Tempers are running high and chatter on the comm channel has dwindled to near nothing. It's all business now, requests for updates and terse acknowledgments. The tone of every interaction has changed, everyone's nerves are drawn taut, and there's the sensation that a fight is just looking for a reason to happen.

It's been eight hours since the hurricane made landfall, and there's been a non-stop stream of assignments. It's no quieter in the comm module, and John's been juggling dispatch from GDF satellites. They make their revolutions around the earth at a different rate and can't maintain the same geostationary orbit above the storm that John can. As they pass out of line of sight of the storm and orbit around the back side of the earth, John takes over their calls. It's frustrating and inefficient; technologically behind the times the way so many of the GDF's resources are. For John personally it's an added level of stress. Just more data crammed into his insistently aching head.

The headache isn't getting better, and he's still sore all over. He still tastes bitter caffeine and vitamins at the back of his throat, and forces it back down as he hands the GDF calls off to EOS. As an afterthought, he gives her permission to use his voice.

"FAB, John," she says back, but is courteous enough to do it in her own synthesized tones. It makes him smile, in spite of everything, that EOS has adopted his family's private code word. As far as he knows, though, he's the only one she says it to.

"Thanks, EOS."

John has to concentrate on his brothers and the worsening storm. It's no longer true that there aren't lives on the line, between rescue crews and a storm that's escalated to a category five, there'll be a point when John will need to tell his brothers to stand down for their own safety, that they've done enough. He hopes he doesn't miss the transition. "Thunderbird 4, I need you to head to the coordinates I just patched in. There's a GDF cutter in distress and I'm going to need you to approach for a repair. They've lost their data uplink and their nav's dropped off. I'm gonna download a series of algorithms to bring them back online. Your visibility will be next to nothing, you'll need to go EVA..."

"FAB, Johnny. Lemme read these back to you real quick, though-I've got latitude; thirty-one degrees, twenty four minutes-"

If anyone had asked, John would have said he could feel his head pounding all the way through his teeth, his jaw clenches involuntarily and makes it that much worse. "They're fine, Gordon. Get moving, they're going to drift into open water if they can't maintain their course-"

"...John, you're not the one with your boots on the figurative ground out here, and until you've spent any kind of time doing some real work, you'd better re-run my damn coordinates when I ask or-"

Every word in his earpiece is like a railroad spike, or would be, if there were any railroads left in the world that still used spikes. Absent of the knowledge of railroad spikes, every word in his ear hurts in a way that's almost entirely hypothetical. John didn't know his head could hurt this bad.

"I'm telling you, they're fine-"

No one asks, anyway. But Scott cuts in, "Thunderbird 5, recheck those coordinates. Thunderbird 4, lose the attitude."

John's staring blankly at the map while Scott repeats the request, even as he sees Gordon's icon come to a dead halt on the grid of latitude and longitude he's failing to process. There should be secondary readouts, he should be able to see what has Scott sounding so curt, but of course, his contacts are missing and all the data needs to be brought up separately. And something's wrong with his brain.

"It's a collision course, John," EOS tells him, softly and stationside, so only he can hear. "You have him routing through the GDF fleet, he'll tear through someone's hull at the depth he's maintaining."

Oh god, I could've gotten someone killed. Gordon. I could've gotten Gordon killed. "Gordon-Four. Thunderbird 4, stand by."

There's a pause that John can't help but hear the irritation in, and a crackle of static. "FAB, Thunderbird 5. Uh. Maybe hurry it up, though, rough seas out here. If they need help-"

I can't do this. Something's wrong. I can't see right and something's wrong, and I can't do this. "EOS, patch into Thunderbird 4 and-" John starts, but then his comm channel goes dead. Every comm status indicator on his screen except Gordon's flashes red, muted.

Comm overrides are only supposed to be used in emergencies, when what needs to be said must be heard clearly and over all channels without interruption. It's very, very rare that it gets used, but the burst of silence is filled as Gordon snarls into the mic, "Keep. That thing. Out of my 'bird. I mean it, John, or I'm turning off all data and going dark until this is over. I swear on ourmother-"

It's all coming apart. "Gordon. Gordon, I can't-I-I can't...she has to. Please."

The override's still active. Gordon can't hear him. Gordon's the one John couldn't convince. Gordon's the one who doesn't trust him about EOS, who doesn't believe that anything that could've done what the AI did is possibly worth trusting. Gordon had dug his heels in, even against Alan's pleading and Kayo's okay and even Scott's grudging acceptance-Gordon's the one who holds all the family's grudges. And he hates EOS.

John can hear the dark suspicion in his younger brother's voice-"...is this even John? First with the wrong coordinates and now acting all weird and trying to get into my 'bird? If this is EOS, then I'm gonna-"

"Of course it's me, I'm just...I'm not-"

Gordon's still not letting him get a word in.

Scott's got the master override, and when he thumbs the red button his communicator, all the way up in orbit, Thunderbird 5 goes dead silent. For the first time since his day started, John can hear the inside of his own head. Scott's voice has lowered in response to his temper, grown soft and stern. "Gordon. If you throw a tantrum like this in the middle of a mission again and I'm around to hear it, you'll be lucky if I ever let you back inside Thunderbird 4. EOS, route him the correct coordinates and not another word, Gordon. John, what the hell is going on up there? Get your act together."

The radio links all flash green again, and it's Virgil who John hears next, over a private channel. Scott can override this too, and listen in, but he's in a private channel of his own, tearing Gordon a new one.

"You okay, John?"

No. But we're working. "Fine. I'm fine. Just tired. Sorry."

"Mm. EOS. Pull up the log for John's bio-readouts and tell me how many hours of REM sleep he's had over the last forty-eight."

If there's one thing EOS loves, it's responding to queries and retrieving logged data files. "Value: REM Sleep - Quantity 3.08 hours over period June 30th, UTC:16:08 to July 2nd, UTC:16:08. Last recorded vitals as follow. Heartrate: 135 bpm, blood pressure: 70-"

John hits an override and disables the readout. Virgil has a terrible habit of reading his vitals remotely, and it's always felt like the most incredible invasion of privacy. He'd already had his suit's biocircuitry disabled, the low fever he'd been running wouldn't stop triggering an alarm. EOS accessing it via TB5's systems has set it off again. "Don't do that. I hate when you do that."

"John," Virgil's tone is strict, layered with the concern that makes it hard to forget he's the younger brother. "That's beyond the sphere of tired. If Scott finds out you're not fit for dispatch-"

"I'm fine, Virgil. It's... I've been through like three different vaccination courses in the past week trying to get ready for touchdown. It's a bad reaction, that's all."

Virgil pauses and the silence gnaws at John, makes him feel cold all over."... How much of your dispatch is really EOS right now?"

Most of it. I'm a liar today. "...Maybe half. None of the GDF calls. It's fine."

Alan's icon flashes and John opens a second line, hangs up on Virgil. He doesn't mean to sound as irritable as he does. "What, Alan?"

Alan sounds a little taken aback when he answers. "Wanted to say I was sorry about Gordon getting on your case, was all. You okay, Johnny?"

"Fine. Let me get back to work."

"Uh. FAB, John. Sorry."

Alan's already dropped off the line by the time John realizes he should apologize for snapping at him. The cold feeling hasn't stopped, it's getting worse, and he shivers involuntarily. Then uncontrollably. Then he's gone beyond shivering and into spasms, convulsions that are more than just chills, hitting him unexpectedly through the heat of a rising fever.

By the time the first seizure hits, he can't seem to think of anything but how he shouldn't have been so mean to Alan, and it's the last clear thought he'll have. The world is dark and cold, and John leaves it.