up there," he groaned.
"Hey, I see you when you're sleeping. I know when you're awake..." John hummed the carol with a laugh.
"That's a comforting thought," Alan grumbled.
"I know if you've been bad or good, so be good..."
Alan let out a chuckle. "Gordon's right! All that time up there has definitely left a few screws loose."
"Hey!" John retorted.
"Hey John, I'd better go. It's nearly time for lunch."
"Okay sprout. I'll give you a call tomorrow when I'm on solid ground."
"Great. Can I send you a draft for my Physics essay?" Alan asked.
John nodded. "Sure. Talk to you later."
"Safe journey," Alan smiled, ending the transmission.
Ten minutes later, Alan was inside the dining hall with his tray of food, peering over the rows of tables until he found a familiar face.
"Hey Fermat!"
Fermat looked up. "Hey Alan, take a s...s...sit down!" smiled his friend, shuffling over to make room.
"Hey Tracy!" welcomed a boy sitting opposite Fermat. It was Joshua Riley, son of a multi-millionaire engineer famous for his ingenious developments at NASA and Alan's companion in athletics. "Heard you did well in geography today. Well done. Hamilton's pretty hard to impress," congratulated the dark haired boy.
"Thanks, Josh," smiled Alan, digging into his food.
"So have y...y...did you hear about the latest news about the r...r...Tell him Josh," Fermat stuttered.
Alan raised his eyebrows, for once not even being able to guess what Fermat was trying to say.
Josh flashed a smile that won him plenty of female admirers, according to hearsay. "I think what The Brain is trying to say is that people are talking about new developments in the work they're doing up in the gym."
"Don't tell me it's being postponed again," groaned Alan with a mouthful of stroganoff.
Josh nodded glumly. "They've found some of the supports in the original building won't accommodate the new structure."
"So? Why can't they just add a few more supports?" asked Alan.
"Apparently the architecture between the original and new structures is that different they have to rethink the whole extension," grumbled Josh. "Stupid idiots up in admin thought more about making the building look nice than they did about structural design. So the construction will be on hold until they fix up the mess they've made."
Alan threw down his fork in dismay. "Idiots," he griped. "I reckon half the students could do a better job than the staff at running this place sometimes."
"Nah, we're just spoiled, rich boys who conjure foolish ideas from delusions of grandeur, ever present with our juvenile arrogance," Josh said in a near-perfect impression of the Headmaster.
Alan and Fermat laughed and the three boys resumed eating. When the lunch hour had finished, Fermat excused himself before hurrying off to their dorm, muttering something about a forgotten textbook. Alan and Josh walked to the frosted fields for their tuition on the sports oval. They passed the gym on their way. Nothing much had changed. The old gym, a three-story building approximately the size of the athletics oval stood amidst rubbish and debris as it had for the past few weeks. The orange plastic fencing still surrounded the area. A bulldozer was parked not far from the building, disregarded after being used to clear more ground and excess rubble. New walls that had been slotted in an 'L' shape stretching out for another ninety feet were crudely fixed to the old building. A small crane still hung on to a new wall propped up by steel supports. More steel beams were scattered around the gym, some of the serving little, if any, purpose at all.
"What a mess," mused Alan.
"Great idiots, the lot of them," agreed Josh.
"I don't know what the big deal is? Why did they have to make it bigger in the first place, t's already enough," Alan thought aloud.
Josh nodded in agreement. He touched Alan's arm, pulling him closer to the fence. "Come on, we've got a few minutes until class. Let's see what's going on in there."
It took a few seconds for Alan to comprehend. "Josh, no! We're not going in there," he replied.
"Come on, Tracy. I want my father to know exactly what kind of buffoons are running this place. I'll take a few pictures on my phone to send him and then we can have the pleasure of seeing the admin scramble around in a mad flurry at the fury of a few millionaires," Josh suggested.
Alan shook his head. "It's too dangerous. There's a reason no workers are in there. It's obviously unstable until they fix the supports."
"Come on, Alan, don't tell me you're scared of going over a plastic fence," joked Josh, heading towards the site and vaulting the barriers.
"Josh!" Alan hissed, running after his friend and following him over. "Josh, don't be an idiot!"
Josh paid no heed to Alan's calls. He dashed inside the building with no caution. "Come on Alan, we should be able to get a good look from the top floor."
"Josh!" Alan called, his eyes wondering to the barrels of fuel set aside for the machinery standing against the gym walls. Loyalty left him no choice but to follow his friend up the stairs. The gym was hardly lit, probably running off a generator to conserve energy, but a majority of the sports equipment remained in its designated position. The exercise bikes still stood along the first floor's south wall, the weights were still stacked against the west wall, and even the treadmills and stack machines still stood in a neat row on the second floor. To say they were confident that the construction was going to go without a hitch is an understatement, Alan thought.
"Josh?" he called as the stairs creaked under him.
"Up here!" his friend replied further in front.
"Whoa," Alan murmured as he reached where Josh stood.
The entire east wall of the second floor was missing, providing a perfect view of the construction below. He'd expected the inside of the extensions to be a mess, but this was just ridiculous. The roof of the ground floor had been erected and looked solid enough, but it appeared the workers had hastily abandoned everything else. There were ladders, coils of rope, stained sheets protecting the new flooring, wiring hung out of the walls and disappeared through the new floor and a snakelike length of air conditioning pipe lay forgotten. Alan was growing increasingly uneasy with each observation. Even toolboxes and coffee mugs had been left behind. Something had to have been wrong for the men to leave such simple items.
"Josh," he murmured to his friend, who was standing on the edge of their level, taking pictures with his phone. "I'm serious, man, we gotta go."
"Just a few more," insisted Josh. "I'm going down there to get some better shots."
Alan cursed and turned away, catching his eye on something as he did. A crude table was propped by the wall that was lined with treadmills. On it lay a sheet of paper. Spreading it out over the table, Alan saw it was an architectural design of the building. As he examined it more closely, his eyes widened in horror.
"Josh!" he yelled. "We have to go! Get out, quick!"
But his friend was gone.
Crap! Alan cursed, bolting back downstairs. Sure enough he found Josh, standing at the edge of the first floor of the original building, about to make his way across to the floor extension.
"Josh, stop!" called Alan.
But it was too late, Josh walked out into the extension. The floor creaked, but his friend was oblivious to it. Alan skidded to a halt between the original floor and the new one. "Josh, come back! It's not safe!"
"Chill out, Alan. They wouldn't have let workers in here if it was gonna collapse," said Josh.
"So where are the workers now, Josh? They've evacuated this building for a good reason! They really screwed up, man!" Alan shouted.
Josh frowned, pausing his photographing. "What do you mean?"
"Just come back," Alan told him, holding out a hand in encouragement.
"Ok. I think I've got enough anyway," Josh finally agreed, snapping his phone shut and walking casually back to where Alan stood.
Suddenly the building let out a horrible moan and Josh froze. Alan's head snapped up, as if expecting to see where the moan was coming from, but he saw nothing. Then the lights began to flicker.
"Josh!" Alan hissed, encouraging him to continue.
Josh walked as if he was stepping on ice. Every step he took elicited another squeak or moan from the floor. As he crept forward, so did the noises, which were now coming from the floor where Alan stood. There was a dull thud and a crash from below; something had definitely come loose. Josh began to quicken his pace. Suddenly a sharp crackle made the two boys stop. The loose wiring coming out of the unfinished wall began throwing sparks across the floor, dangerously close to where a crate of polyester adhesive stood amongst the abandoned tools. In slow motion, one of the sparks hit the barrel. There was a pause, before it blew apart with a loud bang, shooting sizzling globs of its contents up the walls. Both Alan and Josh jumped and Josh began running. The groaning became louder as the barrel was consumed by red flames; a fireball burning in the middle of the room.
"Come on!" Alan yelled.
There was a loud crack as a piece of the floor gave way and Josh's foot fell through, knocking away a steel support underneath the floor as he slipped. Alan grabbed his friend's hand and pulled him up just as they heard a 'dong' from below. Then another and another. The crudely temporary steel support below had obviously hit another and now they were falling like dominoes down there. Adding that fact to the information from the design sheet, it was officially a disaster.
"Run!" Alan yelled, pulling Josh along by the arm.
The two boys ran back through the gym, heading for the stairs. Behind them, the floor of the extension began to tilt dangerously and burning adhesive attacked the walls.
The groaning followed at Alan's heels, making him run faster. Those idiots! He silently screamed. Those stupid, useless...
Suddenly the floor underneath him began to falter and he and Josh were thrown to their feet.
"What the hell is going on?" screamed Josh. "The old gym is as solid as a rock!"
"Not anymore!" Alan shouted back.
It felt like a miniature earthquake as the building shuddered. The weights stacked on shelves tumbled off and began rolling across the floor. The bikes were wobbling precariously.
"Come on we have to get out of here!" Alan called, picking himself up again. He could feel the heat of the flames behind him now, and the creaking was growing unbearable. A falling chunk of the floor above stopped them in their tracks and Alan pushed Josh out of the way just as a stack machine crashed through down from the floor above, landing with an immense bang. The floor buckled underneath it and it fell through. Unfortunately, Alan hadn't thrown himself far enough to avoid the hole and was sucked down with the machine. He managed to grab the ragged edge of the gap and was left hanging over the lip.
"Alan!" he heard Josh call and he lost grip and fell. Below him the stack machine, loaded with spare weights, fell through the ground floor and landed with a thump like thunder in the basement. Alan reached out to grab the edge of the hole in the ground floor, which managed to break his fall, but the blow to his ribs was so harsh it knocked the wind out of him. He saw stars for a moment before realising that he was falling again. Amazingly he did not land on the stack machine, but rather rolled under it, landing on his right knee. Turning onto his back, he tried to breathe through the pain and shock. He didn't move. He couldn't. He lay there panting before adrenaline returned, bellowing at him to move. He was lucky he did. No sooner had he rolled over than two dumbbells landed exactly where his head had been. A couple more followed as Alan crawled out of range.
The basement was primarily a storage space for sports equipment not regularly used due to the updating of various models. Cages filled with balls stood against the walls and racks of dusty bats filled the odd empty space. Although Alan could feel tremors through the ground, the basement appeared to be stable. The solid brickwork wasn't about to move. Alan's concern was the floor above. Weakened by the hole, it wouldn't stay up for long, especially with the weight of all the gym equipment up there. A particularly large dumbbell was tossed through the hole, striking the stack machine as it fell. Alan could only watch as the unsteadily balanced machine tilted towards him.
Move Alan! A voice inside his head screamed and he lurched away. But he wasn't fast enough. The machine toppled sideways, landing on top of him. Alan was lucky though. The stack of weights missed him, but he was pinned across the midriff and left arm by the 'L' shaped top frame and his thigh was trapped by bench support. Alan let out a growl of pain as it the pressure on each point grew. Pinned directly near the gaping hole above, he was at the mercy of anything that fell through. His knee was burning, but he couldn't see what was wrong with it.
Bitter defeat washed over him. "Josh!" he tried to call, but above the noise from the next level, he couldn't hear his friend's response. There was no way for him to escape. The concrete floor beneath him meant that squeezing himself out from under the machine was impossible. He half expected something to fall through the hole and seal his fate.
Dad! Please help me! He wanted to cry.
But he didn't have the strength. It hurt to breathe. The basement wasn't heated and it was freezing, so what breath escaped him came out in clouds.
Someone, please help!