Just started work again. Not sure for how long, though. Stay safe, well and healthy, you guys. Edited more.
22
Tracy Island, on the pool deck, late afternoon-
Scott Tracy sprawled at full length on a cushioned, wrought iron lounge chair. In his left hand he cradled a half-empty bottle of beer. With his right, he flipped through the messages displayed on a greenish virtual comm screen. Not much was happening, at the moment, which was all to the good. Having been out to Venus and back for a non-standard space rescue, he'd got action out of his system for a while.
Now, stretched out beneath a softly fluttering umbrella, with the jungle around them switching to nocturnal creatures and night-blooming flowers, Scott downed his cold beer and read emails. There was plenty of light, still. It came from the bloated sun, which was just now settling down; like an old dog snuggling in to get comfortable. Rich and golden as butter, the afternoon sunshine warmed without searing, making Scott's mirrored sunglasses more prop than necessity.
Gordon was pounding out laps in the pool, conversing with Scott in short, splashing bursts punctured by sudden deep breaths. Not about those two rescued kids… Brains had charge of Cindy and Sam. Not even about their absent Triumph crew, or missing dad. Stupid stuff. The kind of thing men talked about, when they had a lot on their minds and no real way to express it.
Right now, the topic was Thunder Bros, a webtoon about… well, about them. IR and the Tracys. Officially anonymous and claiming no relation, the author nevertheless seemed to know an awful lot about Thunderbird doings.
"Definitely not female!" insisted Gordon, finally surfacing like a dolphin at Scott's end of the pool. Planting both splayed hands on the deck's tiled edge, the swimmer levered himself gracefully up and out of the water, performing a handstand just for the h*ll of it. Next caught the striped yellow towel that Scott threw at him and began drying off, saying,
"Thanks. But, seriously, Thunder Bros' writer can't be a chick, Scott. Think about it. No one's in love. No one's got a relationship. Females live for that stuff."
But his older brother wasn't convinced. Taking a long last pull at his beer, Scott set the emptied bottle down on a glass-topped table.
"Negative, Junior," he said. "The writing's too… emotional. Too 'squishy'." (Made bent-finger quote marks when he said that, too.) "No male would spend all that time explaining everyone's feelings. It's Steph McCord. It's gotta be. She knows us all, she's been to the Island three or four times, and she's obsessed with Virgil. No contest. Done deal."
Uh-huh. Gordon energetically toweled off his sopping blond hair, converting it into a lop-sided fauxhawk. Then, grinning at Scott, he said,
"Y' know, I've heard that blueberries and dark chocolate can help reverse the mental decline you get with old age and high altitudes, Scott. Try my special diet, and we can have you back in the normal IQ range inside of a month!"
Scott cocked an eyebrow. No, he wasn't upset by the cheeky insult… but he wouldn't tolerate disrespect, either.
"Try my 48-hour KP and mountain hike cure, and you won't have time for dumbass jokes," he responded.
"Dumb?!" Gordon blurted, full of theatrical outrage. "I'll have you know that every one of my jokes is top-shelf and certified funny. Personally crafted to be as annoying as possible. You think breaking this tension is easy?"
Scott shrugged, lifting and dropping his muscular shoulders. Like Gordon (and Virgil and John) he had a number tattooed on his chest. Only, his was 1, not four.
"What tension?" he scoffed. "Everything's fine. Colonel Casey comes out for those kids tomorrow. Our game team returns in less than a month, we find Dad and life gets back to normal. Slam, bam, thank you Ma'am."
Agitated, the pilot sat up, reaching for the folded blue shirt he'd been using as a pillow. Time to go in. The jungle was turning screechy and noisy, while the sun was little more than gossip. Just a scarlet-gold smear at the line where heaven met sea.
Gordon opened his mouth to fire right back. Closed it again in surprise, though, because someone had come out to join them. Brains it was, tugging at his rumpled lab coat and blinking around as though startled by all of this non-V reality. The swimmer grinned broadly, all at once alert and playful as an otter.
"Hey, Brainiac!" he called out, waving his towel. "Welcome to the great outdoors! Wait… you didn't blow something up and fill the lab with fumes again, did you? Should I get out the hose and a bucket?"
Doctor Hackenbacker edged his way over to join them, watching where he stepped as though fearing that the pool deck would crack in half any moment. Skinny, dark-haired and bespectacled, shy of strangers and nature, the engineer was markedly different from Scott and Gordon Tracy. Knew it, too.
Peering nervously up at the sky, then around at the jungle and sea, he gave them a tentative smile.
"G- Good evening, Gentlemen. My, ah… my l- laboratory is undamaged and quite free of, ah… of s- smoke and fumes, I assure you."
"That's good," said Scott, giving their genius an encouraging nod. "Sit down. I'll have the house bots bring us some food. We'll have a working dinner al fresco."
But Brains shook his head, no. Did take a perch at the edge of a nearby deck chair, though; all awkward sharp elbows and up-thrust knees.
"N- Nothing for me, Scott. Th- Thank you. I have, ah… have j- just completed my examination of the two s- subjects you br…"
"Kids," Gordon interrupted, scowling a little. "Sam and Cindy are kids, Brains. They look different, came from farther away than anyone's ever done before, but they're not frickin' lab monkeys."
Brains peered at Gordon through lenses still fogged by the gathering tropical night. Sniffled some, too, as the jungle around them exhaled mist and pollen.
"As you w- will, Gordon. I have concluded examining the ch- children you brought in from, ah… from H- Half-Moon, and I have made a n- number of preliminary findings."
"Oh?" remarked Scott, who was busily using his virtual comm screen to order up dinner. Pizza and ice cream, because that's pretty much all they had left. "What 'd you find out?"
"Th- That they have neither spoken nor, ah… nor written l- language," said Brains, taking his glasses off to wipe the fogged lenses. "They r- respond to flashing colours of light as though expecting, ah… expecting th- those flashes to convey meaning. Physically, they appear t- to be siblings, in fair condition, though d- deficient in certain key nutrients. S- Slowly starving to death, actually. I suspect that this is, ah… is w- why they have been returned to Earth. Their previous "keepers" must have realized that th- the children could not, ah… not s- survive where they were."
Scott turned around to look squarely at Brains.
"Any genetic link to known living persons? Have they got family here we could hook them back up with?" asked the pilot, running a hand through his unruly hair. Nearby, Gordon was hop-stepping into a pair of tan deck shoes and neon cargo pants.
Brains nodded but didn't seem confident.
"Yes, S- Scott. There is a f- family in France of the, ah… the n- name De Vries, who have s- similar mitochondrial DNA. I t- took the liberty of, ah… of s- sending them a message, but h- have not yet received a response."
A night-flitting insect zipped past Brains' face, then, making him jump. The house exterior lights cut on moments later. The wind changed direction, too, rolling off of the mountain, heavy with moisture and life.
"Also," Brains continued, waving the bugs away from his face. "Th- They are both surgically s- sterile. This appears t- to have been done at, ah… at a v- very young age. They also p- possess internal t- transmission devices, power derived from their own, ah… own b- biochemistry."
Scott's dark brows drew together. Gordon just nodded glumly, as if he'd already known.
"You make them sound like a couple of spayed and microchipped pound puppies," snapped the pilot, adding "free to good home," as a snarled afterthought.
Brains looked down, folding his hands on his lap.
"Th- The thought had occurred to me," he whispered, "that a c- colony vessel encountered by very, ah… very m- much more advanced inorganic beings might be regarded as a c- crate of exotic pets."
Gordon came closer.
"We can get them back to their folks, though," he cut in, seeming restless and anxious. "We can fix up their problems and teach them how to be normal."
Now it was Brains who shrugged, looking unhappy.
"I d- do not know that there will be t- time, Gordon. The GDF will t- take them from us tomorrow. Cindy and Sam De Vries will then no longer, ah… longer b- be our concern."
But Gordon shook his head.
"H*ll, no," he snapped. "That's not right. We rescued 'em. That means they stay our business. I mean… who else 've they got if those French guys don't want them? I promised I'd teach them to swim."
"Th- They did not understand you," said Brains, with a sad little shake of his head. "They h- have not yet learnt to, ah… to c- communicate with sound."
As the house bots buzzed over with trays of hot food, Gordon Tracy made a decision. Seizing an entire cheese pizza, he started away from the others.
"I'm going down to the lab," he announced. "If they've never had pizza, they've been frickin' robbed. We'll figure out how to talk to each other. Before Casey gets here."
Hackenbacker glanced over at Scott, as if expecting the pilot to stop his outraged young brother. Didn't happen.
"Gordon fools around a lot," groped Scott, "but he's got a big heart where it comes to kids. He won't do any harm, Brains."
The engineer nodded, relaxing enough to reach for a celery stick and some non-dairy dip. Scott had included food he could eat, after all. Better still, his nutrient replication technology had been boosted by those internal scans of Half-Moon. Soon, perhaps, the cycle of living-through-murder would end.
"Thank you," said Scott, surprising him.
"B- Beg pardon?" asked Brains, dip-laden celery stick pausing halfway up to his mouth.
"For all you've done for Dad and IR… for staying with us, after his disappearance. Guess I haven't said that enough, or… ever," the pilot admitted, wincing a little.
Brains smiled.
"Y- You are most welcome, Scott. Your f- father's dream means a great d- deal to me, as well. Like y- you, I will do everything in m- my power to keep International Rescue in action. Y- Your way is strength and endurance. Mine, s- study and thought."
"Both ways matter," said Scott, raising his drink in salute.
The engineer lifted his root beer. Clinked bottles with Scott, drinking to unlikely teamwork. Jeff Tracy was alive out there, somewhere. He had to be. And that night, two men privately swore that they'd find him, whatever it took.
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Elsewhere, high in the bowels of a sweltering cloud city-
Quite when the producers had decided to turn up the heat, Virgil had no idea. In less than an hour, though, their maintenance tunnel shot from icy and damp to furnace-like. They had to get out of it, fast.
Trouble was, the access ladder that Kayo had scaled… their only clear way through the giant engine… wasn't in very good shape. Corroded and ancient, it didn't look safe to ascend, even with all of Kay's "step here" markings.
Because it made sense to send the lightest up first, Lieutenant Kraft had been chosen to follow Kayo, trailing a line for the others. Once Kraft found something stable enough to attach it to, Penny would shin up the ladder and rope. Next would come John. Virgil, too, if they could rig up a strong enough sling. At least, that was the plan.
With vid-drones buzzing and clicking away, Kraft gave them a quick salute and then dashed up the ladder, sending down flurries of rust. Was soon out of sight and sensing, but for the playing out of her coiled rope, held at this end by Virgil.
"You're next, Lady Penelope," called the big cargo pilot, shifting his gaze from shadowy ladder to beautiful blonde. She smiled at him, gathering her hair into a sleek ponytail with both hands.
"Of course, Dear," she told him. Mouthed it, rather, refusing to shriek like a fishwife. Then, because it was past time for John to display a bit of boyfriend solicitude, she elbowed the tall astronaut, striking him in the ribs.
"Be careful," he told her, draping an awkward arm across Penny's slim shoulders. "Look where you're going and watch your step. I'll be right behind you, if anything happens."
She remained in the embrace, partly because there were cameras watching, and partly because his environment suit kept John and his immediate surroundings quite cool. To make conversation, she snuggled closer and asked,
"Have you made any sense of that wretched equation, Darling?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah." John shifted his arm and his gaze to face her directly, always happy to talk about numbers. Sea-green eyes filled with genuine interest, he said, "It's clock math. Imagine a 12-hour clock face, with only one hand, set at seven. If it's advanced seven more hours, it passes twelve and ends up at two. Simple. Don't know how they mean to use it, though."
Penny laughed and kissed his cheek.
"Simple for you, perhaps," she chided him. "Some of us finished basic education and ne'er gave the hallowed halls of academia another glance."
"Oh," he said, thinking that maybe he'd bored her. His handsome face switched at once from lively attention to chilly reserve.
Penny leaned into him just a bit, by way of reassurance. John wasn't a bad sort, just very much in his own head, his world of shining, numeric ideas. Before she could make an appeasing remark, Virgil turned back away from the ladder, calling,
"Next! She's given two tugs, and the line's stopped unspooling. Your turn, Penelope."
Difficult to hear the big, husky pilot, over the thrumming and squeal of that massive engine, but Penny understood the gestures. Stepping cautiously forward along their ledge, she accepted his hand across to the first rung. It was quite a bit warmer away from John, but Lady Penelope was far too proud to show distress. Merely addressed herself to that long, flaking ladder and started to climb.
Down below her, John gave his not-really girlfriend a long ten count, punched his brother's shoulder for luck, and then vaulted on up there, himself. He had an advantage, of course. Augmented strength, magnetic boot soles, environment correction and puncture-proof fabric, for starters. That, and Max's rescued ID cartridge, which John meant to install in the very first thing he could find with four wheels and a set of graspers.
…but mostly, he kept sight of Penny, ready to catch her if something went wrong. Which, this being Triumph, it certainly would.