Chapter 25– Kayo

For those of you who chose not to read Chapter 24, I fully respect that. I did promise for anybody who didn't read that I'd leave a brief catch-up here, so here it is. The last chapter gave a quick overview on how Kayo's mother died in a water-based accident, Kayo's dad (or Kyrano) died of terminal cancer, and how the Hood abused her after drinking in the form of a night-terror-like dream. Also, in the dream she re-saw herself being shot, so she is now aware of how she was actually shot. Aaaand that basically sums up the last chapter. Hope you guys enjoy this chapter :).

I stared at the fluorescent lines on the digital clock sitting on the bedside table. 2:07. Turns out the whole night terror/nightmare/whatever you call it all happened within the period of about one and a half hours – the usual time it took. Which meant I went to bed – again – at half eleven-ish in the evening only to wake up at one in the morning. And then Scott managed to get me to have a shower and get dressed into my vest black vest top and grey shorts again, and then he dried my hair – bless him – before we both called it a night again, with both of us sharing the same bed still. Scott had fallen asleep after he thought I fell asleep. But I didn't fall asleep. I never could after the nightmare. I just sat there, eyes closed, waiting until Scott fell asleep because I didn't want him losing sleep, too. When I was pretending to be asleep, I kept checking by looking at him through my eyelashes and waited for him to go to sleep. It didn't take too long for him to fall asleep – thankfully – but I waited at least another fifteen minutes to make sure he wasn't doing the same as me, pretending to be asleep. But no, it had been nearly forty minutes, if I woke up at one and it took me five to have a shower and fifteen dry my hair, which seemed to want to hang on to every drop of water today. All this equalled to forty minutes. It felt a lot longer than that with nothing to do. I mean, I couldn't move because it'd wake Scott up, and I wasn't sure if the holo-projector was dead or not (and even if it was I was scared I'd wake Scott up by leaning over to pick it up). And even if I could reach it, then what? Virgil put a ban for accessing the security system on the holo-projector in here – proves how well my brother knows me, he probably thought through what I'd do if I was awake and blocked it to try and make me go back to sleep – and I didn't think I could go around and find another one because – as stated – I'd wake Scott up. One things I usually admired but this time hated about the Tracy's – they're smart. Okay, 'hate' was a little harsh, but seriously, they were as smart as hell. And my brothers thought of everything. The chances they'd forget something that wasn't immediately important was the chances, in the wonderful words of my brother Virgil, that Gordon would get laid using one of his shitty pick-up lines. Well, not technically brother-sister as Virgil quietly explained to me when he was sorting out the machines to wash out all the drugs in my system, but, hey, we were still brother-sister before we tried to get me legally adopted into the Tracy family (before we tried to get me adopted, I was only staying because Jeff was my only Godparent that passed expectation – which seemed to make sense, considering he already had five sons of his own). So if we were brother-sister then, what stopped it now? Okay, maybe not the same for Scott, purely because… y'know... What we said and did earlier… But other than that, I hoped it would be the same. Since, hey, I kinda had to throw all other chances at life away at a young age. As I had just re-experienced.

I mean, after I arrested The Hood and he was in a temporary prison cell to be questioned, Colonel Casey (and Lila, even though she wasn't meant to) sent a quick text to me saying that if things didn't work out with them knowing about The Hood being my uncle and they wanted me to go, whether it was that day or ten years from now, then I could always get a job at the GDF doing undercover operations, sting operations, and all that jazz as a secret agent, and I'd also be supplied with my own furnished little cottage – I had already looked at it and slightly fallen in love with it – and it was on the same street as Lila and Alfie's new house where they would now primarily raise Christopher and Evangeline, or rather Chris and Evie, and it was located in Bracknell (a place in Berkshire in England; the reason the cottage was reserved was for a safe house for anybody under threats) and it was close to the town centre The Lexicon. And that if I accepted the job I'd not only get this house but I'd be employed three 'stages' higher than most people that were employed into the GDF due to me effectively saving their arses in most of their operations. The job was quite nice, too – not as nice as my job here obviously, but still nice – I'd be able to have my own gun for defence – lovely jubbly stuff – and finally be able to do covert ops and not be sat down spoken to like a four year old and treated like one for the rest of the week – casual dig at both Scott and Colonel Casey – and do covert ops freely as long as I did reports after I did them. I was quite good at writing reports, but I ran out of patience quickly and my attention span was as short as the chances of me stopping doing my covert ops. But other than that, I'd thrown away any other lives I had left. After IR, it was the occasional operation and a fuck tonne of paperwork, and after that it was square one.

But something worried me, too: it was a well-known fact that if you have a group of people knitted up purely by friendship or trust or that bullshit, and then two of them start dating or whatever and it doesn't work out, then it destroys the group. So what happens if I cocked up with Scott? What if I accidentally punched him again and he didn't find it so funny this time? Would it destroy IR? Probably not. Would I get kicked out? Probably. Would I ever get let back in? Nope. Would I still worry about them every single minute of my shitty life? Duh. Okay, yeah, as stated I have the job both Colonel Casey and Lila offered me so I could still sneak in to the security system and check on them, but still. I already cocked up by coming in to IR with a biological link to The Hood, surely I couldn't cock up twice in whatever way that might be, but if I did I'd never be allowed back to the place where I learnt to trust, and got over my psychological fear of men. So, what this effectively meant was, watch every movement I do, don't screw up once unless I wanted to go into the office-like paperwork massacre called the Global Defence Force.

I was interrupted from my thoughts when I heard bleeping and a little blue LED flashing on the holo-projector. Oh, so the projector wasn't dead. That answers one question. But the other question was why the hell it was beeping. Well, let's see if moving would wake Scott up after all. If moving didn't wake him up, surely the beeping would. I was already laying on my side, laying on Scott's shoulder, and the table the projector was on Scott's side of the bed. So, as long as I was careful, I could just stretch an arm over, pick it up, then lay back down all whilst making it seem like the only reason I moved was to make myself comfy in my sleep. Hopefully. I pushed the duvet down slightly, before balancing myself on one elbow and stretching the other carefully over Scott. I had to lean over him quite a bit, to the point where I was literally half-dangling over his chest, but surely enough soon I found my fingers clamped around the tightly-layered 3D-printed plastic of the holo-projector. Great. I slid back down into Scott's half-folded arm where he had originally wrapped it around me but, as he fell further into sleep, had slid off and was resting on the bed. But it turns out I slid down a little quickly. Because he was slowly waking up. I quickly slid the holo-projector under the duvet, before pretending to be asleep.

"Kayo?" I heard him mutter. Shit, I did wake him up. Thankfully, he didn't sound entirely awake, so it shouldn't take as long for him to fall asleep again than it did earlier. I pretended that I had just woken up after he said my name. I mastered that since I started having the nightmares – I didn't want anybody worrying about me, and if I pretended I just woke up, then they wouldn't. But today I was using it to cover up the fact that I was awake and potentially about to open a text sent to Scott (well, if it was I'd close it down obviously, but it still didn't change the concept). "You okay?"

"Yeah, why?" I whispered, looking around as if I couldn't remember falling asleep. I saw all the boys do that when they woke up, so I assumed that was natural.

"Thought I felt you woke up," Scott shrugged and kissed my forehead, "Okay, try and get some sleep okay? Just wake me up if you need me,"

"Okay," I whispered, laying back down. Okay, so my brilliant plan hit a slight snag. But, hey, I'm pretty sure he was still asleep. Or partially asleep, anyway. I'm pretty sure there's a word for that. Not fully conscious? Meh, close enough. I sat there for about another five minutes, making sure not to wake him up, before slowly sitting up. I was glad that this whole shooting thing avoided something – at least the whole thing about my uncle wasn't coming up due to the shooting. They only learnt about him being my uncle at least a week ago, and yet, nothing. I was still waiting for the whole thing where Scott sits me down and treats me like a two-year-old for not telling them sooner. Well, a private one, anyway. After The Hood was taken off the island he effectively forced me to 'finish the conversation' by sitting me down and herding everybody into the Lounge. But maybe that wouldn't happen now. Keyword: Maybe.

I turned on the holo-projector, quickly turning the brightness down to stop Scott suspecting anything. Surely enough, there was at text message. From Lila. Well, that could be for either of us. I pressed the text to open it up, checking over my shoulder that Scott was still asleep. Of course, he was sound, slightly snoring with one arm folded out where I was laying a minute ago, the other hand beneath his hand. He was definitely asleep. Good. I turned around to read a text from Lila.

Oi kid. You awake yet? Eves keeps having nightmares. I smirked. This was definitely directed at me – I was younger than her (not by much but still enough for her to have claimed the privilege of calling me kid) whereas Scott was older than her by quite a bit. And I was glad to know that I wasn't the only ones with the nightmares. And I was glad to know Eves was keeping up one of my best mates. I replied, not really thinking about my answer that much:

I regret to inform you that Tanusha 'kid' Kyrano had died from the boredom of laying down on an uncomfortable bed that may as well be a coffin and biting loads of shitty chemicals.

Ah, glad to see that you can still text me if you die. I got a reply a few minutes later.

And I'm glad to see you haven't changed in the time it took me to get shot with a lump of metal that was probably at terminal velocity and to get it mostly healed up.

'Course I didn't! I've got a pain up the arse husband who won't budge and a kid throwing up on my lap. What makes you think I could have had the chance to change?

Dunno. So why the bloody hell did you text me at stupid O' clock in the morning?

Fancy doing some covert ops? Ooh, tempting. But I was grounded, wasn't I?

Sounds nice, but I can't, can I? Make sure to send me a postcard :(

Actually… You just have to be with somebody with a 2055 New Money Grade 5 in Medicine and First Aid, and might I introduce to you a lovely midget that is Grade 7!

Oh you have a twin? Can I meet him/her? Or are you on about your daughter?

Ha ha you little bitch. No, I gotta Grade 7 as of a week ago. So get your ass in here before I go alone. I half-crawled down to the edge of the bed, before swinging my legs up and taking a moment to get used to standing up. It wasn't too bad to for me as it might be for anybody else – since I worked out every day because I had nothing else to do, and the painkillers I was on, it meant that (and here's proof I occasionally listen to people) the muscles around the area could actually support my weight so I could walk around and jog around and potentially run around and only mistake it for a slight cramp in my side. As I quickly slid off my vest top and pulled a shirt on, I sent back a reply,

Okay, coming over now. Where we meeting?

Lily Hill Woods?

Sure. But where the heck am I meant to park Shadow?

Oh yeah. Okay, new plan – park at GDF base and I'll get the Jeep out and pick you up, ok?

Sure. See you in a bit. I buttoned up my jeans, before silently ripping off a post it note and grabbing a pen. I left Scott a note, saying I'd gone over to Lila because she seemed really upset – I'd just get her to cover that for me later – before folding it in four and slipping it into Scott's outstretched hand. Just in case he woke up into the time it took for me to go check out this thing which I had no idea on. I slipped on my boots before opening the door, making one quick glance back to make sure Scott was still asleep before heading down to suit up.

/~~/~~/~~/~~/~~/~~/~~/~~/~~/~~/~~/~~/

During the flight to the GDF base, I was half-expecting an angry John or Scott to yell at me. But there wasn't. Thankfully. And now I was sitting here, in Thunderbird S, feeling more free then I had for years now I had escaped the impending secret of The Hood as well as the medical air at Tracy Island and constant cuddles (yeah, I've officially getting fed up of cuddles 24/7), playing the snake game for the zillionth time after changing back into my shirt and jeans, for some reason the game was called even though that wasn't its name, sitting at second on the leadership board with my black-and-white polka dot snake and munching on the little noob snakes whilst waiting for Lila. She'd gotten stuck because they were doing border patrols around London due to terrorist attacks being high recently. Well, not terrorists necessarily. But murders were, and it was suspected terrorists. There had been a murder recently in Ecuador, but it was suspected to be a statement murder since the person was left with a threat. So security was freaking out. And even Lila, a Colonel herself, had to be delayed. But she should almost be here now. I had gotten bored of chasing around the little maggots on the game, and decided to curl myself up into a ball, wait for somebody to try and attack me, and then kill them. Which wasn't working, but it's not like I gave many shits. And after at least ten minutes where I dropped on the leader board from second to fourth, I finally heard a car engine behind me. Lila, no doubt. I decided to give my points to a small maggot, give them a piece of luck, so I crashed into the first small snake I found before shutting down anything Thunderbird S could be identified under, and alarms just in case somebody did try and break into my ship, as well as putting it on summoning demand – the usual shit. I got out of the ship, locked the cockpit up, and then made my way over to Lila.

"Open up," I knocked on the passenger-side window of the Jeep, waiting for Lila to finish swapping the disc in her radio.

"Ever heard of please?" Lila joked, putting the CD case away and kicking the door open at the same time.

"Yes I have," I said, sitting down and closing the door, "I just choose not to use it."

"Seatbelt, kid," Lila hissed sliding the car into a start, driving towards the exit and onto the streets. "So how did you get shot, you eegit?"

I debated this for a few seconds. When I was sitting awake I read the report on what the GDF said happened. It said I was let on sight without permission and got caught in a gun fight-off between them and some other guys, and I simply got caught in it. And then, as a result, Penny and I couldn't operate. Oh, I'd forgotten to apologize to her. But if that actually happened, why the hell could I remember differently? Was it just my brain trying to tie up loose ends again? Or did something else happen? Lila seemed to have noticed me debating, "No, I didn't say wreck your brains, I just asked if you knew or not," Lila sighed, going down onto a deserted path, "I just wanted to see if you could clear up the report. It doesn't sound right. They said a gun shoot off, but the only ammunition used was rifle bullets and all of the bullets had codes that belonged to the GDF. And they said guns only. There was a hundred broken leg restraints there as well as gas canisters."

"Really?" I whispered, flicking through the songs on the disc – something I wouldn't normally do without asking but somehow felt natural with Lila. Lila and I were kind of the same in the form of tough backgrounds – I had The Hood being a cunt to me and my family, and Lila had it tough in the form of a car crash killing her parents and 6 siblings. Only her and her older brother lived, with her brother receiving only a few bones cracked, and Lila with everything bad that you could imagine might've happened. Punctured lung, cardiac arrest, internal bleeding, cracked ribs, you name it. She was in a coma for two whole months (and an extra three days, one of the random facts I remembered), and within that time she somehow managed to heal herself up naturally if you excluded the operations. And that, of course, made her life hell. But she was still breathing and still living somehow, like me. And I think the thing that made us get along so naturally was we knew about each other and our difficulties before we met, so we knew there would be no awkwardness like there was when I was trying to tell the boys about The Hood. And other things that helped was that we both have the same dark sense of humour, the type of humour that means we excel at things like Cards Against Humanity (if you don't know the game, well, the title explains it perfectly). And it helped we were both stubborn shits and didn't listen. So all of this, mixed up with a few missions and thousands of threads of texts, helped for us to feel so natural around each other. I finally chose to listen to See You Again, the earliest – and least popular – version by Charlie Puth and Wiz What's-his-name.

"Yeah," Lila continued, "It seems as dodgy as shit itself. So we're checking out the warehouse linked to it, then the actual warehouse again, to see if we can get any leads. Also, I said we'd pick up Lady P on the way there, and I've decided as of now we're picking up some takeaway chips – or fries, whatever you prefer to call 'em – and some drinks for the journey."

"Any reason for takeaway chips?"

"Oh. You do it the British way. And have you not tasted those beauties?" Lila sighed, "Good grief, you need to get your head out of the security systems and into the world, Kayo."

"And what would I do in 'the world' except punching people and making security systems, exactly?" I rolled my eyes, staring out the window to the street we were driving down with cottages dotted randomly down it.

"Well, for a start, you'd be a brill federal agent." Lila paused, "Speaking of which, before Penny gets in the car… how are things with the boys?"

"Fine," I looked at her, "Why?"

"'Cause there's five of them. I bet you one of them has over reacted about it."

"Lila!" I hissed. Why the hell would she insist that?

"What? They must've for you to shout at me like that!" Lila pulled up at a bus stop, stopped the Jeep then swivelled around to face me. "Now what've they said?"

"They've done nothing." I whispered, looking around hoping Penny would turn up and save me from this conversation.

"Tell me."

"There's nothing to tell that I haven't already told you, Li!"

"Tell me. Tell me or I'm telling Colonel Casey something's up."

"Lila, don't," I whispered, leaning my head against the window, still hoping Penny would come and save my butt. Well, I assume Lila was meant to meet her here. If not I was doomed. "Lila, I don't need this right now. They've been brilliant. Better than I thought they would be, okay? So what the hell do I have to do to make you leave them alone?" I realised afterwards that that could sound a little harsh, but thankfully Lila didn't take it that way.

"Okay, okay. I won't tell Casey. But, seriously, have they been different in any way?" She paused after I gave her a dirty look before continuing, "This isn't official crap, I'm just curious."

"If a word of this gets through to Casey I'm officially able to beat you up until you can't breathe anymore," I sighed, "Well, they've been quieter recently. Alan's virtually stopped talking to me. And Penny's stopped making so many jokes. Bu, then again, it's only been a few days and I was only really awake for the first day, and they were still adjusting to it then, weren't they?"

"Just give 'em time." Lila said, straightening up suddenly and nodding to a girl walking down the street. And surely enough, it was Penny in a slim designer black hoodie, designer jeans and most of her hair shoved up in a beanie except for her fringe that was still waving around. She was probably dressed in the most informal thing she had, which was flipping designer clothing that has enough money in its value to feed Asia. And then there's me, who can't be bothered to get into anything that isn't my scruffy jeans and t-shirts. The two very opposite members of IR, who still get along somehow.

"I say we get her to wear this to her next public thingy." Lila hissed as I slid down and under the dashboard, giving her a wink. It'd been a while since I had an opportunity to prank someone. After about thirty seconds, Lila did like she did for me, kicking the door open for Penny.

"Hey," She said casually, like she had greeted me a few minutes ago. I had to retreat even further back as Penny came in.

"Good evening," Penny got in to the car with her usual grace which I – not surprisingly – lacked. She looked over her shoulder to the back of the Jeep as she put her seatbelt on. "Where's Kayo? I thought you said you had her with you."

"I threw her out the Jeep." Lila said, pausing after seeing the death glare I was giving her, and one from Penny as well probably, "Joking, joking," She sighed, and I wasn't sure which one of us she was addressing. "Scott caught her out when she was trying to sneak out to Thunderbird S. She's getting yelled at now.

"Good!" Penny hissed, and I had to seriously constrain myself against punching her, "She's on bedrest. Coming out on missions isn't going to be good for her. Maybe it'd be easier for them to just break her legs. It'd stop her constantly being a pain up the arse."

"I'll break your legs in a minute," I suddenly snapped, making Penny jump about five foot in the air and Lila almost fall off her seat laughing. "And now you know I'm here," I said as soon as Penny stopped panting. "Can you please let me out?"

"Fine. You're getting in the back though," Penny sighed. "Kayo, you can be a bitch sometimes, you know that?"

"Sometimes is an understatement," Lila smirked as I clambered over to the back seats of the Jeep, giving her a complimentary kick as I went.

"Anyway, how the heck did you get out without Parker dropping you off?" I asked as I clicked my seatbelt in and Lila drove off at quite a speed, which was allowed as this was a no speed-limit street.

"Oh, Parker… Um, yeah…" Penny muttered, digging around in her handbag, "He's just… Ugh."

"Would you like to elaborate on the illiterate noises you're making?" Lila asked, turning down to go on the motorway, one that wasn't being blocked off by security.

"He's just not giving me a moment to myself. Like, every single second he's floating behind me like a lost lamb. He keeps saying that I need someone to protect me. Well, not saying that to my face, but I keep hearing him saying that to others. And, like, when I went to bed, he literally did about fifty spot-checks when I was trying to fall asleep. I think the whole shooting thing scared him," Penny muttered staring out the window.

"So how'd you end up ditching the dodo?" Lila asked, moving into another lane after overtaking a BMW double the size of her – typical Lila move.

"Well, for a start stop quoting The Lion King – yeah, I noticed that one, and you can't blame little Evangeline for that one - and he didn't exactly know I left," Penny sighed, "After he was asleep, I just got changed, left a note on my bed, waited for Bertie to – no Lila, don't gimme that look, the pug – to fall asleep, then I just… Snuck out." She slumped down in the chair, "I feel bad for just leaving a note, though. I wasn't informative in the slightest."

"Don't be," I said, "I did the same."

"Lemme get this straight," Lila glared at me using the mirror above her and Penny, "You managed to launch a bloody aircraft and still not get caught whilst gearing up or launching, and didn't get caught on the trip here?" I nodded, and Lila shook her head, "Guuuurllllll,"

"How long do you need to say that word for?" Penny sighed, probably still worried about the Parker situation, "And I thought I was doing well with sneaking out!" Penny sighed, flicking around on the radio.

"Pen, you are doing well. You've learnt how to sneak out without anybody noticing. That's good stuff!"

"Default answer from the back – encouraging the act of disobeying orders." Lila smirked as she went into the right lane of the motorway.

"Nah, but seriously, good job. How's about I teach you how to diss somebody and get away with it next?"

"You do that, Kayo, you get out now," Lila sighed.

"What's wrong with it? I'm just teaching her to be independent."

"You're turning her into a stubborn shit. Scott's not going to be happy with you."

"When is he ever happy with me?" I stared out the window to the rolling fields and the endless amount of hills that Britain somehow seemed to have. "Anyway, dissing. What do ya wanna know about it?"

"Getting somebody to stop being overprotective bastards," Penny gave me one sharp glance then looked back out the window.

"Strong word for you, Pen." I said, getting another sharp glance, "No, no, that's a good thing. You're not sensitive to use... harsher words, let's say. Okay, so let me be Parker, tell me what you'd do right now, okay?" I sat up a bit straighter, then put on my fakest British accent, "Why hello, m'lady, I hate to inform you but you are not sensible to go out or whatever shit I said earlier,"

"Well, first you sound like an Australian trying to do a British accent, and you're making him sound like a twat when he isn't, he's just doing what my father asked him to do," Penny turned around to look at me with a slight grin which soon diminished, "But, I just walk away. Show him that he's being irrational."

"Aaaaaaaaaand that's your mistake," I muttered, before speaking up a bit, "Pen, never walk away. You want him to stop? You show him that he's not getting to you."

"And what good is that going to do?"

"If you show him it's not getting into you, he'll stop. There's no point in doing something if there's no gain in doing it, is there? If you stand up and actually fight, he might stop."

"Might, Kayo, might. And what if he does? Then what do I do?"

"One step at a time, Pen. But just try that to begin with, okay? At least you had a decent Dad who cared about you," I sighed. Yeah, my Dad ditched me – one of the few things that IR knows about my past – and he ditched me just before he died of terminal cancer, the bit of it IR didn't know. Maybe I should feel bad about his death, but I don't, because he had a massive rant at me, saying it was entirely my fault my mother went missing (they didn't know she was dead then, they assumed she was missing). Saying to was because I was a stupid brat who couldn't read emotions, which now I find ironic since I studied so many muscles in the face that I can identify when they're lying by a few twitches of the muscles. I still didn't know how to react about my Dad, but he was like a brother to the boys. So I just said he left me with good intentions. The only one who knew the entire truth was Jeff. Grandma knew the bit about him ditching me with the Hood, though, and she told the boys that, which turned into Parker, Penny and Brains knowing. So they knew the ditching me part. They didn't know the death bit. Jeff said it'd be better if they didn't know. I don't see how, but he's never been wrong about anything, so I didn't and still haven't told them. I knelt down and picked up a white cardboard box down behind Lila's chair, "Lila, why the Hell do you have Cards Against Humanity? What happens if Eves or Chris reads it?"

"Chillax, it only wen in after I finished my shift. It was on discount – only a fiver when it's usually fifteen quid. Wanna play?"

"What kind of a stupid question is that?" Penny asked.

"'Course we do," I opened the box, sorting out the white cards.

/~~/~~/~~/~~/~~/~~/~~/~~/~~/~~/~~/~~/

Two hours of tucking into a massive box of KFC chips and our own drinks, narrowly dodging red lights, driving at the speed limit and four games of Cards Against Humanity (with me holding Lila's cards and whispering it to her so she could choose) brought us to a mostly rotted-down warehouse, surrounded by large iron fences and an ornate iron gate, located in the pits of nowhere. We were quite confident that we were the only form of civilisation that had been there in quite a while. There was still a notice on the gate saying that is was condemned May 2054, and clearly nobody had come back to it. It was odd that nobody did – most people ignore it when their building is condemned and go straight back to it, ignoring the fact that they would more commonly get arrested then get away with it. This was definitely a rare occasion of it being totally ditched, though – the padlock remained on the door, untouched, and the warehouse which was once used to sell plants was now matted thoroughly with weeds and ivy, the window panes covered thickly with algae from the inside with half the panes missing or smashed. It both looked eerie and interesting, but maybe the last bit was just me being me.

"Is this the warehouse Kayo was in?" Penny asked, looking through the iron bars.

"Nope, but it's closely connected. Her one's just over there," Lila nodded across the field to where, in the distance, I could just make out another warehouse, similar to this but with a brick wall instead – I think it was brick anyway. I mean, yeah, I have higher-than-average eyesight, but even I couldn't make it out.

"How about me and Kayo go check out the one where she got shot and you do your stuff here?" Penny suggested. I liked that idea – I wanted to see how much of the warehouse my brain presented correctly in my nightmare / night terror / pain-up-the-bum dream. I mean, if it was all accurate I'm treating myself to doing pranks on all of my brothers. But the chances of that are the chances of me getting so annoyed at Sherbet the pug that I knock him out cold (oh, come on – who can get that annoyed at a pug puppy?).

"Sure. I'll come join you after I get the scans, okay? And Kayo, no getting shot this time," Lila said, as I gave her the middle finger before jogging over to the direction of the warehouse. By the time Penny had caught up with me, I had already gotten to the warehouse, and I was sitting on top of the brick – told you it was brick – fence.

"Was there a reason as to why you sprinted here?" Penny practically wheezed. Penny wasn't so used to long-distance running, whereas I was usually jogging around the hangars or training the boys up in fitness and self-defence when I wasn't doing the security system. Naturally, it made me good at constantly jogging. Not to mention my missions. They helped a lot. I just shrugged, before leaning down and grabbing Penny's hand and helping her up. It turned out my brain was quite accurate – there wasn't any GDF flyers or soldiers now, but there was the crates I remembered, and the warehouse looked identical. I was almost thinking it was some sort of déjà vu. But, of course, it wasn't. It was reality – a warehouse among about five in a desolate, unfertilised field. Oh, yes, there was something else that was different.

There was a mostly dried-up patch of blood, just outside the warehouse door.

And I wasn't sure if it was the faint feeling of déjà vu, or the sudden sight of blood, but suddenly I just felt like throwing up. Well, that's new.

"You okay?" Penny asked me. I didn't even bother to look at her – she has this thing about her where she can work out if something's wrong no matter what. As soon as you look at her you've doomed yourself to have a deep, meaningful conversation with her when she's in mother goose mood. I wasn't risking it. I just hopped down off the wall, and made my way to the warehouse.

The warehouse was also just as I remembered it, except there was more bullets across the floor. I was still trying to work out which one was true – the GDF's theory on a gun shoot-off, or the one I had seen in my night terror thing. I mean, so far it was leaning both ways because in both it involved bullets. Now I just gotta find more evidence, see what's actually been happening. I padded around the warehouse, looking around for anything that proved useful. And Penny was currently doing something that was probably one of my pet peeves – floating around on my tail like a lost lamb. Yeah, it gets annoying very quickly. I had to restrain myself from asking her to stop, because, on every mission she did, she had Parker, didn't she? I don't blame her for feeling a little lost without somebody out. Albeit, she did kind of ask for privacy by sneaking out.

I finally found something that caught my eye – a half-splintered laptop. Which, as well as backing up my theory, might prove a piece of evidence. If the memory chip wasn't damaged, that was. I slowly lifted it out of the crate it was dumped into, studying it carefully with a Lady Penelope literally dangling over my shoulder. The screen was shattered and oozing some sort of liquid which I was careful not to touch, and little shards from where the letter keys were corrupted fell out of the massive gap. But, as shown on top of the laptop, it was the newest Acer laptop that was a non-hologram laptop. And these laptops had their memory chip on the top left of the laptop. Which proved easy – I just had to open a little tray, and bam, I was holding it in the palm of my hand.

"Pen, can I borrow your comms device please?" I asked, looking up at a slightly worried Penelope. She just nodded, digging through her pockets and giving me her hand mirror thingy which doubled as her comms. I slipped open the bottom of its shell, took out the memory card (which was pink – no surprise) and inserted the one from the laptop. If I did this right, it would show the details it had on it. And if my theory on this was right, it would show the details of Thunderbird 4. Well, here goes nothing, I guess. I turned it over, and flicked the top open. There was a quick download, under the title 'Processing new data', and after a few seconds, a series of text showed up:

~Type: Submersible

~Name: Thunderbird Four

~Accustomed pilot: Gordon Cooper Tracy

~Weight: N/A

~Defence: 4mm of unknown material (suspected to be steel) covering 15mm of high density alloy of iron, copper, aluminium and polyethylene.

~Equipment: Dry tubes designed for evacuations of people and supplies; scanning array; diving jet; missiles – potential threat; medical supplies.

Underneath the text, there was an image of Thunderbird 4, no doubt taken by the GDF. It showed Thunderbird 4 half-beached, with somebody being put behind a temporary prison cell within a GDF van and an extremely stressed Gordon talking to some sort of Bond villain.

"How does this make any sense?" Penny whispered, making me jump slightly. I forgot she was literally so close to being on my shoulder that she would be mistaken for a parrot for a pirate. "This isn't Thunderbird 4, is it?"

"It's definitely Thunderbird 4, and it makes perfect sense." I whispered, taking the memory chip from the laptop out and putting Penny's one back in, "The question is, why didn't they take this chip? Why did they get this information which they apparently wanted and then just leave it here?"

"Wait, how does it make perfect sense?" Penny took back her comms, trying to make eye contact which I was refusing. "Do you remember what happened when you were shot?"

"Partially," I said simply. If my theory was right, I remembered it crystal clear. If it wasn't, I didn't remember one thing in the slightest. I slipped the memory chip into my pocket, then began to look around to see if I could find anything else. One little chip wasn't going to help me find out anything. Wouldn't help me prove my version was right. But maybe checking to see if there was any form of recording, maybe CCTV or a voice recording, of that happened that day, now that would be extremely useful. Even if we couldn't identify the people on said recording, it'd put my mind to rest at the least. But it's where I could find the system – if any – was the problem. And I wasn't with any decent gear – I left my suit in my ship and Brains took out anything useful in this situation. Probably under Scott's orders. Well, he does appear to think of everything. Just like his father. All of them were like Jeff. It's why IR worked so well. But it's also why I keep getting caught out on things like that. Annoying, right?

There was another fifteen minutes of us looking around, with Lila joining us after ten minutes, until we found our next lead. The reason it was so hard to find the evidence was because it was hidden in one – dare I say it – convenient stash under a loose floorboard, which we were all sorting through with leather gloves on. It seemed almost too easy to find it. What was up with that?

"Hey, check this out!" Lila lifted up a silver headset, half-fried but looked like it would be used in Virtual Reality. She placed it to one side, before picking up a gun. The gun was half-melted, the left side left with gaping holes from where the metal had melted and dripped off, and the magazine (the part where the bullets are generally kept) was so burnt it literally disintegrated as soon as Lila touched it. I was a little bit more intrigued in what I was holding. It was almost like a locket, with a long rope instead of a chain like most necklaces had nowadays, with an oval shape locket with a code on the back. The locket itself was designed beautifully – it had little gem-like stones beading it like a mosaic, and it almost looked like a sunset image over a sea, with the picture at a diagonal slant. The bottom half was made of beautiful black and navy and dark purple gems, and it almost looked the image was designed as if you were standing over a balcony, so you could just see the fencing, and through the fencing you could see what almost looked like a carpark. On the top three-quarters of this locket, there was a variation of deep, deep reds, dark purples and a cerulean blue, which represented – well, I'm guessing it represented – the sea, and then above it lighter shades of red, orange and a few patches of amber for the sky, and then, in golden gemstones, a sun setting over the blood-red sea. It was utterly beautiful, and the few beams of light that escaped through the iron sheets that the walls were made of illuminated certain aspects of the locket. It was beautiful. And I didn't trust it one inch. Why a seascape? Why not something like a skull?

"What'cha got there?" Lila nodded at the locket. I shrugged, dangling the locket by the roped chain so Lila could see. She squinted for it at a few seconds, probably debating the same as me, then looked up at me, "Anything in it?"

I clicked the little button it had on the side, then slid a thumbnail between the seams of the locket and lifted it up. Surely enough, as Lila said, there was something in it – a piece of paper, yellowed from age that was folded up into a small piece of paper the size of your nail on your pinky finger. I tipped it out on the palm of my leather glove, then slowly began to unfold it, careful not to tear it. After at least a minute of me unfolding the piece of paper, with both Lila and Penny watching me, I had it fully unfolded and in the palms of my hands. On it, written in fairly bad handwriting, was a series of numbers. Rather odd numbers, too; 204863, 598743. Huh. Why would somebody need to remember this? PIN number, maybe? No, too long. PINs were only four digits. Or maybe the last two numbers on the first set and the first two made another PIN number, so there was three? No, too complicated. Maybe the code to access something that wasn't a card? Coordinates? They looked like coordinates at the best extent.

"Lila, can I borrow your Satnav please?" I asked. Her Satnav also proved to be a GPS, radio and a fuck tonne of other things. The crap the GDF supplies these days.

"Why exactly?"

"Just, can I borrow it?"

"I guess," Lila shrugged, throwing me the keys. Keys – things I was never trusted with. Unfortunately for me. I sprinted down to the warehouse, closely followed by Lila and Penelope. I shoved the key into the lock on the Jeep, unlocked the door, then climbed in the driver's side and turned the engine on. The multi-purpose GPS/Satnav glowed immediately as I turned the car on, to my fortune. I click the button for entering coordinates, then entered the coordinates. And although they were scarce coordinates, they showed an area of land which was inherited by an old nuclear factory. It had a code, too: A53337965. Huh, that seemed familiar. I stared at the back of the locket, and the production code was the exact code of the locket. Tis couldn't be a coincidence. Somebody left this. And I wanted to find out why. I shifted myself across to the passenger side, nodding at Lila to sit down. And Lila was well educated, and not stupid. She knew what I wanted to do, and she seemed to agree. She lifted her seat forward, nodding for Penny to get behind her, then sat down and drove to the area.

We were going to wrap this up. And hopefully before the boys suspect anything.

/**/**/**/**/**/**/**/**/**/**/**/**/

Hello guys. Sorry about the almost week gap, long story short something happened to my aunt so I had to travel down to Cornwall to help her. Unfortunately, she doesn't have Wi-Fi, so that's a bummer meaning I can't upload from her place. Even bigger bummer is that I forgot to bring the memory stick with the next five chapters on. Yeah, not going so good recently :I . So I'm re-writing the chapters, and I've decided instead of doing this as a 20,000 odd word chapter, I'm going to separate it into two chapters through Kayo's (as done here) and Penelope's perspective, to make it a bit more interesting. Now, really observant people will notice that, hey, I've uploaded this without Wi-Fi, how did I do this? Simple answer – I found a lovely little pub/café overlooking the sea, and one day somebody who was probably drunk left the Wi-Fi password written with lipstick on the bathroom mirror, and hey, it works! So as and when I re-write the chapters (or rather, when I can write the chapters between my aunt's usual jobs and/or get to the café, a bit of both) I will post them. Hope you enjoyed, and please tell me if you wish to see anything come up! :D