CHAPTER THREE

He was up and on his feet. The first thing he grabbed from the dresser drawer was a blue pair of shorts that hadn't even registered as he hauled them on over his briefs. There was no grace in the stumbling movements that carried him somehow (mostly) upright through his bedroom, through the outer sitting room, through the obliging sliding door and into the hall.

Virgil stopped dead in his tracks as the doors down the hall slid open one after another. First Alan raced past him, followed on-heel by Gordon. Scott darted out of his door next, skidding to a halt next to him. "What the hell are you waiting for?" he asked in a clipped tone.

He shook his head as Scott grabbed his arm. For some reason Virgil just couldn't quite grasp, this seemed way too familiar. Once he reached the Command Center, he just went directly to the floor-to-ceiling painting of the rocket ship. He didn't hear anything their father said.

Did rescue calls really need to come in at...he glanced at his watch as his painting upended him into the chute...two-fifteen in the morning? He froze as the chute barreled him toward his destination. Two-fifteen in the morning? Two-fifteen? Suddenly he felt sick. What the hell?

"Virgil, aren't you awake yet? You've had two cups of coffee."

His hands flew across the control panel, the scowl that appeared before Two had even taken off still etched into his face. "I'm fine."

"Then how come you're not talking?"

Virgil cut his eye back at Gordon. "Because I'm busy flying."

"You can fly with your eyes closed," Alan said before yawning none-too-quietly.

"Don't say that, he'll actually try it," Gordon said through his own yawn.

Virgil's retort died on his lips as Two signaled an incoming call. He did a double-take as Scott's face appeared on a smaller monitor to his right.

"Thunderbird Two from Mobile Control." Scott frowned. "What's with the face? You got trouble?"

"Face?" Virgil repeated.

"Yes, face," Gordon growled.

"Shut up," Virgil growled right back.

"What the hell?" Scott said sternly.

"Nothing, Scott," Virgil said, trying to quell the unidentifiable knot that had taken up residence in his stomach. "What's up?"

"Double-time it, Virg. Local geologists are saying the rest of that hill could come down any second."

"Good thing you're out of-" Virgil frowned.

"I'm what?" Scott asked none-too-patiently.

"That you're..." Virgil looked, really looked at his brother. Suddenly all he saw was red, red on sand, red covering a hat clutched in a hand. He felt his eye twitch.

"Virgil, report!" Scott demanded.

"Something's not right," was all Virgil could think to say.

"You have a fault?" Scott pressed as Alan and Gordon unstrapped and came to stand over Virgil's shoulders, their eyes alternately going from Virgil to the multiple screens and control panel.

"No signals," Alan murmured, brow knitted.

"I don't see anything off," Gordon replied, laying a hand on Virgil's shoulder.

"Except Virg," Alan added.

"ETA now five minutes," Virgil said, scowl deepening. Something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong! his mind screamed at him.

Scott studied his brother for a few seconds. "F.A.B.," he finally said. Virgil looked him in the eyes and felt like he'd been sucker punched as Scott's feed winked out.

Everything had gone according to plan. After all, this really was a straightforward rescue. But Virgil frowned as the grabs dropped the final boulder. He hadn't been able to shake the feeling of dread that descended upon him but could not for the life of him figure out why.

Reporting the last boulder's removal on their multiple-line bandwidth, he got a chorus of F.A.B.s in return, followed by instructions from his field commander about where to set down. Then came the call from Gordon informing them all that the five tourists were perfectly fine, just scared shitless, and they'd have them in the hands of local EMTs within minutes. As Virgil walked out of the pod, his eyes zeroed in on his older brother not twenty feet away sitting at Mobile Control with a local police officer.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. His eyes narrowed as they darted around. The urge to double over and let loose whatever was in his stomach became unbearable and he swallowed rapidly to keep the bile from rising. That's when he just knew.

"Scott!" he yelled, taking off at a dead run. "Jesus Christ, Scott!"

He saw his brother rise to his feet and look toward him. He heard the big crack and began waving his hands toward the cliff above Scott's head. The policeman and Scott looked up at the same moment as the bus-sized shard of the cliff face was breaking away from the wall.

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!

"Scott, no!"

The sickening crunch happened when he was less than two feet away. He knew where the bloody hat was and fell to the ground next to it. His eyes filled with tears as he retched into the wet sand under his knees.

Virgil felt himself hyperventilating, frozen in the moment, in the swirl of images that stormed through his mind. He'd seen this before; he knew it as surely as he knew his own name. He'd known. Somehow, he'd known and now...Scott was gone. Scott was gone.

Hands on his shoulders, gripping hard, trying to pull him away. Then the sound of Thunderbird Two taking off, what, who was flying it if not him? The whine of her engines overhead as the hands grabbed him under his armpits and dragged him away and he didn't even fight. What was the point?

Scott was gone.