Phew! Long one, but pretty much wrapping things up, I think. Thanks, everyone. This story's been a lot of fun for me, and hopefully okay to read.
25: Epilogue
In transit from Kanaho-
Impelled by hope and longing, Scott Tracy raced across the Pacific to the Ft. Carson/ Cheyenne Mountain disaster site, where rumor had it that many thousands of missing people had suddenly reappeared. There was no cell service to the area, because nearly all of the surrounding towers had been melted to slag, and because every one of those newly-minted survivors was trying to call home. Meanwhile, John and Virgil weren't answering their comm or cell phones, and Scott was too nervous to try clicking on Cindy's icon (which he'd never removed from his iPhone).
Scott wasn't at all sure that he'd find an airstrip in any condition for landing, but he flew himself out there, anyhow. He wasn't the sort of man who could sit around waiting for news, and neither was his father, Jeff (already headed home from New York). In fact, the first really useful thing that Scott heard came from his dad, in the form of a text message and internet link.
"Take a look", was all it said. But when Scott (flying with one hand and plenty of cradle-bred instinct) clicked on the hyperlink, he got thirty seconds of a WNN news feed. Thirty seconds of smudged, stubborn, somehow-alive woman, reporting from the brink of hell.
Scott throttled all the way forward then, burning fuel as though he never intended to come back. From time to time, he'd hit that link again, getting another thirty seconds of Cindy's squint-eyed, coughing, wind-whipped report. Then WNN switched to live coverage from the rapidly leaking Moon Station, and there was nothing left but the need to hurry, piling everything his jet had on the altar of speed while he cast a torch with both hands.
A few hours later, Scott did find an airstrip, gliding down past the shattered mountains on nothing but fumes and prayer. He then taxied all the way off the cracked runway, making room for a miles-long queue of military rescue gear. On the ground finally, but in need of a lift, he next caged a ride on a Fort Carson half-track. The driver was a worried young soldier whose fiancé was stationed at Cheyenne Mountain. She understood his situation, and the grunts packed in back did, too. Shifting around, they found a way to make room for Scott Tracy.
The ride was probably not as long as it felt, or as slow, but the going was certainly rough. The roads had mostly vanished, you see, vaporized by lava bombs and earthquake. Inside the cramped half-track, Scott was jostled and bumped by men and equipment, creating a spectacular assortment of oddly-shaped bruises. Even through breath-masks, the air reeked and stung, and he had to shout to be heard. The massive engines roared and whined, shifting pitch on each slope, or when they clattered over a big rock and whumped! to the ground again. Took awhile, but they got there eventually; arriving to find hordes of confused people wandering through a cracked, oozing wasteland of broken rock and hissing steam. Machines, too; some of them living.
The atmosphere swirled with hot currents and bits of ash. Fortunately, a wind had sprung up, blowing most of the fumes away. Help had already begun to arrive from Sky Base and the nearest cities, but the job was a huge one, in isolated, difficult terrain. Every pair of hands, every willing worker, was needed.
Orienting himself from what he'd seen in the WNN news feed (a line of jagged, up-thrust rocks and part of a road) Scott took a med-kit and started walking. Like Virgil at the Golden State Amphitheatre, he stopped several times to help others; a woman and baby who'd "just dropped Sarah off at the bus stop! She was right there! I watched her get on!" (They found her at a distant triage tent, after she'd been evacuated from her overturned school bus with 17 other small children.) Next, a taxi driver pinned in his partly-crushed hack, and a couple of old ladies too exhausted and scared to reach help on their own.
In the process, he spotted what could only be a satellite transmission antenna, on a high, telescoping white mast; the sort of thing you might pack in an airplane for live reports from exotic locations. Eyes fixed on the mast, which shook in the wind and sparkled with static, Scott at last found his wife.
Maybe you already know what it is to find something precious that was lost; to see someone you'd feared gone forever. Afterward, Scott couldn't have told you how much distance he covered, or what obstacles lay between them. Only that she turned from a quick gasp at the oxygen tank, saw him, and then they were together, his embrace lifting Cindy clear off her feet. Joy like that is painful; raw and searing as grief. But he hugged her tight against him and said her name many times, while his wife burrowed close, kissing everything she could reach. And absolutely nothing else mattered.
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Sky Base, far over head-
There were multiple fighter squadrons coming in to refuel, while others remained on patrol. The entire base resounded with klaxons and orders, and the guttural thunder of departing transports. Lightning and acid had wreaked havoc with their comm and instruments, rendering Sky Base mostly incommunicado. Needless to say, Colonel White was in no mood to let his strange visitors sneak off in their "thunderbird". After all, he still wasn't sure what that wretched boy had done to his vessel's computer systems, or that the lot of them weren't Mysteron sleepers. Including, quite possibly, the president. But…
"You've got to let us head down there," Virgil told the colonel, speaking for the rest because he didn't stutter, and had far better people skills than John. Didn't help much.
His lordship's chin jutted, and his blue eyes became icy and stern as a magistrate's. In a cool, hard voice, he said,
"Evidently, young man, you labor under some misapprehension as to our relative positions. I have "got" to do nothing at all but escort the lot of you to the World Court in Madrid. Now, if you're quite through, I am wanted on the bridge."
"Colonel," Lady Murasaki cut in, rigid with slighted dignity and honor, "these men and their young comrade are heroes. They have helped to save thousands of lives… my own included… and they have preserved our world from alien attack. You shall not hinder them."
Standing there before the conference room's deck-to-ceiling windows (a slight, erect woman trembling with outrage) Murasaki looked like Yuki-Onna, the cold-hearted Lady of Snow. And just like Yuki, she won.
Colonel White smoothed his moustache with the slim, strong fingers of one hand. Then he cleared his throat, saying,
"I see. You will, erm… agree to remain behind as my guest, Madame President?" And hostage, nobody added. They hardly needed to.
Murasaki inclined her head very slightly, losing some of that calm reserve when Fermat dashed over to hug her.
"Can't you just order him to let you go with us, Mrs. Nakamura?" he pled, unwilling to lose Sam's mother, too. She smiled at him.
"Young Fermat, I am honored by your concern, but my place is here, where I can most efficiently orchestrate relief efforts… and where there is tea."
That's how they parted company, Lady Murasaki shaking hands gravely with Virgil, John and Hackenbacker, but giving Fermat a genuine embrace.
"We shall speak again," she promised him, "when time has wound these happenings away like knotted string, and our hearts are eased within us."
Then it was time to go, passing through Sky Base under armed escort, back to their waiting green 'Bird. Getting push-back and takeoff clearance (much less fuel) was another matter, but they won free after not too much more tangled red tape.
Virgil didn't rubber-neck, this time; all he wanted was out. Beside him, John was more than usually somber, slumped in the copilot's chair like a man who'd just received an alarming shock… or the final thoughts of a struggling ally, transmitted through that miserable implant. Brains and Fermat, meanwhile, were as impatient to reach Cheyenne Mountain as Scott had been, and for almost the same reason.
Thunderbird 2 descended from Sky Base like a circling hawk; cutting downward through dark, acid clouds to the nightmare below. Fortunately, she could land vertically, negating the need for a long runway. Virgil located a big enough patch of stable ground, and brought her down on three-quarters impeller, giving the giant craft almost neutral buoyancy. She touched down like a leaf, and when the red contact light came on, Virgil turned to his silent older brother, saying,
"John…? You listening?"
The lanky blond astronaut nodded after a moment, so Virgil gave him a smile and plowed on.
"Okay. I'm gonna head out there with Brains and the kid, to see what I can do. You want to stay here and mind the store? Make sure nobody boosts our ride home, and maybe try contacting dad, again?"
"Yeah," his brother replied, almost whispering. "You go ahead."
Virgil hesitated. It was obvious that something was troubling John… But, just as obviously, there wasn't time for counseling that went any deeper than a quick, bracing shoulder clasp. Later, though…
"Right. I'll see you in a few hours, John. I'm not too sure about the comm or phones, but if you have to, send up a flare. We'll head right back."
"Understood," John replied, making an effort to focus. He didn't look well, at all.
First, the rescue team collected air masks and med-kits. Then, once off Thunderbird 2's booming metal ramp and out on the surface, Virgil began questioning people who might have seen Cindy. Brains and Fermat, meanwhile, headed off on a similar mission, looking for one sharp, brilliant crystal in a snow cloud. Their search might have taken hours, had Hackenbacker not reasoned that his physicist wife would be drawn to the biggest phenomenon around; in this case, the scar left behind by that vanished green spear. Being a scientist, she'd want a closer look, Brains felt sure, and so he led their way toward the vast, ragged pit.
It was Fermat who spotted ESU's missing physicists, clambering around near the steaming edge of the hole. They seemed to be poking at something with bits of salvaged metal. (A new element, as it turned out; a dense blue supersolid forged in the first ten-billionth of a second of eruptive force.) Fermat rushed forward, breaking free of his slower father. It had been awhile since he'd seen her, but mom… his mom… he'd have known anywhere.
Myrna Loy Bremmerman turned from her investigations at the sound of running footsteps (it had officially been that kind of day). Seeing her son and husband, she smiled, dusted off both hands and managed to pat down her tangled brown hair before they got to her. No use. The resultant three-way scrum messed it all up, again.
Fermat buried his face against his mother's side, hands clutching at the tactile reality of her singed clothing; breathing her bruised-peach scent through fumes and an air mask. Although an ubermensch wouldn't have done so, he couldn't help crying to feel himself wrapped once more in the warm grip of both parents. His mother kissed the boy's forehead, laughed and coughed a little, and then said,
"There, there, Ferms. I'm reasonably fine, for someone who's just experienced a massive, unexplained spacetime disturbance. It's you I'm worried about. To quote Einstein: Your nerves are frayed, and you don't even have a coating of bacon on your head to protect you. Strange man, Einstein. Brilliant, but strange."
Giddy with relief, her collaborator and their epsilon (math-speak for a very small quantity) chuckled. There would be time for explanations later. For now, at the brink of gaping forever, all was well.
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Circling overhead in her fighter-
Simone faced a major decision, alone in that sleek, speeding aircraft. Needing some think time, she'd seized a chance to patrol the disaster zone rather than return at once to Sky Base. A complex task, given that the heavens were rapidly filling with civilian and military relief planes, and there were dozens of darting news 'coptors to block. No more Mysteron craft, though; that was something.
Still in her green nylon flight bag, the alien box maintained an insistent loud buzzing, until Simone took a hand off the flight controls and yanked it free. The noise ceased as soon as she did this, which was good, because a nearby FOX News helijet would not take the hint to depart, and matters were about to turn ugly (as in, thundering fly-by and target-lock ugly).
Several tense minutes passed before the pilot could return her attention to Paul's mysterious "gift", but when she did, Simone got something of a surprise. It had extruded a sort of button, and developed what appeared to be Chinese puzzle-box seams. Greenishly glowing ones. Well, there was no warning printed beside the round button; it wasn't red, or anything… and, besides, she trusted Paul Metcalfe.
So, after a moment's thought, Lieutenant Girardoux… Destiny Angel… faked an instrument problem and banked away from the seething disaster site. No sense being directly atop all of those scared, huddled people, should something go wrong.
Simone cut across what remained of the Rockies and east to the plains, flying high and fast. Once well away from others, she took a deep breath, crossed herself, and then pressed the stiff, oddly-textured button. Instantly, Paul's presence and voice filled her mind, as though he were right there, looking out through her widened blue eyes at Nebraska's flat, speeding patchwork.
'Simone,' he said to her, 'If you're hearing this, then most of my plan somehow worked. The crystals have been converted back to their original matter, and I've managed to take Conrad out of the picture. I can't say for sure if that's permanent, though, because I don't know if I'll be able to find someplace deep and destructive enough to finish him off. If I do… did… Well, I'm dead, too. Long story short, Simone: this box contains the last bit of green energy left on Earth, and my own personal conversion data. If you choose to open the box, you'll recreate an exact copy of me, circa this recording. Up to you, Simone. Whatever decision you make is the right one. Believe that, and believe that I love you, now and forever.'
Lieutenant Girardoux's eyes filled with a sudden flood of hot, stinging tears. What, the pilot wondered, ought she to do when love clashed so violently with duty?
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At the Sea Base Gamma medical center, after eight hours of attempted emergency surgery-
There were unsatisfactory patients, and there was Lieutenant Tracy, presenting with a long, savage gash along his left shoulder, and down the left side of his broad back. The cut had been delivered by a narrow, plastic-wrapped propeller blade, falling with intense, crushing force. The blow had all but bisected the young man's clavicle and scapula, nearly amputating the entire arm.
Worse, the surgical team could find no way to close his wound, which resisted stapling, and only warmed a bit when treated with flesh-welding compounds like Suture-Tex. In the perilous meantime, Gordon Tracy battled their strongest anesthetics, requiring ever higher doses and constant through-the-wound blood transfusions.
Then a surgical nurse suggested the bone laser, which might produce enough power to weld their patient's torn flesh and slashed limb. So, rattling tools were assembled, antiseptic mists sprayed and orders barked, as new personnel descended upon the cold room and glaring lights were brought low and close.
Such a procedure had never been tried before, but the young man would certainly die of blood loss, over-medication or shock if they didn't do something. The head of orthopedic surgery himself came to the operating theatre and set to work, adapting familiar techniques on the fly to meet an extraordinary situation. As he explained later in a ground-breaking paper, it had been like treating Achilles… if the infant's mother had dipped him in diluted Styx water, rather than braving the River.
Gordon Tracy (Patient X) was partially invulnerable… to healing, as well as harm. It took WASP exactly 72 hours to relive him of active duty. He was thrust from the service with head-snapping speed and an honorable discharge. "Disabled", as the paperwork put it. No one was surprised (and no inquiries were made) when Mako-1 slipped off on its own, soon afterward.