Chapter 2 – Gordon
We all ambled up to the lounge where John was waiting. It only took a second for me and Kayo to dry off from the pool, all of which Scott kept blushing. Nobody could deny it, he fancied her. And he did a rubbish job of hiding it. To be fair, she wasn't bad, but still. Scotty had a crush.
"Lemme guess…" I said, "Japan?"
"Stop being a smarty-pants," Scott said, as John continued.
"The Pacific plate has been active for over a week now, most shifts heading west towards Japan and the other islands of Asia. But it's broken that pattern and headed east in a massive jolt a few minutes ago. The main area affected is Ecuador. The movement has caused an earthquake of magnitude 5.7. I've already called Thunderbird Two and got Virgil and Alan to stop with medical help for now, but we'll need somebody to observe the area and report back."
"Okay, I'm on my way," Scott said, pulling down the lamps next to Kayo's comms, turning in to launch TB1. John watched for a second, then turned back to me and Kayo. "Now he's out the way," he said, looking at me, "There's a fishing-troller on the west of China that is reporting a failing propulsion system and losing oxygen. Launch Thunderbird 4 and take extra oxygen tanks and masks. And Kayo," he gestured for me to leave before looking at Kayo. "The GDF have already reported they found somebody linked to the loss of the leftover fossil fuels, but when I questioned… They didn't seem that…" he paused.
"GDF seem dodgy about a theft, go check it out without telling Scott, don't let the GDF see you, blah blah blah." Kayo said, not even waiting for a reply. We both made our way down to launch.
You know what you begin to hate after a while? Prank calls. Because there are CLEARLY some people have NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH THEIR LIVES. But hey, not everybody does rescues nearest dammit 24/7. Still, the GDF came and arrested the people and confiscated the ship, so that all went down. But there was one interesting thing – Colonel Casey wasn't on the scene.
Okay, so maybe that came out a little wrong. Sure, maybe she was busy, but it just didn't add up with the situation Kayo was watching. Normally, if she hears we want the Global Defence Force to arrest somebody due to something going wrong on a mission, she's normally there asking us questions. But this time, there's some other guy who just reminds me of some villain in a spy movie – dodgy and somebody who you'd avoid for as long as possible. Dressed in a black version of the uniform Colonel Casey would normally wear, with sunglasses that reflected everything, meaning whenever I looked at him, I just had a reflection of myself looking at me (well, a reflection that looks like it's been in one of those Mirror houses at a fayre or theme park). I realise there's probably a reasonable explanation, but there's a part of my squid-sense that doesn't think this is just a coincidence. I immediately send a call to Kayo to ask if anything seems out of order on her side of the story. But there was just a short beep of static. And not the static used when she pulls a move typical to her and turns off comms.
She was being blocked.