Grayout
Scott brings Kyrano in seconds. He hurries to John's side and rolls up his sleeve, feels for his pulse. "Vitals please."
EOS overwrites the avionics display. Charts and values flash up on screen. His EKG rhythm strip thunders past. The spots dancing in front of his vision make it hard to read all the red and yellow. His vision greys out…
Rain sleets against the windows of the car. Wipers scrape the windscreen. The leather seat beneath him is heated. He rolls a plastic pen lid between thumb and forefinger.
"…can't get my head around why he'd do this, then there's no way I can figure out what he'll do, or how far he'll go…or where, or if we're ever going to see him again."
"Let's not proceed to that extreme, just yet."
Ahead, he can see blurred red neon circles as traffic builds up on the autobahn.
"John? John?"
EOS?
Suddenly he's back in the aircraft cockpit, in a felt green field somewhere in Norway, with people calling his name. "What? What is it?"
Kyrano is down on one knee, two fingers jammed beneath his chin to find his pulse point. Scott hovers behind him. John can't explain it but he's suddenly irrationally annoyed at both of them.
This feeling subsides after a couple of blinks. "What happened?"
"We lost you there for a sec," says Scott.
"I disappeared?"
"You passed out," says Kyrano. "Another SVT. Seems to have reverted to normal now."
"Sinus. Rate 94," chimes in EOS. "This run lasted 72 seconds."
John rubs his face, feels a fraction better. The dark blotches have faded from his vision. "That point you were talking about," he tells Kyrano, "I think I've passed it now. Yeah, definitely."
"Yes," Kyrano takes his hand from the pulsepoint at his throat. "But you've done well."
"What's the matter with him?" Scott peers at him and John can see him resisting the urge to check his pulse for himself. "Is he really… dying?"
"No!"
"A little while ago he did something supremely stupid," says Kyrano.
"Hey!" Scott's ready to leap to his defence, but John waves his indignation away. It's an accurate assessment, the same EOS made the day they had been reunited, but it's a blunder he would make again given the choice.
A crackle of electric pain courses across his chest and down his left arm. Okay, maybe he might be a little more careful if he had his time again.
"Are you going to be alright?" Scott puts a hand on his shoulder.
"Yes," says John, even as EOS and Kyrano say, "No."
"He needs to see a doctor," Kyrano clarifies. "That's the reason we were travelling to Berlin. But for now what he mainly needs is rest and food. Let's get up to the house, regroup. I'll check on her ladyship, make sure she doesn't need any assistance. Scott."
"On it." Scott gets John's arm around his shoulders, levers him out of the chair.
"I'm fine!"
"Sure you are, buddy," he begins to whistle as he helps John down from the cockpit, then stops. "Hang on, that's 'Stand by Me' not 'Lean on Me'." Scott has never met a tune he can't mangle.
"Shouldn't that be 'He Ain't Heavy, He's my Brother'?"
"Oh yeah. How does that one go again?"
John's grateful for his help on the incline, because it's a half mile walk from the landing strip to the safe house, up a steep, earth-packed path through coniferous woodland. The steps up the hill are edged in railway sleepers and the woods cling close to the path, dense and green.
At the top of the hill is a chocolate box chalet, red timber with white frosting. You have to look closely to notice the bulletproof glass in the windows and the reinforced doors, the way the safe house commands a view of the entire valley. His HUD fills in, in lines of glowing light, the security measures not immediately visible.
The garage door is ajar and when they reach the house Virgil glances out. "I unlocked the front door for you," he says and before John has a chance to say thanks, disappears back inside the garage.
Scott looks at John, as if he can help decipher Virgil's mood, but he's not sure he's got much of a better read on it than Scott. This man flies like Virgil, in the right light he looks like Virgil, but he feels all wrong, like the facets of his personality that make him Virgil have been turned off at the valve. And John's never seen his younger brother display anything like the violence they witnessed in the hangar. "Let's go inside."
The inside of the chalet is decked out in the style John has come to expect from Lady Penelope: tasteful, restrained and ever so slightly too girly. There's always about 90 per cent more chintz than John would choose in his own décor.
Still, it feels great to take a load off, to sink onto the couch and pull a cashmere blanket across his shoulders. Scott takes a lap of the room, picking up the odd knickknack, tangling his fingers in a set of wind chimes.
Kyrano joins them before long. He takes a seat on the edge of the coffee table, right next to John, and beckons Scott over with a crook of a finger. Scott perches on the arm of the couch.
"Ask EOS how many bugs there are in this room."
'Seven' flashes up across the borrowed HUD. This doesn't exactly surprise John. Lady Penelope would be offended if he didn't think her sitting room was bugged.
"Seven."
"Can she mute them?"
"Yes." A warning light appears in the left hand corner of the visual field to indicate this has been achieved.
"Good." He beckons them closer anyway. "I think we're safe here, for the moment. Use this time to recuperate."
"What about you?" asks John.
"I'm going to go to Berlin to see about a doctor for you."
"You can't be serious, Kyrano," says Scott and then flinches when Kyrano turns a cool eye on him. "I mean, you are Kyrano, aren't you?"
"Call me Ben."
"Yessir. Sorrysir. Ben. But, I mean, we don't know if this world, or time, or reality, or whatever, even has a Berlin, let alone one doctor guy. For all you know he decided to be a dentist, or a cinematographer, or he was hit by a bus."
"He's right, Ben."
Kyrano scratches his chin. "It is possible, I suppose. Call it a hunch, but I think this particular individual will continue doing… what it is that he does, regardless of the reality he finds himself. If he's alive, I'll find him."
"But…"
"You need a doctor, John. That's not open for negotiation. I'll have Lady Penelope's friend fly me to Oslo and charter a flight from there."
It takes a moment for both of them to realise that he's talking about Virgil. "He's our brother too, you know," says Scott, a little defensively.
"No," says Kyrano. "He's not. Not yet." The way he says it sends that same chill down John's spine. Kyrano leans forward. "Listen to me, both of you. I hope that we can use this place as a rest house, but if things start to feel off, if you feel unsafe, or if Gordon starts acting erratic, I want you to get away from here as fast as you can. Run and keep on running. Understand?"
He and Scott exchange an uneasy glance and he can see his own thoughts mirrored in Scott's face. "But –"
"The two of you are my priority. For now you need to be each other's priority, at least until we know more about the people we're dealing with and the situation we've landed in. Keep each other safe."
"But–" This time it's Scott who tries. "But I'm not even your Scott."
"You are now."
He rises, "I'll be back tomorrow," and before either of them can get a word in edgeways he's gone.
"Does it ever worry you?" asks EOS, hijacking the stereo-system, "That Mr Kyrano knows a lot more than he's letting on about everything?"
"Yes." They say in unison.
John slides back into the couch. There's so much to puzzle out, so much he needs to think about. But the couch is soft and his eyes are drifting closed and it's becoming hard to focus on anything. He yawns.
Scott notices. He grabs his arm and hauls. "Okay, spaceman, bed time for you."
"'mfine."
"Uh-huh. Sure." He prods him towards the stairs. "Bed. Now. Big brother's orders."
John yawns again. "'not bigger than me, 'nymore."
"Wrong. You got old, is all. I'm still bigger." He demonstrates by pushing him up the stairs.
The bed is soft as a cloud, Egyptian cotton sheets, goose-down duvet. He sinks into it and closes his eyes. It's bliss.
But Scott won't let up. "Come on, J. We are not Alan, grown-ups don't sleep in their jeans." He pulls one of John's loafers off, then another. The borrowed glasses are plucked off his nose and put on the bedside.
This is bullying, old school. The same sort that used to happen when he would arrive home from rotation, heavy-limbed and gravity-sick and be forced into eating blueberry pancakes and pulling off his blues before he could go unconscious for 18 hours.
He feels a pang of sudden homesickness at that memory. "'s'not fair."
"Cautionary tale. If you try to pick up guys in airport bars, sooner or later they'll wanna get you into bed. Shirt too."
"Uggh-uh." John tugs the shirt over his head as Scott pulls the curtains across, blocking out the sunshine.
"Thank you." Scott accepts the shirt. "Oh. Oh-ho-ho. Who's IR? Now I know you're not my Johnny if you're getting girl's names tattooed across your chest."
"Don't you know?"
"Should I?"
He groans. "Long story. Ask me some other time."
"Okay. I'm just here, right? Got the baby monitor in my ear in case the shit hits the fan. Call me if you need me."
"'kay. Night Scooter."
"Night John."
He sleeps.