Sorry to be late, and thanks very much for the reviews. Will edit after Mass, tomorrow. Happy Easter! =)

25: Dead Reckoning

Altaplano, Brazil; amid heat, tumult and chaos-

The trouble was, Virgil simply hadn't the strength to keep running. Five days in a drugged coma… nearly a week without solid food… had left him terribly frail and unsteady. Fairly soon after leaving his prison, even small kids and burdened old ladies were passing him up.

Tired, the pilot had to pause quite often for rest, hands on his knees, crouched over and gasping for air. It was during the last of these weak spells that Virgil saw the yellow-eyed man, gliding toward him like a tiger shark, right through the crowd of surging refugees. Yellow eyes, dark hair… just like the guard in his cell.

Another explosion shook the ground beneath his bare feet; this one near enough to pepper the dirt road and surrounding tin roofs with bits of flaming debris.

Around him, people cried out and ran faster, but Virgil hardly noticed. Those eyes struck through him like talons, causing his gut to clench and a thin line of ice to slide down his spine. There was something very dangerous and deadly about those eyes, which held an assassin's manic, murderous intent. The man was armed, too, judging by the bulge in his tan-colored jacket.

Tearing his gaze away from the stalking assassin, Virgil lunged for shelter in a nearby dark alley. His first instinct was to look for a non-lethal weapon, but the shadows and puddles around him yielded nothing but shipping pallets and a rotten, nail-studded board. Virgil scooped it up anyhow. Then he ducked behind the creaking, haphazard pallet stack.

That the gunman was coming for him, Virgil had no doubt at all. But that burning smell… the noisy explosions and chemical smoke… were now terribly close. There wasn't much time to fight his assailant or run away from him. Not with danger approaching and so many innocent people out in the streets. Of course, he still had that captured pistol, but… Suppose the guy started shooting, and Virgil shot back? Any bullet that failed to strike its target was sure to hit somebody else. A kid, say.

Maybe you've had one of those near-final moments, when everything looked and felt realer, more meaningful, somehow. Virgil Tracy had one, himself, just then. He felt a hot wind stirring his hair and red jersey. Felt oily mud squelching beneath his feet, and the half-rotted wood of a makeshift club creasing the skin of his tightly clenched hand. Rust streaks trailed from exposed nail-heads on the building beside him. Somewhere in the distance a dog howled, and then the alley's sun-splinter entrance was blocked by a stooped silhouette.

Every hair on the back of Virgil's neck and arms stood up. Almost, he stopped breathing, hoping that the shadowy figure would simply pass on. It did not. Instead, the yellow-eyed gunman entered the alley, just as a fresh wave of pressure drove at Virgil's unguarded mind. Pain like a dagger slashed through his thoughts, seeking to crush him unconscious. He had five or ten seconds at the most, Virgil figured, and no time for anything fancy.

Dropping the club, he shouted aloud and then thrust his broad shoulder at the rickety pallets in front of him. They wobbled and swayed toward the other man. Then the entire stack collapsed in a clattering tumble, driving the fight (and the Hood) right out of the guy. He never even fired his gun. Better, that claw-like, awful pressure ceased the moment his opponent fell, leaving Virgil numb and confused, but still conscious.

Heart hammering, the pilot lurched over and started hurling away pallets, creating quite a storm of noise and splinters in the process. He was ready for anything, but the gunman (like his fallen jailer) had gone completely senseless; loose as an emptied old sack. Concerned, Virgil felt for a pulse, and then peeled the man's lids back for a look at his now rolled-back eyes. Nothing. Nobody home.

"Another one," the pilot whispered, shivering in the wake of retreating adrenaline. "Well, Buddy… I hope you're lighter than you look, because we've got to get moving."

Already, Virgil could detect the steady crackle and roar of advancing flame.

"Don't suppose you'd have a cell phone handy, by any chance?" he inquired, squatting down in the mud to search the man's pockets. Then, "Bingo. Now, tell me that it's fully charged, with a strong signal, and we're friends for life. I'll name my kids after you. All seventeen of them."

It was just a slim grey flip-phone. The kind you buy with pre-paid minutes and no contract at all, but it looked like a storehouse of rubies to Virgil Tracy. Funnily enough, he'd hardly begun pressing buttons when the phone all at once started to buzz and vibrate in his grasp.

"Umm…" he hesitated, wondering what to do next.

Tracy Island-

Gordon had time for little more than a hasty kiss from TinTin and his mum (who handed him a much-needed sandwich). Then he struggled into uniform and raced to join Brains in Thunderbird 2. He ought to have been exhausted, but a sudden wave of energy hit him as the red-haired young athlete swung himself into the copilot's seat.

Glancing across the cockpit, uniform awry and mouth full of roast-beef sandwich, Gordon said,

"What's the hold-up, Brains? Can't find the start button?"

The engineer frowned slightly and shook his head. In a reproving tone, he said,

"I am, ah… am w-well versed in start up and, ah… and basic flight techniques, G- Gordon. And your, ah… your levity is m- misplaced."

"Sorry," Gordon shrugged, finishing the last of his sandwich in two barracuda-like gulps. "Must've left it in the pocket of my other pants."

Hackenbacker rolled his blue eyes and then turned to face the beeping and flashing instrument panel. Tracking the older man's stare, Gordon sobered right up.

"What's happened to our guidance system?" he asked, leaning over to fiddle a bit with Thunderbird 2's glitching compass. The North Pole was now in Kenya? Really?

"M- More to the, ah… the point, wh- what's happened to the entire Global Positioning network?" Brains mumbled unhappily, looking like a man who'd been beaten and lied to.

Under the circumstances, Hackenbacker might have had a hard time finding Brazil. Fortunately, Jeff and John Tracy were less confused, having navigated the hard way, before.

"There're no compass directions in space," explained the former astronaut, speaking over the comm, "just right ascension, declination and dead reckoning. Simple enough, once you get used to it."

Riiiight…

"Use you charts," John clarified. "Pick a landmark or star and keep it in your octant bubble for the calculated amount of time, then switch to another that matches whatever course corrections you need to make. In this case, since you want to head east, I'd launch, pour it on, and keep the sun dead ahead until you've got the west coast of South America in sight. Then you'll want to slant northward about 34 degrees, using a list of landmarks I'll have ready in about… um, thirty seconds."

They could hear the noise of a keyboard, and Scott talking to someone over another channel, beyond John's rather monotone voice. Said the astronaut,

"Whatever you do, ignore your instruments. Not sure what the h-ll's going on, but even the physical compasses have gone nuts."

Brains went pale. Quite mechanically, he triggered Thunderbird 2's launch sequence. Then, in a very low voice, he said,

"J- John… Mr. Tracy… Could one of you check, ah… check t- to see what our tropospheric radiation levels are like, at the, ah… the moment? I've g- got a hunch that they've, ah… they've risen somewhat."

Out in thunderbird 3, meanwhile, Alan Tracy had been surfing network and internet channels. Now, with his sky-blue eyes wide and wondering, he said,

"Hey, guys…? Guys? Listen a minute, will you? There's all these WNN reports of auroras and junk over Africa. Like, northern-lights-type auroras. And according to Science Watch, the compass readings aren't just off; they keep shifting."

"Radiation levels have spiked, all right," cut in John, speaking to Brains and his father. "Think it's a pole switch?"

"Th- That would be the likeliest scenario," Hackenbacker confirmed, as Thunderbird 2's hangar doors began rumbling apart. "This, ah… this rather changes things, gentlemen. W- We'll be feeling our way along the, ah… the coast like the ancient Greeks and Phoenicians."

"Just be careful," Jeff instructed, while Thunderbirds 2, 1 and 3 blasted away on their separate missions. "Watch your fuel, and keep a star or a landmark always in sight. John, work up something that'll match each Bird's position against a reliable chart, and alert your brothers if they start to veer off course. Understood?"

"Yes, Sir," the astronaut responded. Then he paused, when his bot returned word on the location of that mysterious phone message. The last cell-tower ping put the phone in Brazil, in or around the town of Altaplano. Ground zero for the haywire microwave beam, naturally.

"Dad," John said urgently, hitting the comm again. "I may have found something."

Midworld-

They mounted up thusly: wee Laney was perched on the saddle before Gawain, young Kel behind Drehn, clinging to the elf's narrow waist, and Britte (determined to be brave) behind stout, cheery Frodle. Glud, of course, did not ride, while Allat could take any form that he chose, including that of a horse or a bird.

Warmly dressed now, the children were pale and quiet; aware of the danger ahead. Perhaps made more so when Drehn flexed his left wrist, causing a serpentine tattoo that he bore to slither and move. Britte stared, mouth wide open, as a coppery wyvern leapt from the elf's arm, clattering and flapping into the blustery air.

"Guard," Drehn ordered the quarrelsome beast, pointing at Laney, Kel and then Britte.

The small dragon arched its gleaming neck and made a noise like a kettle about to boil over. Most of the others took its presence in stride. Not Blanchard. Sir Gawain's nervous white horse reared up to paw at the air, but he got the animal under control again. To her credit, Laney didn't so much as whimper, though she'd been hurled back against diamond-hard chain mail.

"Elf," said the knight, once his horse had quieted, "whatever else may chance, we've yet t' rescue Glud's brother. Lead th' way, if you please, makin' th' best speed you can manage; we'll follow along."

The elf nodded once, shimmering faintly in a strange pale light of his own. Bow in hand, he said,

"I'll try to remain watchful, but that's hard to do properly whilst tracking iron and mortals. If anything slips past me…"

"It won't get past me!" Allat chortled, zipping around in the shape of a feathered serpent (which might have been impressive had he topped more than five feet in length). Changing color as he went, Allat swooped once or twice around the hissing, snapping wyvern, and then rose like fog to the uttermost branches. "I'll be just overhead, where no one can see me," he boasted proudly.

When all was ready, Frodle summoned a bridge of glittering motes, and they spurred their mounts across the windy dark gorge. Glud loped alongside, axe and spear in hand, face like a carved, scowling rock. He hated such flimsy mage-spans, and would not look down.

Drehn set a hard pace, because a weird change had come over the forest, and nothing felt quite familiar. Gawain, especially, was lost; unable to locate a source of magickal power. Nor did the trees around them respond naturally. Rather than bending out of the way or pointing out hazards, the bare elms and oaks seemed utterly lifeless.

Gawain loosened his sword in its scabbard and then pulled his shield around from where it had hung at his back. Carried just so, it sheltered the small lass riding wide-eyed before him, thumb tucked in her mouth for comfort.

"There," he said warmly, just before the attack, "you've a house of y'r own, now. Safe as chapel."