Hi! =) Will edit soon... Edited.

26

At the Cloud City fuel depot, a few moments earlier-

Crossing that junk-littered, blazing hot plaza proved neither easy nor quick. Huge piles of old, leaky barrels and rusted equipment were everywhere, while most of those floor grates were too far gone to bear weight. On top of all that, their soap-bubble force field kept right on trapping and building up heat. Even the video drones were beginning to wilt.

Bad enough, but then, with a mighty explosion and dense black column of fire-shot smoke, one of the grav engines died. All at once, the city's north quarter dropped hard. The entire surface tilted and spun, sending objects and people skidding like hockey pucks.

Virgil hadn't seen that one coming, exactly, but he had been expecting trouble. Especially when John signed: 'About time for a ratings boost.' Like his sister and red-haired brother, the pilot recovered quickly and kept right on moving. They had a game to win, and he'd lived and flown through much worse.

The depot was surrounded by a wall of spiked metal, about twelve feet high. They'd been making for a twisted access gate, picking their way amidst wreckage and scattered debris. The city's sudden wild tilt lay in the wrong direction, though, forcing the IR team to battle their way across a steepening slope. Landslides of junk hurtled past them, crashing and grinding, emitting feeble alarms.

Instinctively, Virgil seized Emma's left hand. She squeezed his engulfing paw in response, then tore herself free. Good sign, maybe? He was too busy dodging to speculate. See, Virgil and John were both athletes, Kayo a martial artist, and Kraft a Navy lieutenant. Max had treads and eight limbs in his new, hated body. It was Penny who had the most trouble, although she caught on pretty quick; edging and bracing, sometimes flailing at John for support, but laughing a lot.

"Down!" John snapped at one point, as a huge, rusted tractor bounced over them, low enough to have clubbed someone's head off...

...and Virgil was having a blast. Like football, with added interest. Like a rescue, with none of the worry for trapped, dying victims. Just action, strength and agility, plus pretty girls.

'I can do this all day,' he thought, feeling hella d*mn good. Then Emma judo-ed his butt, swinging Virgil away from a gaping hole in the floor, saving a plunge into smouldering nowhere. He twisted, hopped on one foot, then regained his balance. Swung back around and gave the lieutenant a kiss, brushing his lips across hers. Kraft shoved him. Managed a fierce glare, then went back to the business of not getting killed.

John reached the gate first, using his spacesuit's power to wrench it apart, as Max and Kayo blocked oncoming wreckage. Must 've been over 130 degrees by that point, and almost too hot to breathe. Once the gate opened up, Virgil hauled himself over and then tumbled on through, into a large public square. City Centre, at last. Better yet, a beautiful sapphire gem shard hovered right at mid square. Patches of dry, brittle garden surrounded the game piece, along with mold-spotted benches and creaking playground equipment.

"There!" Virgil shouted, while Emma, Penny and Kay hustled out of the depot to join him. John and Max came last, welding the gate against landslides of rumbling junk.

"Careful," cautioned the astronaut. "Situation's not as simple as it appears."

Uh-huh. In sullen infrared light, there was a definite flicker around that beautiful, slow-turning shard. Force field, or Virge had two heads and a losing record.

"Slow and easy approach," he barked, sounding a little like Scott. "Kay, Penny, handle the competition. John, work on solving that effing riddle!"

"Copy that," his older brother replied, as Kayo just melted away into shadow.

About the same time, one of the other teams appeared. GDF Navy, at the other side of the square. Kraft spotted them instantly. Shot a quick, complex look at Virgil, then hauled ass to rejoin her own people. Right. He'd known it would happen, but... No reach-around? No kiss?

"Maybe she'll call you," said John, being funny.

"Ha, very ha," grunted the big, dark-haired pilot. Took a deep breath, shook his heart out of his pants leg and then surged on forward. Not toward Emma, at all (who wouldn't have noticed, being dog-piled and pummeled by welcoming GDF teammates). Instead, Virgil sped after that beckoning shard and a solid win.

John loped along at his side, not even breaking a sweat thanks to his IR environment suit. Meanwhile the floor continued to tilt, causing dead trees to crack and fall with a noise like cannon shot. It was just about then that the other team showed, off to the east a ways. Acme Entertainment, minus one.

They, too, spread out, armed with spiked baseball bats and a hissing electrical prod. One of them got to the force field ahead of everyone else. Murder Doll, with her tiger ink blazing. Crowing in triumph, the crimson-haired Deth Chik leapt for that game shard. Got bounced right back with a sizzling crack, too, hurling her halfway across the town centre. For just a second, though, the force field glowed luridly violet, revealing twelve openings, one of them capped in pale red.

"Got it," said John, edging sideways and forward, eyes on the cursing band and their massive roadie. His environment suit was too strong to make hand-to-hand combat safe. Trying to wrestle, he could end up breaking a neck. (Which he'd found out the hard way, in simulation.)

Captain Rigby got in there before him, aiming for one of those briefly-glimpsed doors. He, too, bounced like a ping-pong ball, resetting the whole d*mn field. Now the red-capped twelve o'clock portal had shifted again, putting it closer to International Rescue.

"Distract them," John muttered at Virgil and Penny. "Otherwise, they'll figure out what I'm doing, and reset the clock. Max, I'll need backup. No one comes near enough to get hurt."

He didn't provide any further information, just stalked his way over that sagging and pit-gashed floor. The big guy... Blud something or other... set off to intercept John, flexing muscles like tattooed Andean boulders. Only, Kayo appeared out of seemingly nowhere, and all at once Blud lost his way, having gone suddenly blind. John smiled, but kept moving. Mind on the mission, as Scott would say. Max rattled along in his wake, screeching a shrill security siren.

As the teams spread out to block or get through, John Tracy approached door number twelve, stood there a moment and then began coursing clockwise. Tougher than it sounded in the midst of a fight, on an ever-increasing slope.

XXXXXXX

What about Grandma, you ask? Well, Sal had been all set to commandeer a corporate flitter from the echoing Globe Studios hangar. Would have done it, too, except Denny Caruthers came panting over to join her.

"Mrs. Tracy," he gasped, having jogged all the way from the tech centre. "I... I'm supposed to fly you... out... out to the contest site, Ma'am!"

Sal scowled at the rumpled and sweaty young man, whose dark eyes were filled with sly hope. Trust him, or not? That was the question. In her hip pocket, she guarded a folded bit of paper with a pair of numeric pass codes and the words "will work only once" scrawled in red ink.

Grandma Tracy paused, considering. Globe Studios... Melissa Maxton... didn't know about that note, which she'd got off a friendly security guard. Best to save her advantage, she figured. Smiling with gentle innocence Grandma Tracy said,

"Why, thank you, Denny. I'd surely appreciate a lift," and followed him out to a shiny new flitter.

XXXXXXX

As for Alan, Zippy and Frog, they'd stumble-flail-skittered their way further south, out to the Cloud City's public hangar and moth-eaten luxury yachts. Resisting the urge to gawk and caress all of that worn vintage awesomeness, they chose a scarlet, mostly whole X-50 Thunderbolt. Five minutes later, they'd boosted their ride. Yeah. Good times.