Hello there! =) All staying well, I hope. Newly edited.

20

A tale of two very different young women-

Having grown up with five brothers and a doting (but frequently absent) father, Tanusha had very soon learnt to compete. Not at their sports… basketball, baseball, footie and the like… but in karate and formal dressage. She was a thinker, was Kayo, knowing far more than she ever let on. Always at the center of nested, complexly evolving plans. Never had only one motive, or simply one goal.

See, she'd been rescued from death at a very young age by her hero-turned-father, Jeff Tracy. He treasured her, she idolized him… and now he was gone, again. Maybe forever. Her brothers and grandma had taught her to love and to play, but never, not quite, how to utterly trust. In Kayo's experience, no moment of happiness ever stood still. No loving relationship outlasted time.

So, the girl thought, and she planned, and she guarded her heart; joining the family business because somebody had to take care of her five reckless brothers. Too, she was tired of school, not wishing to attend the Academy, the Institute, or the Vocational Centre. Like Scott, she craved action. Like John, she thought far ahead. Like Gordon, she preferred to master a situation with reflex and muscle. Like their father, she often withdrew. Information which might provide background, for all that came next.

A bit earlier, Kay had signed an excuse at Virgil, then scooted away up a maintenance ladder, marking a path for the rest. They'd succeeded in getting off of their small floating platform and into that broken-down cloud city, leaving Max's fried body behind. Still had to reach the central plaza and solve 7 + 7 = 2, but for that part she counted on Virgil and John. Scouting ahead was her job.

Dressed in green cargo pants, light shoes and a grey tank top, long black hair in a ponytail, Kayo Kyrano Tracy swarmed up a rapidly warming maintenance tunnel, hawk-moth swift and wolf-spider silent. She'd brought a few things in her green nylon bag, including a small UV torch and a knife. The one she gripped in her teeth as she climbed. The other was strapped to one wrist. No video drone present, because hers had suffered a sudden power outage, leaving Kayo unseen and untroubled.

The tunnel went up and up, its ladder a rusted and flaking ruin. It would hold her own weight, or Penny, the Sailor and maybe John's. Virgil's dense form it wouldn't support, unless they could rig up a sling of some kind or locate an alternate path through this massive antigrav motor. Well, as their father liked to say, if you can't find a door, you make one. And getting out of tight spots was a Thunderbird specialty.

There were 'you are here' maps at every juncture, their colours muted and cold in the light of Kayo's UV torch. She was over a hundred feet from the main access hatch, the girl noticed, squinting and holding her head still to read. There were a few smaller hatches nearer to hand, but those opened onto the motor's churning and flaking bowels. Not a better or safer traverse.

The main hatch fronted the city's fuel storage depot, according to all of those faded small diagrams. Hop skip and a jump from there to the central plaza if she'd read the projection correctly.

No doubt, the others were already on their way up. She could sense vibration in the ladder that wasn't to do with slow-thrumming engines or shrieking, high-altitude winds. As she climbed, Kay had been finding and marking strong, sturdy ledges and rungs, using reflective, IR safe-passage tape. Also, spots where a line might be rigged, assuming they'd send Lady Penelope or the sailor up, first.

Business as usual. Only, the tunnel was growing hot, in complete defiance of the weather outside. Sweat drenched her clothing and loosened Tanusha's grip, getting into her eyes and blurring her vision. Soon the metal around her was almost too hot to touch, and a new sound… sort of a sharp, grating squeal… filled the quivering air. Mechanical breakdown, she figured, or maybe just piled-on drama.

A reek of corrosion and oil and sweat surrounded the girl, making her sick. She kept going, though, because that's what the Colonel would do. Because no one but Kayo could handle her job.

There followed ten, fifteen minutes of lurching and scrambling upward, fighting to maintain a constant three points of contact. Sometimes she dangled by just one hand or bent leg, when an overstressed ladder rung crumbled to dust at her touch. She'd just grunt, right herself and get back to work, climbing till she reached a short horizontal corridor. At its other end lay the red-painted hatch, looking almost pitch-black in UV.

Between dripping sweat and her unsteady torch beam, the hatch seemed to waver and sway as if deep underwater. The air around her shimmered with oven-like heat. Fortunately, her blue IR marking tape was designed to withstand the worst of conditions, from blast furnace scorching to plutonic cold. It would not peel off or melt.

Leaving a final mark, Kay tore and affixed another strip of blue tape, its reflective arrows aligned to point down-corridor. Then, gasping for breath, she lunged for the hatch, hoping for cooler air on the other side.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Elsewhere, at around the same time-

She was Skull Doll now but hadn't always been. Originally Hannah Henderson, she'd been born of a surrogate mother to Helena Henderson, on a TV show that had been running for seventeen years. The entire thing… implantation through birth… had been filmed, as was her adoptive mum's telegenic joy at receiving a brand-new cast member.

Before she knew her own name or how to visit the potty, Hannah had become a star. Everyone's baby. Every family's adorable, gap-toothed toddler. Their rebellious, sarcastic teen. Their ripening crush. Their Hannah.

She'd grown up in public, learning that drama meant ratings and money and a very much happier mum. There were siblings, as well, none of them actually related, except through the show. Older brother Hal, sisters Holly, Hailey and Hermione, stepdad Helmut. All confined to the family compound and always on camera, except for the bathroom privacy stall.

Even her education was tracked and filmed, in a special on-set school filled with actors' kids and "lucky winners". Various love interests had been introduced from fourth grade on; toothy, smiling athletes, moody artists, complex bad boys and "guys next door", all of them trying to hook and entice her.

She'd hated it. Had tried to rebel by just being boring. Displaying no personality; falling for no one and nothing at all. Even tried re-naming herself. Just, y'know… in her own head. Worked for a little while, but then the cameras doubled down instead on poor Hermione, only five years old. Always following and watching, expecting to see a performance. Buzzing like hornets, they'd made the little one cry.

So, yeah. Hannah 'd started to act again, taking the heat off of Lil' H and Hailey. Started singing, too, which boosted their ratings still further. That should have bugged her, only… with a mic in her hands, eyes closed and screaming out lyrics, Hannah felt centered and safe. Better still, she'd ended up meeting the people who helped her become someone new. The people who'd helped her escape.

See, she didn't have an official identity. Mother (via surrogate) was listed as Helena Henderson. Father was the d*mn show. Seriously, "Hendersons, Home With," was right there on her birth-doc, in place of a dad.

That's why a few years later she'd jumped at the chance to make music. Why she'd joined the Deth-Chix, tattoos and all. Without known biological relatives, she'd become closer to Alice and Rainey, to Blud E. and Frog, than she'd ever been to her tele-vid clan. Now, she could walk into a room and shut the door, and no one could see her. Now, she could say things that weren't on the family's allowable script. She could just be herself… whoever that was. Still hadn't fallen in love, though. Not ready.

So much for the past. Here and now, Hannah was playing whack-the-drone with a spiked baseball bat, whenever the vid-bot got close. Nailed it a few times, but not very hard. Too busy looking around, as she and the band picked their way through a landscape of tortured metal and rusted machinery.

On the plus side, the wind and rain died down, as some kind of rainbow-washed environment shield came on, trapping them all in a scented and moveable bubble. Now the air smelt like damp clothes and vanilla corrosion. Better…ish?

Frog was darting ahead like a terrier, scouting their path. Blud E., big as an aurochs, strode along beside Hannah, Rainey, and Alice, probing for traps with a long metal pole. Tapping the ground, springing snares, and cursing so luridly, he inspired fresh lyrics.

It was getting hot, which felt pretty good, at first. Only, the temperature steadily climbed, soon going from warm bath to steam room to weenie-roast, as protesting machinery screamed like a wailing soloist.

"Cor! What the eff's with this heat?!" raged Murder Doll, from behind her tiger-mask ink.

"Part of the show," explained Cobra, who'd already peeled off her black leather jacket, tying its sleeves at her waist. "Right, Aitch?"

Hannah shrugged, refusing to take off a single d*mn layer.

"They want people to watch, they gotta stay exciting," she said, without much inflection at all. "Eyeballs equals advert money."

Blud took off that trademark red bandana, using it to mop his bald head.

"Think if I peel down to just my jockeys, they'll relent and turn the A.C. back on?" he wondered.

"Noooo… nobody wants to see that," hooted Frog, bouncing around a few yards in front of the others. "You'll scare all the kiddies, shock the old biddies, power down cities…"

And then Frog dropped out of sight. Wide-eyed and windmilling one instant, gone the next. Did manage to shout,

"…end the frickin' transmitties," as poet and drone plunged through that brittle steel crust, to God knows what, down below.

"Props for continuing the rhyme scheme," grunted Blud, rubbing at the back of his sweaty neck. "Wasn't very good, though."

"Think we should rescue them?" asked Alice, doing her best to hold Rainey back. All id was their Murder Doll. All reflex and manic reactions. H*ll of a drummer, though. Then, CRACK!

"Hah! Toasted!" crowed Hannah. "I am a one-woman focus of death from above!"

Skull tattoo blazing, she'd twisted violently, bashing the daylights out of her video drone. Game-winning homerun, for real; her drone trailing sparks like a rocket, all the way over the warehouse fence. Then,

"You betcha we rescue 'em," said Hannah, flushed and grinning behind her bone mask. "Frog's still gotta finish the lyrics for Thunder Down Under. No vacay till the album's done!"

Which was why they were there at ground zero, when the studio made its next move.