Gordon & Alan + Misaimed Blame

"Just bringing up the last few up, Thunderbird 2," Gordon informed their older brother.

"FAB, Gordon. Standing by."

At Virgil's confirmation, Gordon swam back over to where Alan was gathering the last of the workers and directing them towards the exit the two of them had marked.

"Everything set?" Gordon asked his other brother who had accompanied him on this rescue.

"Yep." Alan nodded and gestured to the remaining group of people still in the flooded building. "Everyone's got their helmets on and I made sure they were all secure."

Gordon smiled proudly at his only younger brother. He knew he could rely on him to get them all ready whilst Gordon had headed up with the last group.

"Good. Then let's get out of here."

Gordon then turned to the workers who were waiting on them two to get them out of there.

"Alright. I need all of you to follow us out of here." The workers all turned to Gordon and listened intently whilst he spoke. "We're going to head out along the corridor and swim up the elevator shaft until we reach the top level. It's less flooded up there."

"It'll be easier once we're up there," Alan continued for him. "Our brother will be waiting for us at the entrance."

Once the workers had confirmed they all understood what was happening, they left the room they were in and headed out of the facility.

As the group swam through the hallway, Gordon at the front and Alan at the back, Gordon wondered for not the first time on this rescue why people still insisted on building their facilities underground, on the coast, when all it ever ended in was disaster.

That thought reminded him of another matter, and as he swam along Gordon contacted another brother.

"John, do you have any idea how the facility got flooded yet?"

"Negative," John's voice came through his comm, and Gordon could hear the sigh in his voice as he came to another dead end. "There haven't been any earthquakes nearby and there doesn't seem to have been any weak points in the structure before it flooded. By all accounts, it should have stayed intact."

"That's strange. Do you think there could be any other reasons as to why it flooded?"

"Well, there is one more." John paused briefly before he explained further. "It could have been done deliberately."

Gordon frowned at those words and cast an uneasy glance to the rest of the workers behind them.

"Why would someone do that?" He asked John, but with a quieter voice than before now that there was a possibility that there could be someone dangerous around them.

"Beats me, but I'll see if I can find anything that could help."

"FAB."

At that moment, they reached the elevator, and Gordon knew he needed to now concentrate on helping everyone up the elevator shaft.

"I've got to go," he told John. "We can talk more about this later."

"FAB. I'll let Virgil know, just in case," John signed off, but those words left Gordon with a sense of urgency.

If someone did purposely flood the facility, then they could still be around, and that meant they could have been in one of the groups Gordon had helped up earlier. Which meant that there was a chance that Virgil had been left alone with them. Gordon didn't like to think of what would happen if that were the case, so he didn't want to stick around here for long.

As Gordon swam into the flooded elevator shaft, he twisted around to face the workers who had been following closely behind him. The ones at the front were looking at the shaft worriedly.

"All you have to do is swim up. I'll be at the top and will help you out of the water when you get to it. My brother will be down here in case you need help."

At their nods, Gordon swam up the elevator shaft.

The elevator car itself was sat at the top of the shaft, unusable and immobile after the water had malfunctioned the electronics of it. Alan and Gordon had cut a hole through the bottom of it to drop through into the water and climb back through to the top level of the facility.

When Gordon had reached the top, he pulled himself through the hole and out of the water.

The flooding had only just reached this level. There was barely a couple of inches of water on the ground here, which meant that if there weren't any hiccups, then they would get the rest of the workers out of here before this whole place was flooded.

Once Gordon was standing in the elevator, he looked back down the hole and could already see the first of the workers heading towards the surface.

A moment later, a head broke free of the surface and arms reached out to find purchase on the elevator floor.

Gordon helped pull the person out of the water, and once they were also standing, he directed them out of the building.

"Just follow the hallway to the right, where the exit is. My brother will be waiting there," he explained with a smile.

The person gave him a grateful smile in return, and then left with his instructions.

Gordon continued like that. After each person he helped up through the hole, he directed them away. Now that they were on the top floor and so close to the exit, it was safe enough to send them off without worrying that something would happen to them. It also meant that they could get them all out quickly in case the situation got worse.

The last of the workers that Gordon had to pull through was a man, and after Gordon sent him on his way, he turned back to the hole where Alan was just emerging.

"Is that everyone?" Gordon asked his brother as he helped him to stand. In the time it took to get all the workers up to the surface, the water was already up to their shins.

"Yep!" Alan nodded. "I counted them all. There's no one left."

"Good job. Let's get out of here, then."

They both turned to head down the same route they'd directed the workers down, but then stopped short as they noticed the last man they'd helped out of the water still standing there, watching them.

"Are you alright?" Gordon asked, concerned that maybe he'd missed an injury or something and this man needed their help.

"No," was all the man said.

"Are you hurt?" Alan had the same thought as him, and he took a step closer to the man.

"I'm not, but they were." Gordon didn't miss the way the man clenched his hands at his side as his gaze flickered away briefly.

"Who?" Alan looked to Gordon in confusion, but Gordon had no idea what the man was saying either. Maybe he meant another one of the workers? But they all had appeared to be fine, and none of them admitted to having an injury when asked.

"It's all your fault," the man ignored their question. His gaze had moved back towards them and his eyes locked with theirs. Gordon felt a dread building up as he saw the anger that was now appearing on the man's face.

"What?" Gordon slowly stepped in front of Alan, but still a safe distance from the man as he grew more concerned about what this man was saying. He still had no idea what the man was talking about, but he didn't think it was going to lead to anything good.

"They died. They both died and it was all your fault!" The man suddenly moved forward, and the two brothers instinctively took a step back, fully aware of the hole behind them they could fall back down.

The man stopped right at the edge of the elevator doors. He pulled something out of his pocket that Gordon couldn't quite see, but it looked like some sort of small, rectangular device.

"You left them alone to die. So now you will know how that feels."

Before either of them had a chance to question the man further, he ripped open the control unit next to the elevator and shoved the device amongst all the wires. A second later, despite the water damage, the elevator lights sparked to life and the doors began to close.

"Wait!" Gordon cried as he moved to stop the doors from closing, but they shut at a much faster rate than was normal and he had to move out of the way before they squished him between them.

The man disappeared behind the doors and Gordon and Alan were on their own.

Gordon turned to the worried face of his brother, but before he could say something to comfort him, the remaining floor of the elevator began to shake beneath their feet. The walls around them followed suit, and Gordon quickly realised what was about to happen.

"Grab onto something!" He yelled out as he took hold of the metal railing that ran around the walls.

Alan grasped on too, just as the elevator was dropped down the shaft.

As they crashed into the water, Gordon felt his grip being ripped from the railing and he was thrown around the elevator.

When Gordon came to, he was floating. He peeled open his eyes and saw that they were both still in the elevator, but the lights had flickered out again and all they had were the lights on their helmets.

"Alan?" Gordon called out as he spun around in the water.

"I'm here," his brother replied right as Gordon set his eyes on him. He was swimming to move upright as he was also laying at the bottom of the elevator.

"Are you alright?" Gordon reached out to inspect him, but was instead met with a pain in his right arm and he winced.

"I think I am. Are you?" Alan pointed to his arm.

Gordon lifted the appendage and from the pain he felt he suspected that, annoyingly, it was broken. He was wearing his exo-suit, which was supposed to protect him from injuries, at least he thought it did.

Although, the metal plating of his suit was cracked over where he suspected the break was, which made him wonder how bad the injury would be if the suit wasn't there to protect him.

Gordon's gaze left his arm and went back to his brother, who was looking around the elevator.

"Think there's a way out of here?" Gordon asked him. He also had a look around, but it didn't look too promising.

The doors were still shut, and with the power now shut down again, they wouldn't be able to get them open without prying them open.

"Not unless we cut another hole in the roof," Alan said as he moved away from the doors, just to check that they really were unusable.

At those words, Gordon instinctively lifted his arm to use the built-in plasma cutter, but immediately saw the problem.

The laser was on his right arm. Not only would it hurt too much to attempt to cut a hole through the roof, the laser didn't even work anymore anyway. His suit was split right over the controls.

"That doesn't seem likely." Gordon looked back up to his brother guiltily. Alan's suit didn't have a plasma cutter, which mean that Gordon's would have been their only way out of here.

Behind the plexiglass of his helmet, Gordon saw his little brother frown. He swam over to Gordon and gently took his arm in his hands.

"Hopefully, our comms still work." Alan let go of his arm once he'd looked at it, and he lifted his watch. "Virg? Are you there?"

Virgil's hologram appeared between them, and he looked at each of them with both confusion and relief.

"Where are you two? The rest of the workers came up and said you were right behind them. What happened?"

"We got into a bit of an issue." 'A bit' was an understatement on Alan's part. "One of the workers sabotaged the lift and now we're stuck at the bottom of the shaft."

"What? Are you alright?" Virgil's eyes darted between them as he tried to assess them for injuries.

"Gordon broke his arm, but other than that we're fine." Gordon glared at his betrayal of letting their big brother in on his injury, but Alan ignored him. "We can't get back up, though."

"Alright, but it'll take a bit of time as I don't have my underwater suit." Gordon could already tell that Virgil was hurrying back to Thunderbird 2. "Maybe I can put together a pod, but I'll need to drill into the building as it's not gonna just fit through the door."

Suddenly, there was an alarm beeping on Alan's watch, and Virgil's hologram disappeared and was replaced by a warning. It displayed the levels of oxygen that was in his tank, and it was quickly dropping from the green to the red.

Alan's wide eyes met his, and Gordon was quickly swimming around to the back of Alan's suit, ignoring the pain that wanted to make itself known in his arm.

Gordon's eyes quickly tracked over the metal plating on his tank, and soon found the problem. There was a small crack, almost unnoticeable if you weren't looking for it. Tiny bubbles of air were escaping, and although it didn't seem to be a big leak, it had already taken them a while to notice it. Plus, the readings from Alan's suit showed them that they didn't have long before his level of oxygen was critical.

"We don't have time for that, Virgil." Gordon swam back around to face Alan's watch, where Virgil's hologram had reappeared. "Alan's suit has a leak and we have nothing here to fix it. We're going to have to find our own way back to the surface."

Virgil stilled in his movements as he was in the middle of putting together a pod.

"I thought you said you were trapped? How are you going to get out?"

Alan quickly pulled up the map and began to track down another route out of the building.

"There's a staircase that we can swim up. The path looks clear, so we should be able to get up to the surface with no problem." Alan failed to mention the problem of running out of air on the way, but Gordon didn't want to bring it up. He could already hear the shake in Alan's voice as he spoke.

"But that's on the other side of the building!" Virgil evidently had pulled up a visual of the map as well. "Are you sure that will be quicker?"

"It's better than just sitting around." Gordon turned his back to his older brother and positioned himself in front of the doors. It may have been a better idea to wait, but Gordon didn't want to risk his little brother's life by not trying to help in some way. "Al, help me pry these doors open."

Alan came over to him and together they worked to push the doors open. It was hard work and Alan did most of it. It wasn't exactly easy to push open a heavy, metal door when you only had one arm to use, but eventually they managed to get the door open just wide enough to slip through.

Gordon swam through first and Alan followed right behind him. After they had informed Virgil that they were moving, despite his concerns he voiced, they quickly headed off on their way out.

Gordon swam as fast as he could, but his arm made it difficult to match the speed he usually reached. Alan wasn't as good as a swimmer as Gordon was, which meant he hung behind slightly, even with Gordon's reduced speed.

Gordon constantly kept one eye on his brother to make sure that he was still following, but before they had even reached the stairwell, Alan's movements were already slower and more sluggish.

When they made it to the stairs, Gordon grasped hold of Alan's arm and pulled him along as he knew Alan could no longer make it all the way on his own. There were several floors that they had to make it up, and going up the stairs was not as straightforward as the elevator shaft.

The staircases were built in a U shape, which meant that Gordon had to keep twisting around and changing the direction he was swimming in, rather than just going straight up. This was made harder by the fact that Alan was quickly becoming a dead weight on his arm, and he had to pull his brother up along with him and compensate for two people swimming.

It felt like an eternity until Gordon finally broke the top level, which was now just as flooded as the rest of the facility. Alan had stopped kicking a whole floor earlier, and the exertion and pain, along with the worry for his brother, had Gordon panting for breath. He had to stop as soon as they reached the top steps, but he used the short break to check on his brother.

Alan's face looked pale past his helmet and Gordon wasn't too sure if he was still breathing. He lifted his brother's watch, and the display of his oxygen levels were less than comforting.

It said that there was less than a minute of air left in the tank, and Gordon knew he had to make a decision.

Both his and Alan's tanks were the same. They could very easily be switched out with each other and attached onto the other's suit. The only difference in them was the choice of colour.

After years of training and swimming, Gordon knew he could hold his breath for much longer than any of his brothers. There wasn't far to go now until they reached the exit, and Gordon only had to hope that it was close enough.

He quickly did some mental maths. On a good day, Gordon could hold his breath for almost ten minutes. But that was when he was sat still at the bottom of the pool and all his energy was on not sucking in a breath too soon.

This was different. He would be swimming and using up more energy, and so his need for oxygen would be cut much shorter, possibly only to a few minutes. If he swam fast, Gordon reckoned he could make it back in about six minutes, but that didn't count in the factors of dragging Alan along and his broken arm.

He would just have to leave this down to chance.

He started holding his breath only a few moments after he detached his tank from his back. There was still a bit of fresh oxygen in his helmet, but he didn't want to risk it.

Gordon took Alan's off his back too, and he quickly realised he'd forgotten about how this part would be hard with only one functional arm. Nevertheless, he got his tank attached to Alan in just a few seconds.

As soon as he was sure his brother was getting oxygen again, he was moving again.

With one arm wrapped around Alan's waist he knew he couldn't let his injury slow him down. He swallowed the pain and allowed his arm to help push him and Alan through the water.

It was much slower work than he would have liked, and he was an idiot for previously thinking that the stairs were the hard part of this journey.

His head started to pound and his lungs were screaming at him for air, but he had to force himself to keep moving. At some point, his vision started to go black around the edges, but he kept his eyes on the end of the hallway, where he knew the exit was. So close now.

He kept his legs kicking behind him despite the fact that they felt like lead. Even though he knew he was moving too slow, as long as he kept moving was enough.

Leading up to the exit door was another set of stairs, only one level high to lead out above ground. Gordon hadn't even realised he'd reached them until he swam straight into them.

He used the steps to pull Alan and him through the water, now that his limbs felt too heavy to move. The water helped lift them up the staircase, and suddenly they broke out into the air.

The water had only reached halfway up the stairs, so Gordon slumped down on the first steps that were still free from the flood, with Alan next to him.

Gordon was acutely aware of the need to take off his helmet and breathe in the fresh air, but his arms were unresponsive.

Thankfully, he didn't need to because there was suddenly someone there doing it for him.

The rush of air was both amazing and all too much. He choked on the oxygen that rushed too quickly into his lungs and it made his head spin.

He didn't know if he had passed out, but without realising he'd moved, he was suddenly looking up at the ceiling of Thunderbird 2's infirmary.

His gaze moved around the room until it settled on the other bed in the room.

Alan was laying on it, his eyes still closed and an oxygen mask over his face. Virgil was standing over him with his back to Gordon, but he seemed to feel eyes on him as he spun around.

"Hey." Virgil came to stand next to his bed, and he had a relieved look on his face. "How're you feeling?"

Gordon didn't even know where to start. His lungs still felt like they were on fire even with the oxygen mask he also had on, and his head was pounding and making him dizzy. But he didn't know what could be done about that right now, so he focused on something else.

"Arm 'urts."

"Sorry, I was just about to look at that. I just wanted to check on Alan first."

"How is he?" Gordon's eyes drifted back to their littlest brother as Virgil moved away to get some things for his arm.

"Actually pretty good, thanks to you." Virgil reappeared with his supplies and gently lifted Gordon's arm from the bed. "Although it was kind of reckless to swap oxygen tanks."

"Woulda done it again." Despite saying that, Gordon would happily avoid holding his breath for that long under those conditions for the rest of time.

Gordon winced as Virgil started to remove the suit around his injured arm, and Virgil muttered an apology. To distract himself from the pain, his looked back over at Alan.

"He really is okay?" Alan looked as if he could just be sleeping, but Gordon knew what the effects were of going without oxygen for a certain amount of time. He didn't know how long it was before Gordon had managed to connect his tank to his suit.

"Yep. I might need to run some more tests, on both of you." He gave Gordon a pointed look, and Gordon did feel a little guilty that he made his own condition worse to help Alan. "But he should be back to normal in a few days. You, on the other hand, will have to deal with this broken arm for a while."

Gordon grimaced as he knew how he was now going to be grounded, but then his mind went to the man who caused all of this.

"That man, the one who tampered with the elevator, he said he did it because someone died. That we were to blame. Do you know who he was?"

Virgil's brow creased and he stopped in his movements to take in Gordon's words.

"He said that?" He asked, and Gordon nodded in confirmation. "Hold on."

Virgil moved over to the holoprojecter in the corner of the medbay, and a moment later John appeared.

"John, Gordon says that the worker who did this blames us for something. Could you find out what it is?"

"Do you remember what he looked like?" The question was directed at Gordon, and he had to wrack his brain through the fuzz that the lack of oxygen had left behind to remember.

"Uh, dark hair with a beard. Tanned, pretty tall." Gordon knew that that description was pretty generic, but it had been hard to take a lot in when the best look he got at the guy was when he was about to try and kill him.

John's gaze moved to something outside of the hologram and Gordon assumed he was looking at a list of all the employees of the facility.

"Is this him?" John asked just a couple of minutes later, and a photo of a man appeared. The same man that had sent Gordon and Alan down that elevator shaft.

Gordon couldn't find it in him to reply, so he just gave them a shaky nod.

"I don't recognise him. Has been involved on one of our rescues before, John?"

"I don't think so, Virgil. Just give me a moment to look into it."

John went quiet again and Virgil went back to splinting up Gordon's arm. Just as Virgil finished up, John finally spoke. He made a quiet noise and Gordon's concern about the situation grew.

"Oh."

"What?" Virgil gently laid Gordon's newly splinted arm back down and he faced John again. "Did you find something?"

"Yeah. He had a wife, and a child."

The way he phrased that one sentence sent Gordon's heart to his throat.

"Had?" He didn't mean for his voice to come out so shaky.

"Apparently they all went to vacation together last May, in Taiwan."

Gordon's stomach dropped as he knew when, or rather what he was referring to.

"The earthquake?" Virgil voiced just what he was thinking. "But all those people who- who died were gone before we'd even arrived. We saved everyone we could."

That had been a difficult rescue. Even with all of them working tirelessly for days clearing the wreckage, so many lives had been lost. But Virgil was right, after they had arrived, any remaining survivors were saved. Those deaths were not their fault, and it had taken them all a while to come to terms with that. But it seemed that not everyone knew that.

"So, he was the one who flooded the facility? To lead us here?" Gordon couldn't help but look over at Alan again. "To hurt us."

"Grief effects people in different ways. Maybe he thought that he would feel better."

"Where is he now?" Gordon's eyes flickered back to Virgil.

"With the other workers, on their way to the hospital to be checked over." Virgil then stood up straight and Gordon could hear him take a deep breath. "John, contact the hospital and make sure he gets the help me needs."

John nodded and then his hologram disappeared. Virgil turned away briefly and then was back at Gordon's side.

"Take these." He held out two pills and a small cup of water. "They'll help with the pain."

Gordon took the pills with his free hand and washed them down with the water, once the mask was removed. Virgil took the empty cup from him when he was done.

"I'll put a proper cast on it once we're back at the island. But right now, I'm going to go and start the landing procedure."

"We're home already?" Gordon hadn't even been too sure that they were in the air yet.

"Almost." Virgil smiled and he ran his hand through Gordon's hair. "Go to sleep if you want."

"Wha-?" Gordon hadn't even felt sleepy, but now that the pain in his arm was starting to go numb, his whole body was going with it. His eyelids felt heavy, and it was starting to get harder to keep them open. He was beginning to wonder what those pills really were that Virgil gave him.

"Once you wake up your arm will be all better. And Alan might be awake too."

That did sound appealing, which was why he allowed his eyes to close all the way and give in to sleep.

He heard Virgil make his way back to the cockpit and then felt the rumbles beneath him as Thunderbird 2 started to land, but he was out before the struts had reached the ground.