- 2057 -
In a lot of ways, he's lucky.
For the one person he trusted when he shouldn't have, there are that many more people that he can, and now finds that he must.
Jeff could certainly find himself in far worse company than Lee Taylor's, on the day he learns that he's a dead man. Or, at least, that he's well and truly dead to the only people to whom his life ever really mattered.
Lee's hand is firm on Jeff's shoulder, and though there've been moments in the last six months that they've all but wanted to murder each other; when Kyrano delivers the news, Lee's company is probably better than he deserves.
It comes in the form of a voice mail, left on Kyrano's private line. Scott must have gotten the number from Kayo, specifically for this call. Kyrano's phone sits in the middle of the dining room table, its small screen strangely bright in the twilit darkness. The speaker fills the room with surprising magnitude, or maybe it's just that the silence has been waiting for a voice to fill it.
"Kyrano. Uh, this is Scott. We're—uh, the family, that is—we're going to go public with an announcement Monday morning, but I thought it would only be right if we called you first; we're, uh. We've all decided that it's time to call off the search. For Dad. Dividing our time without any result is starting to…to take its toll, I think. Six months is—I mean, it's been probably longer than we should've—anyway. That was our choice, then, and I guess it's our choice now. We're gonna be okay, but I wanted to let you know. And to thank you, for all your help. We'll talk to you again soon, Kyrano. Thanks again."
The call ends abruptly, with no goodbye, no dismissal. It's to his eldest son's credit that there'd been no tremor in his voice, that he didn't sound resigned or defeated or anything but matter-of-fact. It's possible that this makes things worse and though he's got Lee's hand on his shoulder and Kyrano's eyes fixed upon his face, Jeff remains perfectly neutral, as poised as is possible to be in a scenario like this, and wishes he could ask to hear the message again. But it's another voice that speaks, instead.
"They're quite convinced you're dead."
The woman in the dark was a girl when he last knew her, but it's her own father's place she's stepped into, just as she steps into the light now. Penelope's shed the petals of the demure English rose, and as far as Jefferson Tracy is concerned, she has nothing left but thorns. Her voice is cool, detached, as she continues, "Have no illusions on that front; whatever they might've done for the sake of hope, or otherwise. Really all they've hoped for is wreckage, but every chance I've had to speak with Scott or John privately—no, they're both quite certain that you were killed in the initial crash. I think it's been months already since they've stopped hoping for a body. It's good that they've given up."
There's a correction required on that point. "My boys don't give up. And they weren't wrong to keep looking."
Her eyes gleam slightly, though the lights are still low. Across the room, Kyrano shifts against the wall he leans against. It's three in the morning in Tokyo, Tracy Island's midnight. They've waited six months to the day of their father's disappearance. As far as Jeff's concerned, they've done due diligence. "Until you set your mistakes right, you'd best pray they haven't a scrap of hope left. There can be no sight of you anywhere, no glimpse of your face, no secret message of your survival—any hint that you're alive, and they'll be leveraged against you. Their ignorance protects them."
"Six months stuck in a goddamn box in Japan, we know what's at stake, Lady Penelope." Lee's fingers tighten, and it's his upbringing that prevents him from bristling on Jeff's behalf; from upbraiding a woman less than half his age for her callousness, for the way she's determined to speak to her elder and her employer. "You maybe wanna—"
"It's fine, Lee." Jeff doesn't blame her, can't fault her for her anger. A year ago, the Lord Hugh Creighton-Ward dissolved out of public life, leaving his daughter in the spotlight, to make excuses for his health and to fill every role he'd left vacant. Jeff's been told—coldly and with Penelope's eyes like ice as she'd said it—that her father hasn't left the manor in an entire year. That he's never out of sight of his panic room door. That he's been tipped over the edge of fairly reasonable caution into robust, unshakable paranoia.
It doesn't need to be said that Penelope knows who's to blame, because this is all still fresh enough that there's loathing in her eyes when she takes her seat across from Jeff. There's a duality to her, and for all her hatred towards their father, Jeff knows she's got nothing against his boys. If she derives any vindictive pleasure from his separation from his family, she takes none in their grief. It's that duality that has her agreeing to the contract he's proposed. "What now, Penelope?"
She shrugs and her manicured fingertips drum on the tabletop. "It's all going hinge on how effective you are, acting as your own agent, separate entirely from your money and your resources and your identity. You've hung your sword by a tenuous thread. The only advantage you have is that you're the only who knows where."
It's by the grace of Jeff's savvy as a businessman and by the trust the GDF had placed in him that this is possible. Heavenward, as a project, had been split into so many fragments and pieces within Tracy Industries that no one had a complete picture of just what it entailed. Buried in bureaucracy and obfuscated by layer upon layer of management, whatever the project actually was was just never questioned. It was always the responsibility of some other department, always something to point out to management and have kicked up the chain.
Kyrano clears his throat. "It's the what that's the problem. Belah is combing the skies. He's moving his funds around, putting money into subsidiaries that have been dormant since the war. With you out of the picture, he's had no choice but to take a manual approach to the problem. I'll throw up every roadblock I can, but he's a hound with a scent. He knows what he wants and he will not stop."
It had been a mistake to try and find a shortcut through to the heart of the problem, and Jeff knows that now. Hugh had known it then, and it had been Jeff's own hubris that led the whole thing to come unraveled, even as Belah Gaat had woven his way deeper and deeper into his partner's confidences. His curious blend of charisma, magnetism—the fact that his resources were deeper and more potent than they'd ever first appeared—driving Hugh away had been the first move in a campaign that had gotten dark and dirty, and it had only been Kyrano's insistent involvement that had kept Gaat from brute forcing his way into control of the satellite.
Jeff had been given just enough warning to shut the thing down, to disconnect it from all external systems and to render the satellite dead in orbit, already disguised from all but the most sophisticated sensors, and all but impossible to find.
It's inventory had been nearly finished, a near complete index of the contents of low earth orbit. Every defunct orbital mine, every weaponized satellite, every unwise impulse to arms littering the skies. All within the neatly ordered databank aboard Heavenward, awaiting the necessary software to take control and override the controls of every item on the list.
If he were willing to burn the project to the ground, things would be different. That had been Kyrano's initial instruction, blunt, simple, straightforward. Jeff had refused. If he could bring himself to sacrifice four years worth of work and billions of dollars and the chance to sweep the skies clean—well, then he wouldn't have had to spend the past six months in a safe house in Tokyo, pretending to be a dead man.
Jeff's hands rest on the tabletop. "If he's looking for Heavenward, then he's not looking for me. And he will not find it. From Earth, she's a needle in a haystack. From orbit she looks like just another piece of space junk. She's a ghost of a station, scanners don't see her, she's TI's best kept secret, and I had all record of her orbital path scrubbed. I know it, and I've told no one else."
"Mmhm." Penelope remains resolutely unimpressed. "You propose to strike out into the world and find your solution—the brain to go with the body, the software you failed to develop in time for the hardware—tell me, even if I had the remotest faith in your success, at what point am I meant to assume that you were just as wrong about the Hood's capabilities now as you were then?"
It's Penelope who'll be his single point of contact as he proceeds into self-exile. Lee and Kyrano will both go back to their lives, to keep his secret and to be called upon if needed, but it's Penelope who's going to hold him accountable, who's going to be his only connection to the life he's left behind. Though he doesn't begrudge the Lady her anger, he wonders if the edges of it will ever start to dull; if she'll ever forgive him for the collateral damage done to her father. If he's honest, part of him hopes not.
"You won't hear much from me," he tells her, and lifts his eyes to lock with hers across the table. "What I need to solve this problem is—it's on the fringes of what's possible. Not unattainable, but it's going to be challenging. It might be the work of years, yet. I don't know. But it's also going to put me into contact with the Hood's type of people. I'm going to take risks. I've insulated my family from the consequences of my actions, but there's the world at large to think about. If you ever go as long as a year without contact, then you'll do what we discussed."
Even as he avoids saying it, Penelope leans forward and he knows she'll force the issue. "What we discussed," she echoes, prompting, almost taunting him with the necessity to put it into words. It hadn't been her idea, but she'd agreed, almost immediately and with more relish than he could ever expected from the girl she'd been. That, perhaps, is the worst part of what happened to Hugh—what's happened to his daughter by proxy.
"You'll kill him."
And across the table, the Lady smiles. "Yes," she agrees. "And I do look forward to the year I don't hear from you, Mr. Tracy. I hope you're the one to make me a murderer."
Six months and eight hours to the day of Dad's crash, and John's pretty sure this is one of the stupidest things he's ever done. Pretty sure that this entire mess is all his fault, and what's worst of all is that he's just not going to be able to show it. John's not much for most poetry, but at the moment the only way out is through keeps repeating itself, over and over and over in his head.
So he hadn't been able to stand it, sitting in the dark with the rest of his brothers, a few minutes past midnight. Scott had still had his phone in one hand, head bowed against clenched fists, elbows resting on his knees. Virgil had pulled himself up to sit cross-legged on the couch, hunched his shoulders and said nothing. Gordon with bright, red-rimmed eyes, still sniffing but also still bristling into furious temper any time anyone so much as looked at him. And Alan, flat on his back on the floor, staring at the ceiling and the stars passing overhead, not even crying properly, just letting tears run out of his eyes and into the blue of the carpet.
And John hadn't meant to be theatrical, he really hadn't, hadn't meant it to be a profound or meaningful act, he just hadn't been able to sit still any longer, numb and not knowing how to feel. Crossing the room, bringing the central console to life and spinning his fingers across the globe. He'd pulled up weather patterns, pretended like he hadn't been keeping half an eye on what was going on worldwide anyway, and he'd brought his hands to rest just above the eastern coast of the United States and said, "A hurricane's just made landfall in the gulf."
John doesn't really remember what had spilled out of him afterward—whether it had been at all inspirational or even remotely coherent—just remembers saying that maybe they'd all feel better if they went and did some good. Got back to work, to real work, to making themselves useful. Filled their heads and their hands and their hearts with what Dad would have wanted, what had always made their father proud.
Truthfully, John wonders if he'd maybe just wanted an out of his own, an excuse to stop sitting around in a choking, cloying miasma of grief. If Scott had given him a look and said "Not now, John", then he probably would've just left anyway and been secure in the awareness that no one would stop him. Back up to TB5, back into orbit, to figure out his own way to deal with the fact that their father was gone, and that they had to stop looking for him.
It's an exercise in mental contortion to tell himself that this is better, because he's got Virgil and Gordon sniping at each other over one set of comms, Scott dogging Alan's every move and second guessing every last one of his actions at the same time that he's trying to do John's job, and manage the scope of a scenario he can only apprehend in fractions. It's hurricane season, and Hurricane Stanley is this year's latest and fiercest, and has torn a wide swath up the Florida coast.
There's a big red button in the commsphere, only it's not actually a button at all, but a holographic rendering of the override command, the means to mute everyone else's comms and bull through with his own orders. Dad had almost never used it. Dad had never needed to, because when dad had been in charge, it would have been unthinkable that the five of them could've been sat in the middle of a hurricane off the gulf coast, burning fuel and squabbling.
John has to steel himself before he reaches out and activates the override.
It's not Dad's voice he summons up, but his own. It's a new-ish voice, one he's not used to using, certainly not one he's used to having listened to. But then, it had been Dad who'd told him that he needed to stop being so damn timid about really giving orders. So maybe there's a little bit of Dad talking when he says, "All of you, quiet. Clear all channels, now."
The response is radio silence, because his hand hasn't left the override, but they've all heard him, and they've all shut up.
"Thunderbird 1, I need you to pull back, get higher and back out over the water. Alan's fine, I've got an eye on him. He's patching up auxiliary dikes and he's well out of range of the storm surge. Thunderbird 4 needs you spotting for him while he cleans up the harbour. And Gordon; listen up—you need to stop leaning so hard on my scanners, there's still too much movement from the storm and I can't guarantee an up to the minute read. Listen to Scott and trust your instincts. You're okay. Thunderbird 2, there's a hospital north of your position that needs help with evac, their generator's failed and the storm surge has cut off their route in-land. I'll get back to you when you're in range and help you coordinate with ground crews."
That's the sort of thing that Dad had always said. And besides that, it's just what they all need to do. It's just the same thing John's always said, only now he's not handing his read on a situation down to Dad's command center on the island. John's done his best approximation of the tone of their father's orders, but he's still a little reluctant to take his hand off the override. Afraid that all he's going to get back is the same cacophony, the same disorder; afraid that he's let them all down, and that he's rushed everyone back into this, thrown them into howling wind and raging waters, just because he couldn't handle the silent stillness of grief. Afraid he'll only ever be a pale imitation, washed out in his father's shadow.
His fingers drift backward and the override clears, the channel goes green.
And it's Alan who pipes up first, eager and puppyish and just glad that he'd been allowed to come along, even if he's stuck in a pod and not doing anything more interesting than just shoving wet sand around.
"FAB, John!" Bright and confident, good old Alan.
Scott clears his throat and John watches him peel off from where he's been sitting in Alan's airspace. "Roger. Uh, FAB. Gordon, sit tight."
TB4 comes to a stop just outside the harbour where Gordon's meant to clear a path for a GDF clean up crew to land. "Gotcha, Thunderbird 1, standing by. Sorry, John, I'll stop—"
"You're okay, Gordon. Thunderbird 2, you need a heading?"
Virgil's already started to bring TB2 around, coordinates for the city up the coast already on his radar. "No, I've got it. Thanks, Thunderbird 5, let them know I'm en route."
"FAB, guys. Good job."
Order bleeds back into their operations, surety overcomes doubt. If they're all going to lean a little harder on him than they have before, well, that's fine. John can handle that. It'll be necessary, probably, for him to learn how to take a more thorough command of whatever situation they run into, now that they're really and truly striking out on their own. That's fine. He'll be fine, and so will they. And for the moment, at least, John's sure they're all glad he's back up on Five.
He's less certain that they'll be glad when he tells them he's not sure if he plans to come back down.
