Being the Eye in the Sky had many benefits. Many, many benefits. First and foremost was the no interaction with people. Of course, that didn't apply to his brothers, even though he was aware that he didn't spend as much time as he would like with them.
What absolutely sucked about being the Eye though, was when a rescue went wrong. It meant that he was too far away to be practical. Oh sure, he helped with readouts, with the technical bits and pieces. But the one thing he couldn't do was be there and help save them.
It had been a nightmare rescue from the start. He'd been given incorrect information from the get-go. The number of people needing to be rescued, the plans for the building that didn't match the actual building, safeguards signed off that were simply not there…John had instructed EOS to hunt down the architect and the builder as well as the owner. He would be looking into these soon…In the meantime, thank goodness for EOS and Five's scanners.
And then Virgil jumped in front of Gordon and everything changed. John may have yelled.
'EOS, prep the elevator, I'll be leaving shortly.' EOS' lights signalled her agreement. John was talking to Scott, telling him what had happened. Thankfully he was already on his way. John wouldn't leave Five until Scott arrived and everything was in place. While he was waiting he got onto the hospital, arranging the usual private rooms, and arranging with Grandma for Kayo to drop off the equipment he would need to monitor Virgil while he was in so John could drop the elevator straight at the hospital. It would mean paying for new grounds – again – but they were used to that. He booked the usual hotel across the road.
Gordon and Scott managed to free Virgil and get him into Two, while John and EOS remote-piloted One home so Scott was free to concentrate on his fallen brother. John landed less than five minutes after Two and was reassured to find the equipment he needed already waiting in the room. Bless Kayo and the speed of Shadow.
Scott and Gordon had stayed long enough to see that he was present and busy, then Scott steered the fish out. Probably going for a drink and something to eat; knowing them two Gordon needed fuel and Scott was going to ensure he got it. It also gave John the time he needed to tweak the machinery Virgil would be hooked up to so that Grandma – and he – could keep tabs.
He was finishing off when his brothers returned, and without looking up he said, 'I assume you sorted him out, Scott. A mopey Squid is not a fun squid at all.' There was a quiet sound as one of them sat down, probably Gordon, and then Gordon drawled, 'aww, John, I didn't know you cared.' It might be a little forced, but it made John smile, and he could hear the lighter note in his brother's voice too. He packed the remaining equipment into the holdall.
Once he was done there was nothing to do but wait for Virgil to be wheeled in. They didn't talk to each other, but the silence was not awkward, rather it was the silence of having been through this song and dance before, a bitter reminder that the job they had chosen to give their lives to was not the safest by far.
Not that they would do anything else.
Eventually his injured brother was wheeled in, and John ignored the pointed looks from the hospital staff. They were well used to his fiddling with equipment and knew that he wouldn't damage anything, but that didn't mean they were happy with it. Tough.
Scott took his usual bedside vigil, so John grabbed his bag and shepherded Gordon out of the room after the aquanaut had seen Virgil, and across the road to the hotel. Once inside the suite, he nudged Gordon in the direction of a bedroom while he began to set up the equipment he'd brought with him so they could monitor Virgil from here as well.
He was pretty sure that Gordon wouldn't sleep just yet, but seeing the state he was in, John was sure that he would at least shower, so John took the opportunity to grab a quick one too once the equipment was fully set up. He finished first so took the opportunity to order a proper meal, which was burger and fries, a speciality this hotel did particularly well. Gordon joined him just after the meal arrived.
Knowing Scott wouldn't be moved from Virgil just yet, and the two cocooned themselves in the large living room. John connected the last wire, and they sat together, wrapped up in one of the king-size quilts and waited.
They didn't have long to wait for the doctor to appear, and they listened together as he reeled off a short list of injuries and stated that Virgil would likely be unconscious for a couple of days.
It was a long couple of days. John alternated between making sure Gordon and Alan ate and slept while he simultaneously tried to get Scott to do the same, and he delved into the backgrounds of the people responsible for this. Grandma couldn't be there as she had a severe cold , and that upset her very much. Everyone knew Virgil was her favourite, even though they wouldn't call her out on it, she loved them all too much.
On the evening of the second day EOS contacted them with a potential rescue. Some climbers had got stuck on a mountain and a weather front was moving in quicker than the usual rescue team could reach them. John cast an eye over his youngest brothers and decided a distraction would work wonders for them both.
He listened in over the comms. It was a straightforward rescue, but he could tell they were both distracted, and he heard the expletive that heralded Alan's snigger. Nothing was said, but they didn't need to when he was monitoring both them and Two, and he could see the damage done. It was only a minor scratch, and he smiled at the slip in Gordon's language. Even though Scott hadn't said anything, John was well aware their big brother would also be listening in, never one to sit a rescue out even if he wasn't involved.
Once the boys were back the three once more lounged about listening to Virgil's heart monitor. Alan didn't stay long before retiring, and Gordon eventually drifted off. Good, John thought, they both needed their sleep, and he covered Gordon up better with the quilt and retired himself for some sleep.
John didn't get much sleep himself, watching the cameras he'd set up. He was becoming concerned about the lack of sleep Scott was getting, and around 1am he decided he needed to do something when Virgil's monitor momentarily blipped. Calling down to room service to provide a continental breakfast and fresh coffee for around 8am, he grabbed his tablet and set off, snagging some danishes from the 24-hour bar service and two takeaway coffees that would be better than the hospital stuff.
He startled Scott awake, although the man couldn't have been asleep for longer than ten minutes, and he passed him the treats he'd brought with him. Scott took the hint and retired to the chair at the foot of the bed, munching and drinking automatically. John could see how exhausted his brother was, and he brought out his secret weapon. As Scott settled, John began to quietly read.
"Observations of Jupiter's gravity field by Juno have revealed surprisingly low values for the high-order gravitational moments, considering the abundances of heavy elements measured by Galileo 20 years ago. The derivation of recent equations of state for hydrogen and helium, which are much denser in the megabar region, exacerbates the conflict between these two observations. In order to circumvent this puzzle, current Jupiter model studies either ignore the constraint from Galileo or invoke an ad hoc modification of the equations of state. In this paper, we derive Jupiter models that satisfy constraints of both Juno and Galileo. We confirm that Jupiter's structure must encompass at least four different regions: an outer convective envelope, a region of compositional and thus entropy change, an inner convective envelope, an extended diluted core enriched in heavy elements, and potentially a central compact core.
We show that in order to reproduce Juno and Galileo observations, one needs a significant entropy increase between the outer and inner envelopes and a lower density than for an isentropic profile, which is associated with some external differential rotation. The best way to fulfil this latter condition is an inward-decreasing abundance of heavy elements in this region. We examine in detail the three physical mechanisms that can yield such a change of entropy and composition: a first-order molecular-metallic hydrogen transition, immiscibility between hydrogen and helium, or a region of layered convection. Given our present knowledge of hydrogen pressure ionization, a combination of the two latter mechanisms seems to be the most favoured solution."
It worked as it always did, and by the time he was half a chapter in Scott had fallen asleep. It didn't stop John reading aloud, he loved to do this and seldom got the opportunity, but after a couple of hours he felt the tiredness creeping up, so he folded his arms on the bed and rested his head on them and fell asleep.
He was woken up some time later by a humming Gordon, and he was happy to see it was a healthy hour to be awake. John registered that his chair had moved, and he smiled, Gordon was thoughtful most of the time. He must have woken up at the same time as Scott, for he was also stretching out the kinks from the awkward position he'd been asleep in. As Scott stood to swap seats with John, John acted quickly, grabbing his brother's arm and hauling him out of the room for breakfast at Gordon's suggestion.
Scott was obviously still half asleep, otherwise John wouldn't have had a hope in shifting him, but he seemed to come to as they reached the public restaurant. There was Alan, already sitting at a table with an empty plate of something, and it didn't take long to grab a bacon bagel for Scott and a small oatmeal for himself and two very large cups of coffee. Returning to the table, he looked fondly at his eldest and youngest brothers, Alan leaning heavily into Scott's side while Scott had hooked his arm around Alan's waist. Alan left them to it, and they ate in silence, John knowing full well that Scott was desperate to get back.
As they walked back, EOS was murmuring in his ear about changes in Virgil's stats, and John grinned, knowing what that meant. So it came as no surprise when the doctor bustled in shortly after they had returned. Scott had deposed Alan, and the two youngest were both perched on the one chair. They ignored the doctor's pointed glares and eventually the man gave up, turning to Scott and explaining that their brother was waking up.
John took the hint, though, and he ushered both brothers out. They didn't want to overwhelm Virgil, EOS would keep him informed. So the three camped out in the private waiting room, where John, to take their minds off what was happening, asked what he should do to the people responsible. Of course, he already had set things in motion for one of TI's subsidiary companies to buy out all three businesses involved, but it was fun listening to the outlandish, and quite impossible, suggestions the two came up with.
John's face lit up. Both Gordon and Alan knew what that grin was about, and they reflected it.
Virgil was awake. John was exospheric.
Quote taken from: New Models of Jupiter in the Context of Juno and Galileo, from The Astrophysical Journal