Hi there, guys! Thanks, Bow Echo, Helensg and Whirl Girl; you raise a lot of good points about Kayo and Scott. Almost done with this little rabbit-hole, and then back to the main feature, where characters can be explored in more depth.

13

Wyoming, at IR's haywire testing facility-

On the bright side, the house defenses were only designed to capture and incapacitate. On the other, bandaged and broken hand, they weren't too particular how they got the job done.

Trapped on a high stair-landing, with knock-out gas filling the air, and a horde of security mechs clambering up the stairway and walls behind them, the Tracys needed out, in a hurry. Adding to their troubles, the control room doors had been welded shut, somehow.

Well, if you couldn't attack the door, itself, you could tear up the wall it was set in. John on one side, and Virgil on the other, ripped right into the metal panels that formed the portal's threshold, while nightmare-red lights and screeching alarms beat at their senses and sanity. In their wake, Gordon yanked out big handfuls of wiring, just trying to shut off that noise, and stop the grim prospect of electrocution.

A few seconds' work weakened the door's framing enough that a couple of good, solid kicks brought it down with a booming crash. If Brains was on the other side, Virgil thought, he was now a very flat engineer. No time to turn and make the funny, though, or even flash a quick thumbs-up, because Scott was barking and shoving, again. And, yeah… some of those security mechs were armed with tasers and neural-disruptor nets. Having been tased (twice) before in the line of duty, Virgil had zero desire to go through that, again.

John wasn't his testing buddy… Scott was… but the spaceman was nearest, so Virgil seized hold and just about threw him into the open control room, followed by Gordon. Somehow got tangled up with Kayo, for just an instant… smiled at his beautiful sister and gave her a quick, rough hug, then tossed her on past, as well. Scott made his own way in, supporting Alan. The kid had lost blood, and looked like something you'd find squirming around at the base of a very dark cave.

Pounding in after his family, Virgil saw John bending low to pick someone up. Straightening, the astronaut heaved the still figure over one shoulder. Brains, looked like; and out like a screen after Grandma's curfew. Max was there, too. While the others raced out of the room, and Gordon engaged in more delay-tactic sabotage (kid had a definite nihilist streak), Virgil yanked Max's personality cartridge out of his scorch-marked body. Then, he ran like h*ll, two minutes ahead of the posse, if that.

The rest… well, if you bought him a drink, and had time to talk, Virgil would tell you all about it, at length. Scott would just glare, John go off into napkin and back-of-the-envelope diagrams featuring stickmen in peril, while Gordon and Alan would lie through their teeth. Did they get the crap beat out of them by their own defenses, just trying to get out of the Goddam house? Yeah. Yeah, they did.

Out in the hallway, Scott tripped an ankle-height laser beam, triggering an avalanche of huge, heavy rollers, like redwood logs rumbling off the back of a truck. Virgil was almost swept under. Did bounce off one or two, before getting on top like a logroller, swinging one endwise, and creating a giant pileup. His shoulder laser was out of power by then, or the big guy would just have sawn them to chips.

Scott shouted,

"What the h*ll?! Whose idea was this? Who designed this crap?!"

Virgil gave his bruised older brother a hand up. He had a perverse desire to laugh, but cracked ribs and a wrenched back made breathing sort of difficult, so he settled for grinning, instead.

"Well, Leader-man, you did tell Brains you wanted the tightest defenses possible."

Scott wasn't amused. He leveled a forefinger at Virgil, snapping,

"That's it. You're fired, just as soon as we're out of this mess." Then, "Oh, sh*t. Run, Virge!"

For the tasing security mechs were on them, again; some of them skittering over their heads on the ceiling, partly visible in that strobe-like, ruby glare. Virgil didn't wait. Anyone pausing long enough to say, "huh?" would have been talking to himself. Did collect Alan on the way, though, releasing Gordon to put some distance between himself and those clattering, beeping hunters.

Next came pale, swirling foam that jetted from nozzles in the ceiling and walls. Slippery, at first, it quickly began to harden. Well, Virgil hadn't been a college fullback for nothing; he could hit like a man twice his size, busting through anyone's statue-like coating of foam cement. Gordon joined him in pinball sibling-tackles, hitting like a rugby center in pursuit of glory.

John reached across, ripped a mech off the wall and used it to smash its oncoming brothers to metal and plastic splinters. Brains got tossed over to Kayo at this point, while Scott broke them through to the main lab, which appeared to be imploding like a manic trash compactor; its furnishings swallowed up by sheltering pits.

"What?! Why?!" Scott blurted, hastily gauging the three-hundred feet (and shrinking) they'd have to cross to reach the next passage, and hanger deck.

What followed was pure, balletic chaos, as a blizzard of steel slugs were fired from all four walls like blunt, bone-snapping javelins; a dance of run, dodge, duck and catch with Brains and Alan, amid rumbling walls and hissing projectiles. Scott was last out, this time, literally kicking Gordon in the arse to get him through that fast-shrinking portal. Virgil reached in to help Scott wriggle out, just before the walls grew cushioning pads and clapped together like a couple of fly-catching hands. Scott rolled, looked around himself. Somehow, they'd all reached the hangar. Next step, outdoors.

"On… further consideration," Scott panted, getting up with a definite limp. "You're… hired again, Virgil."

"Like h*ll!" the pilot objected. "I'm holding out for a raise and better vacation time!"

"What about me?" John called back, from halfway across the ringing hangar. "Can I be fired? Please?"

Chimed in Gordon, "Me, too!"

"Shut up and get back to work," Scott growled at them, as crackling flares began lashing from the two force-shielded Birds like floor-sweeping lightning. "No one's fired, until I say so."

It was just about then that karma struck Alan, in the form of a scalp-searing force bolt. He wound up with a crispy-rimmed gash creasing his golden blond hair, which never did grow quite right, again.

Convinced that intruders had entered the hangar to capture them, Thunderbirds 1 and 2 defended themselves with mighty electrical discharges. Not quite enough to kill a fully-grown man, but more than sufficient to light up his cosmos.

"Anyone… ever does break… in here," Virgil gasped, after just barely dodging a force bolt, "we're… gonna get sued."

"Couple of Girl Scouts… on the front porch… with thin mints, even," said Gordon, breaking for daylight. "House 'd bale them like hay!"

Not that things were much better, on the outside. They'd have to cross the perimeter to escape this homicidal fever-dream. But sneak attacks were harder, at least, and dodging, much easier.

Maybe they should have split up, once out in the open. As Uncle Lee would have put it: one grenade would get you, all! But they were a family, and together was all that they knew.

"Possibly," said John at one point, ducking behind a big, laser-scarred boulder (which he ended up hurling at a hovering sec-drone). "We should… uhn… revisit the… question of weapons?"

"Everyone's a critic," Scott grumbled. He hadn't had time to wonder why their system was acting this way, starting with that first psychotic skills test. Later, though… questions would be asked, and answers demanded. For now, all he could do was run, dodge, and try not to get hung out to dry by their own defense system.

It was past midnight when seven dirty, injured and worn-out young people gathered in the shelter of a rock overhang, just outside the boundary line between Gran Roca Ranch, and public grazing land. Brains had come around, by this point, but he was too groggy to yell at. Yet.

The dogs joined them, as well; whimpering and tail-tucked from all that noise and confusion. Defenses hadn't attacked them, at least. Made John feel better about the horses, but still tense as a bowstring. Felt like a coward for not doubling back to be sure… but what if he'd just led that sh*t storm right up to their stable, and got them all killed?

Kayo and Gordon tended the wounded as best they could without med-kits, while Virgil got a small fire going. Meanwhile, John set about breaking into their locked-up computer system, using all of their wrist comms, Max's cartridge, and a flickering virtual keypad.

A cold breeze had set up, making the flames jump and dance. In the circle of red-golden firelight, Scott said, with an edge to his voice,

"Tell you one thing… we need to get in there and straighten up before Grandma and Penny arrive, because d*mned if I'm going to let them find us, out here!" He didn't like to seem helpless, was all.

"One thing at a time, Scott," the astronaut replied, not lifting his eyes from the interface he'd created. "Let me reset the d*mn system, first. By the way, happy birthday."

Didn't listen for Scott's response, because he was busy. He'd got a few kill-codes from Brains, and was trying them all, in rapid succession. So far, no joy. Computer system was getting smarter; having learnt his tricks and his coding style from all of that anti-Brains plotting he'd done. It didn't know Alan's, though.

Lifting his head, John rebooted his interface, got the boy's attention and said,

"Al, over here, a minute. Need your help."

The boy's blue eyes widened in "who, me?" shock. So far, he hadn't felt really useful, except as ersatz weight-training and target practice. Scooting over from where he'd been petting This'un and That'un, the boy asked,

"What's up, John? What d'you need me to do?"

Reaching up to rub at knotted muscles in his own neck and sore shoulder, John replied,

"Easy. I need you to not be me. Key into the house system like it's your bedroom computer, Al, and turn off the alarms. Tell it… tell it the dogs tripped an eye-beam, and some blackbirds got loose in the hangar, again. False alarm."

Alan grinned at his older brother, sunny and open despite his carbonized hair and gashed arm.

"You got it, Bro! One zoological "oopsie" coming right up!"

And, believe it or not, the trick worked.