Part Two
"Thunderbird Five from Thunderbird Two. Launch sequence complete. Requesting course confirmation and situation update."
"F.A.B., Virgil. Your course is already in Thunderbird Two's computer." John read out the numbers. Visible on the main screen in Thunderbird Five, Virgil glanced down at his course monitor. John waited until he looked up with a nod before going on. "Danger zone situation unchanged. Nineteen individuals, thirteen of them minors, trapped on a twenty-third storey roof. High winds are grounding rescue aircraft in the area and fanning the inferno. Local crews can't extinguish the fire, but are holding it below the fourteenth floor. Scott confirms that, by the way. He reckons they might lose another few floors, but the fire should still be well below roof level by the time you reach the site."
"ETA forty-six point five minutes," Virgil provided obligingly. John checked the feed from Mobile Control, unsurprised to find Scott already had a countdown timer set for Thunderbird Two, and hit a key sequence to confirm that the heavy aircraft was on schedule.
"So we'll be using the rescue capsule to winch them up?" That was Gordon, appearing at his elder brother's shoulder.
Virgil gave a non-committal grunt. "Too slow. They're holding the flames back, but the heat is still weakening the structure. It could go any time. We need to take them off more than three or four at a time, if we can."
Gordon mirrored John's frown. "How?"
"Scott's thinking about it," Virgil told them with the slightest shrug.
John couldn't help smiling. Virgil's confidence in their elder brother was boundless. It was one they all shared. He glanced over his consoles, checking for updates from the danger zone and interested to note that Scott was running technical calculations on the Mobile Control unit. In a well-practiced sweep, his eyes scanned the status displays for the two Thunderbirds and for the Island, each under constant surveillance from an array of dedicated transmitter/receivers on Thunderbird Five's main antenna mast. Scott's pale blue light and the symbol for an active Mobile Control both sheltered under Thunderbird One's distinctive icon, closer to the fire than John would have liked but forced into that decision by the close-packed buildings. Thunderbird Two was still mid-Pacific, the assigned sensor dish slewing fast to track her motion. The 'Bird's icon was lit with Virgil's yellow glow, Gordon's orange hovering beside it. A glance at the island's display showed the steady symbol for John's father in the office with Alan's white alongside.
"Dad's keeping Alan close."
John didn't mean to voice the observation aloud, and didn't realise he had until he saw Gordon and Virgil exchange worried looks. It had been a quiet five days since changeover. Alan had called three times, looking better rested and more relaxed on each occasion. He hadn't mentioned the haunting. He didn't need to. Despite an obvious improvement, John could see the lingering anxiety in Alan's eyes and hear it in his sometimes frenetic conversation.
Their other brothers hadn't missed it either. Virgil and Scott had pushed John hard, one making a subtle enquiry, the other a blunt demand, both keen to know what was troubling the family baby. Gordon had been more insistent still, calling daily, both worried about Alan and suspicious of his brothers' evasiveness. Against his better judgement but swayed by Alan's abject gratitude for his silence, John had pretended ignorance. None of their brothers believed him, but distance and John's ability to claim duties waiting made even Scott's gimlet gaze avoidable.
Now though, it wasn't John avoiding his brothers' eyes. Gordon was a little flushed, Virgil frowning. Neither of them looked at the camera feed.
John watched them, concern and frustration playing across his face. "Tell me," he demanded.
Virgil sighed, adjusting a few of his controls. "Gordon and Alan argued after dinner," he offered.
Gordon shook his head, running a hand through his hair. "Hardly an argument. I asked Alan to help me with something and he exploded. The things he said were totally unfair!"
Virgil's lips quirked. "I don't know. Alan's hardly the first to suggest 'immature' and 'irresponsible' as descriptions."
Again Gordon shook his head in negation, both concerned and aggrieved. "I was talking about a few preparations for Halloween, not painting the 'Birds pink."
Virgil glanced back over his shoulder with a frown. "Is that all it was? I wasn't around for the start of it," he explained, turning back to John. "I think everyone on the island heard the second half…" His voice trailed off, his expression becoming tense. "John?"
John wasn't listening.
The noise began low, more of a vibration in the pit of his stomach than an actual sound. It was only when Gordon mentioned Halloween that, as if on cue, the low moan rippling through the air of the space station became audible as well as tangible. Thunderbird Five herself could have been groaning with pain. John bounced to his feet. He turned on the spot, his eyes running past the galaxy of green lights in search of the amber or red that would tell him where the problem lay. The boards remained defiantly clear.
A second murmur filled the air, seeming to come from all around and reflecting off every surface. John shuddered, his uniform cold and clammy against his skin.
"John? Thunderbird Five from Thunderbird Two: are you still receiving me?"
Unnerved, John looked up at the communications screen, a little startled to find both Virgil and Gordon watching him with concerned expressions.
"Did you hear that?"
Virgil blinked. "Hear what?" he asked, genuinely baffled. "John, is there a problem with the space station?"
It starts when the 'Birds are in the air.
John listened hard, suddenly acutely aware of the silence that lay beneath the everyday sounds of Thunderbird Five. He gave the status lights another quick inspection, forcing himself to be rational. The reminder of his little brother's problem had inspired a nervous reaction of his own. He was imagining things, letting Alan's nightmare become his own. He took a deep breath, listening. See? Nothing.
It comes and goes. Just when you think you imagined it, it comes back to show you you're wrong.
"Everything's fine," he told his brothers, keeping his voice even through long practice. "I was, ah, a bit distracted by checking on the danger zone." He glanced at the appropriate monitor, and stopped to give it a longer look. Scott was back in Thunderbird One, and looked for all the world as if he were prepping her for take-off. "I want to know what Scott's up to," he was able to say honestly.
Virgil checked one of his own displays and blinked, seeing the same warm-up sequence on Thunderbird One that John had noticed.
"Are you sure everything's okay up there, Johnny?" Gordon was less easily distracted, but he rocked a little on his feet as he spoke. Reaching for the back of Virgil's chair to steady himself, he glanced at his pilot in confusion.
Thunderbird Two was accelerating, adjusting her altitude and pushing a little past normal rescue speed towards the red-line pace that risked bringing forward the next engine overhaul. For a moment, John considered querying Virgil's decision, but all three of their brothers had long since stopped arguing with either Scott or Virgil in situations such as this. There was almost certainly a good reason for Virgil's actions, even if he couldn't have said himself what it was.
"Strap in, Gordon," Virgil ordered calmly.
Gordon hesitated, reluctant to step out of range of the com pick-up.
"John?"
John struggled to keep his face blank as a third moan split the air, higher pitched and a little louder than the one before. It could have been a woman wailing, or an animal in pain. Gordon remained oblivious.
It's as if only I can hear it. Never anything on the sensors. Nothing on the diagnostics.
"Just concentrate on the rescue," John instructed, talking to his own sub-conscious at the same time. "I have greens across the board." He bit off the last words as the unearthly wail faded into welcome silence, and ran a frustrated hand through his blond hair. "But Gordo, lay off the Halloween jokes this year, okay?"
There was no time for his younger brother to respond. Virgil shot his passenger a glare and Gordon held up his hands in surrender, backing towards his seat. He was strapping in as a communications light lit on John's console.
"Thunderbird Five," he announced, and Virgil's voice overlapped with his, acknowledging the same call.
"The fire's spreading. This place is losing structural integrity fast." Scott sounded tense, but focused. "At this rate, I'm not sure it'll still be standing by the time Two arrives. I'm going to take Thunderbird One up and try using Brains' new dicetylene shells to make fire-breaks on floors eight, twelve, fifteen and sixteen."
"Watch the wind-tunnel effect between those buildings, Scott," Virgil cautioned. "Thunderbird One's going to be pretty hard to control in that gale."
Scott grunted an acknowledgement. "Just hurry it up a little, okay, Virg? John, I've left Mobile Control active to monitor the fire and this weather. Can you take that over for me? Virgil's right. This is going to be tricky."
John scooted his chair along the console, clearing a panel, logging in remotely to the Mobile Control unit and bringing up a duplicate of the information it displayed.
"F.A.B.," he reported. "All systems functioning." He glanced back towards his own monitors, checking that the scanner dish assigned to Scott could keep a high resolution sensor grid over both Thunderbird One and the Mobile Control unit simultaneously. Given their continuing proximity it wouldn't be a problem. "Be…" he faltered, startled into silence by another wail, higher pitched and more feminine than the last. He swallowed hard and spoke across it. "Be careful, Scott."
No one noticed his hesitation, lost as it was in the general chorus of similar wishes. Their father echoed him from Tracy Island, and John could hear his youngest brother urging Scott to caution. The radio link with Thunderbird One snapped closed, Scott needing all his concentration. John let his link with Thunderbird Two lapse as well. He glanced once more around the persistently green status lights and frowned, shaking his head.
Alan's voice lingered in his ears, not just from moments before, but from their hurried, hushed conversation while Scott waited in Thunderbird Three.
It starts when the 'Birds are in the air.
It comes and goes. Just when you think you imagined it, it comes back to show you you're wrong.
It's as if only I can hear it. Never anything on the sensors. Nothing on the diagnostics.
It rises and falls like a child weeping, or a woman's lament.
The more desperate things become, the more urgent it is, wailing and moaning like some kind of banshee, a harbinger of doom.
I don't know what it wants, but it doesn't stop when the rescue is over. It follows the 'Birds back to the island, pleading with us not to stand down, not to go home.
I think… I think it's a ghost, John. I think it's someone whose call we missed. Someone International Rescue couldn't help. Someone who wants to punish us. Or maybe just punish me.
John had taken three things away from the conversation: that Alan was overtired; that he had an overactive imagination; and that growing up under Tin-Tin and Kyrano's influence had given the family baby a more lyrical turn of phrase than John had hitherto suspected. He hadn't expected to take away a set of auditory hallucinations of his own.
Thunderbird One's thrusters burst into life, registering on the 'Bird's status transmission, the Mobile Control unit and Thunderbird Five's own sensors. For the moment at least, the ghastly moan seemed to have abated. Now though, John found himself straining to hear any sign of its return. Scowling, he pulled a pair of soundproofed headphones from a hook on the wall and plugged them into the inter-Thunderbird com-channel, shutting out everything but calls from his family and a full-blown alert signal. Usually he'd multi-task, listening to the local emergency services and keeping an ear open for new emergencies while monitoring the rescue itself. Today, his brothers needed his full concentration, and nothing, least of all a figment of his youngest brother's imagination, was going to stop him doing his duty.
"Fire break is holding on the sixteenth floor, but the blaze is out of control everywhere below that," Scott's summary was grim but briskly efficient. "The building's picked up a measurable list to the south-south-east and I'm reading movement in the stronger gusts of wind. The metal framework could give way at any time. You can't put any weight on it, Virg."
"And with these gusts, the rescue capsule would blow near-horizontal out behind us," Virgil sighed. "Even if there was time for half a dozen trips."
Thunderbird Two was less than two minutes from the danger zone. They were rapidly reaching the point where someone needed to come up with a plan. John, sitting alone in Thunderbird Five, attached to the console by the short cord of his headphones, feeling restricted and frustrated as he wracked his brains for a solution, hoped that their big brother wasn't going to disappoint.
Scott must already be hearing Thunderbird Two's powerful engines above the howl of the gale. The complex audio filters that prevented cross-talk and feedback in Thunderbird Five's com-network suppressed it, but John could imagine the sound nonetheless. He'd been out with Scott in Thunderbird One only once, but the relief he'd felt on realising that the larger 'Bird had finally caught them up was indescribable. When he'd mentioned that to Scott, his elder brother had just smiled a knowing smile, admitting nothing.
Hold on… Grinning in sudden realisation, John wrenched the headphones both from his ears and from the console socket and listened. The eerie sound had subsided for a moment, although Alan's warning that it would return echoed in his ears. The reminder of Thunderbird Five's filters had just made that prospect a little less unnerving. No wonder Virgil and Gordon hadn't heard the moaning that so unsettled their brother, and no wonder the monitor logs Alan searched had remained equally deaf to it. Both the space station's com-system and her activity record were tuned specifically to detect human voices, cutting out all and any background noises. John had known that. Hell, Alan knew it too. It was a measure of how disconcertingly human the source-less wail had been that neither thought to apply their knowledge.
It's as if only I can hear it. Never anything on the sensors, Alan said.
Well if that one thing could be explained, then everything else could be.
The desperate moan that rippled through the air could almost have been a response to his thoughts. John raised his chin defiantly, looking around the control room. Not a ghost. Not a vengeful spectre. Nothing but a malfunction to be traced and dealt with when the rescue was over and done with. Unwilling to be restricted by the headphones, John forced the issue out of his mind and refocused on the readout from his sensor grid.
"All right, Virgil, this is how we're going to work it." Reliable as ever. Scott's voice lost its anxious edge, becoming cool and calm. "I want you to lower the pod."
"Of course!"
A few brief exchanges were all Scott and Virgil needed to refine a plan that only gradually became clear to their bemused brothers. While none of the pods was designed to be lowered on cables beneath their mother craft, all were fitted with the cable retrieval system designed for Pod Four. Virgil would have to set down on the roof of a neighbouring high-rise, in lieu of any flat ground in the downtown area, and leave Thunderbird Two's pod behind when she took off, before retrieving it seconds later. Suspended beneath the Bird on thick steel hawsers, secured by the strongest electromagnetic clamps Brains could devise, it was technically possible for a pod to open its ramp-like door.
Gordon was already making his way back into the pod when Thunderbird Five picked up a signal from his wrist-com to Virgil's console in Two's cockpit. The younger man's expression was harried to say the least.
"So let me get this clear, Virg: Scott's asking you to hover in a howling gale, in a craft with compromised aerodynamics, supporting a substantial, autonomously-moving weight with – let me just emphasise here – me inside, putting its ramp down on the burning roof, without crushing our rescuees and without resting any weight on the building?"
"Yep."
John couldn't help but grin at the concise answer. There was a hint of tightness around Virgil's eyes, but for the most part John's two pilot brothers were wrapped in the calm that derived from total confidence in their Thunderbirds, their own abilities and each other's. Gordon could use a measure of that calm right now. The picture from his wrist-com shifted and blurred as he strapped into one of the Pod's jump-seats.
"Can you do this, Virgil?"
"Yep." Virgil chuckled. "Relax, Gordon. Scott's bringing Thunderbird One up to spot for us. He'll tell you when to open the pod door, and you can talk me through any fine adjustments from there." His tone became serious. "Just make sure you've got your safety line secured before you open the door, okay? You know you said John's quiff makes him look like he's been standing in a wind tunnel? You're about to find out what that feels like. To say it's a bit breezy up here would be an understatement."
"F.A.B." Gordon's response was resigned rather than enthusiastic.
This time John's smile was less amused, filing away the insult for future attention before turning back to the Mobile Control readouts. His brothers seemed to forget that while they were in a danger zone, even wrist-com or intra-Thunderbird communications were processed and recorded by Thunderbird Five. Alan and John had long since agreed not to remind them. They'd learnt far more about their brothers that way than Scott, Virgil and Gordon could ever imagine.
"Back a foot, Virgil." Tension rang through Scott's instruction. "Drop down just a little – six inches maybe."
John winced, unable to imagine controlling Thunderbird Two with anywhere near that precision and praying that his brother was up to the challenge. His eyes stayed glued to the screen in front of him, afraid to look away for even the few seconds it took to check Mobile Control. He'd tapped into the pod cameras before Virgil was even in position. He rather wished he hadn't.
Listening to Gordon edge forward onto the lowered pod door, a twenty-storey drop in front of and all around him, was nerve-wracking enough. Watching his wind-whipped younger brother haul the rescuees over the two-foot step from roof to airborne ramp was downright terrifying. More than half of them were children, and Gordon would have to step to the very edge, reaching down for the teenage kids or pulling as they were boosted up to him, before escorting each up the steep ramp and into the safety of the pod itself. It was faster than using the rescue capsule, but still painfully slow, and growing more dangerous with each passing second as the tilt of the roof increased and the ramp was slicked by soot-laden rain.
"Gordon, you've got to get a move on." It was doubtful whether Gordon even heard Scott's exhortations. "That building's going to go any second."
John glanced at the display beside him, feeling a chill as he read the numbers there. "Mobile Control measures building tilt at nineteen degrees from vertical." His pilot brothers, manoeuvring their Thunderbirds around the tower block, could hardly be unaware of the fact, but John relayed the information nonetheless. "Approaching critical!"
Virgil didn't acknowledge directly, but John could hear uneasiness in his voice. "These gusts are getting harder to predict. If one knocks me into the building…"
"He's down to the last two, Virg." Scott had kept up a running commentary from the hovering Thunderbird One for most of the rescue, describing what was happening out of sight below Virgil's own Thunderbird. "Adults. One's pulling himself up onto the ramp now. Gordon's helping."
"Up? How much clearance have I got?"
"Inches." Scott's wince was audible. "Bottom edge of the ramp's at chest height, but you can't go any lower, Virg. The way that building's tilting, the top edge will clip the pod floor."
An alarm from Mobile Control made John jump, choking as he realised he'd forgotten to breathe.
"Twenty degrees! Reading tremors in the building frame. It's going! Now!"
His cry of warning rose above a banshee wail that shuddered through the air of Thunderbird Five, dragging fingernails down the blackboard of John's soul. He couldn't help himself, he glanced up and behind him, eyes searching for the source of the sound.
That split second of distraction was long enough for everything to change.
"Gordon!" The alarm in Scott's voice dragged John's eyes back to the video feed and brought his heart to his mouth. There was an unfamiliar man sprawled on the ramp, fingers buried in its deep ridges as turbulence made the camera jump and jerk. Other rescuees called for him to hold on, themselves clinging to safety rails on the pod wall or the cables Gordon had rigged up across the open door. More frightening was what John couldn't see. Where before the steeply-tilted roof had been visible beyond the edge of the ramp, now there was no sign of it. And no sign of Gordon either.
Thunderbird Five cried out again, the renewed sound all the more alarming after nearly twenty minutes of respite.
The more desperate things become, the more urgent it is, wailing and moaning… a harbinger of doom.
Mobile Control's alarms blended with an ethereal moan that seemed to promise a torment of anguish and pain. John's horrified eyes scanned seismic readings that told of a building toppling, shockwaves rippling outwards as ruthless gravity brought it crashing to the ground.
Both Thunderbirds were putting on height, fleeing flying debris.
"Virgil. Building ninety yards to your ten o'clock. Put the pod down on the roof. Slowly. Very slowly. Watch this wind. Be ready to stop and hold station if I tell you."
"Scott?" Virgil's voice was as clipped and urgent as Scott's, even as he manoeuvred. Two's camera angles were set up to view the pod from strut-height. With it suspended on cables twice that far below him, he couldn't see… couldn't know…
"Gordon went off the edge of the ramp." Scott took a deep breath and John felt his own chest tighten with disbelief until his eldest brother went on. "He's hanging from his safety line below the pod. He's got a hold of the last rescuee. You've got another man on the ramp door. Not looking too stable. John, override the pod controls; bring it up to horizontal, carefully."
John breathed. His fingers trembled as he followed his instructions. The pod door rose, straining under its own weight until it extended on a level with the pod floor rather than tilting down toward the ground below. The man clinging there, white-faced and crying with fear, didn't release his death-grip on the ramp floor. At least now, if he did, he wouldn't be looking at an inevitable, two hundred foot, one-way trip.
Another cry split the air of Thunderbird Five, a woman's voice rising in fear or lamentation. John knew he should stick to his resolve and ignore it. Instead it tightened his grip on the edge of his console. He was too tense to dismiss the sound out of hand, feeling it speak to his own anxiety.
"Scott, count me in." Thunderbird Two hovered over the neighbouring building. Virgil had an instinctive grasp of his own 'Bird's clearances, but with the Pod suspended on cables below the main frame, with Gordon hanging precariously above a lethal drop…
"Okay, Virg. Pod base is thirty feet above the roof. You need to be a few feet forward or you're going to hit that access hatch… Okay. That's got it. Twenty-five feet... Twenty... Slowly, Virg! Fifteen… Ten... Hold it! Gordon's down. Hold it there, Virgil, still as you can. He's undoing his harness. Right! Gordon and the other guy are clear from under the pod. Let her down, Virgil. Drop the lines and get clear."
The camera view shuddered as the pod touched down on the flat-roofed building. John let out a shuddering sigh of his own, and ordered the ramp to lower once again. The ghost-white man clinging there lost his grip, taken by surprise by the unexpected movement. He rolled down the ramp, the video feed catching his expressions change: first to one of blind terror and then a bowel-loosening relief when he found himself caught by a blue-clad figure who crouched beside him. Gordon helped him to his feet, his rescued companion taking the shaken man's other side.
John's little brother was pale as he mounted the pod ramp, but the smile he showed his huddle of terrified rescuees was full of the easy self-confidence John loved to see. The space monitor relayed the feed from the pod's audio pick-up to Virgil and Scott, knowing that his brothers would be as relieved as he was to hear Gordon's voice. The young man accepted gratitude with a dignified restraint, comforting and reassuring. Several minutes passed as Gordon looked over the two men he'd pulled off the roof last. It was longer still before he eased back from the huddle of frightened children, his initial assessment completed even as he teased them out of their shock with deliberately bad jokes. His usual casual drawl returned as the tension level dropped.
"Sorry about the drama, folks. Didn't mean to scare you. Just let me get you all settled, and this baby buttoned up, and then Thunderbird Two will pick us up and give us all a lift to somewhere more comfortable. I'm sure you've all had more than enough of hanging around on rooftops for today!"
"Gordon, Thunderbird Two." Virgil was the epitome of professional calm, but there was a concerned note in his voice that only his brothers would pick up on. "Ready for pod retrieval on your signal."
Gordon's wrist came up, a close-up image of his face replacing the pod camera feed. "F.A.B., Virg. Give me a minute. The guy on the ramp strained his shoulder, and the rest probably need a good checking over, but don't worry." Gordon looked directly down into his watch, giving a lop-sided grin. "Everyone down here's in pretty good shape, considering."
Gordon would be bruised and sore, no doubt, but the grin had been genuine and John knew his younger brother well enough to be sure he wasn't hiding anything serious. Just the sight of that cheerful expression brought a relieved smile to his space-borne brother's face. John turned back to the selection of local hospitals he'd already pre-loaded into Virgil's navigation console. With a sigh of gratitude, he demoted the specialist burns clinic and the one with expertise in physical trauma in favour of a general hospital with the large emergency room best suited to assessing shock and treating minor injuries.
He sat back from his console, feeling aches pull at his own muscles. He might not see the physical side of rescues, but the tension he felt and the strength-sapping adrenaline backwash were just as real. The spectre of his nightmare coming true, of a lost brother, withdrew slowly, leaving him shaky. But that wasn't the only spectre haunting him.
An eerie shriek echoed through Thunderbird Five, speaking to John through the soles of his feet and vibrating in his very bones. A second rose almost at once, higher pitched and somehow more urgent.
It doesn't stop when the rescue is over. It follows the 'Birds back to the island, pleading with us not to stand down, not to go home.
He'd convinced himself earlier that this was a mere figment, a malfunction to be tracked down when the rescue was over. Perhaps it was the high emotion of the moment, but he found himself less certain. There was an urgency and intensity to his Thunderbird's cries that had John deeply uneasy.
He forced himself to think over what Alan had told him, boiling it down to the key points:
It starts when the 'Birds are in the air.
It follows the 'Birds back to the island, pleading with us not to stand down.
It's just not there when I look for it.
A new shriek filled the air
I think it's someone whose call we missed. Someone who wants to punish us.
No. He had to stick to the facts. There had to be an explanation. Something on Thunderbird Five that maintenance checks would miss. It seemed impossible. By definition, the full diagnostic activated every system the space station had, checking each of them in turn.
In turn…
What if it wasn't one thing? John stood, stepping back into the centre of the room and looking around him, trying to get a feel for his Thunderbird as a single, vibrant creature. What if this ghostly presence arose from some combination of factors, a coincidence that just wouldn't occur unless the other Thunderbirds were in flight?
If so, the root of the problem was almost certainly something that had changed recently – since his last rotation on the station. John nodded to himself. That gave him a starting point.
Crossing the room, he pulled up the engineering logs, running a hand through his blond hair as he scrolled back past an impressive array of systems tests and towards the origin of the problem. He glanced over the records, refamiliarising himself with the two minor upgrades that Brains installed at the start of Alan's last shift. He didn't really need to. Both the new running machine in the gym and the upgrade to Five's antenna-mounted radio receivers had come under close scrutiny during the diagnostic a week ago. Each had been tested and double-tested – one by one.
Shaking his head, John studied the plans for the exercise machine for a few seconds before dismissing them, unable to imagine any circumstances where the progress of a rescue would affect the device. He lingered over the blueprints for the antenna upgrade, his fingers tracing the mechanisms on the screen.
"John? Come in, Thunderbird Five!" The call jerked John's attention away from the problem in hand. There was a note in Scott's voice that suggested he'd been trying to do that for a while. Suddenly tense, chiding himself for becoming distracted before the all-clear, John ran his eyes swiftly across the status displays for Thunderbirds One and Two, searching for anything out of the ordinary.
"Thunderbird Five. Problem, Scott?"
"I asked if Mobile Control had any damage. Several minutes ago."
Scott was already swinging Thunderbird One's nose around, descending vertically into the chasm between buildings. The Mobile Control unit had been out of the line of fire when the building collapsed. Even so, Scott had to hover over it for a few seconds, looking for gaps amidst the scattered debris to place his landing struts.
"John… Virgil told me you were distracted earlier too. Is something wrong?"
John hesitated. He'd resolved not to bother his brothers. He'd been planning to wait until they were en-route back to Base and make use of that two hour window to track down the problem. He was about to feed Scott something approaching a credible excuse when the familiar banshee wail vibrated the air around him, jerking his head up, sending shivers down his spine and changing his mind in a split second. He couldn't wait any longer
"Ah, nothing serious." Despite his efforts, his voice trembled a little. "Mobile Control looks fine from here. Look, can you and Virg finish up without me? I need to run a few diagnostic checks."
He'd intended to make the enquiry casual. He wasn't entirely surprised when Scott's rescue-trained instincts snapped to attention.
"More checks? John, what's going on up there? Are you in any danger? Tell me!"
Somehow, Scott's urgency made John's shapeless fears seem all the more ridiculous. He flushed, embarrassed.
"Don't you think I'd have shouted for Al to come get me if I was? Relax, Scott. I need to track something down, that's all."
Scott's tone softened. He was still worried, but the edge left his voice. "All right. I'll liaise with the locals and get this one shut down. You do whatever you have to. But, John, I'm bringing Three up there the minute I get home, and you're telling me everything, okay? I'll bring Alan. Brains too, if you want him. Whatever's bothering the two of you, we'll get to the bottom of it."
John sighed, realising the visit was inevitable. "With any luck, I'll have this sorted long before you get back."
Another shriek made John's ears ring.
It follows the 'Birds back to the island, pleading with us not to stand down, not to go home.
I think it's someone we couldn't help. Someone who wants to punish us.
It certainly felt that way. The cries were coming closer together now, as if bewailing the successful rescue. John's sense of the ridiculous faded away. He needed to get moving.
"Either way, I guess I owe Alan an apology. Five out."