"Hello world," Scott said, smiling into the camera. He wasn't holding it, so that meant that it was either Mini Max or Brains' new micro drone doing the filming, as it was obvious he was alone. "Welcome to Tracy Industry Headquarters," he said, although he was standing in what looked like a parking garage, leaning up against his blue thunderbird.

"Kayo's out shopping with Penny," Scott said, straightening and heading towards the elevator. "They're filming a video of it, so they probably aren't going to mention that they're also looking for wedding dresses." He shot the camera a grin. "Not that anyone will come up with an actual date for the wedding."

The inside of the elevator was simple, but elegant. It only went to the ground floor, as the parking was underground. "Many of you have had questions about TI, so I figured, since I'm here I might as well answer them," Scott said, waiting as the elevator hummed into life. "So, everyone who enters the building has to check in with reception, including me and my brothers. This allows us to know who's in the building at all times." He shrugged into the camera. "It's the same at every TI building."

He stepped out of the elevator and into the reception hall of the first floor. The building was one of the taller ones in New York, not the tallest, but it was a good-sized building. And it was very modern in design, all glass and wood and metal, much like the Tracy Villa actually. Many wondered just who had designed the buildings in the first place, for them to be so similar and so strikingly beautiful.

The reception area was a large open space. The entirety of the ground floor was basically just reception, although there was a café in one back corner, and a set of restrooms in the other. A massive circular desk took up the center of the room, with four different receptions seated inside, answering phones and helping people. There were check-in kiosks at that desk as well, automated so that the receptionists didn't have to help those who were coming in for work.

"You need a keycard to get into any floor of the building other than this one," Scott explained as he headed for the desk. "And the doors and elevators won't open for that keycard unless you check in." He glanced at the camera, giving a grin. "We Tracys have another check in on the roof that's only keyed to us, if we fly in. We had this building specifically made to be able to handle Thunderbird Two landing on the roof if needed. Most of our other buildings can accommodate Thunderbird One, though."

He pulled a card from his pocket, the slim piece of plastic attached to his belt via a thin cord. Probably so he didn't lose it. From the look of those few people wandering around, most people had their keycards attached to them in some sort of way. Most seemed to have gone the pocket chain route, like Scott, although some had them on lanyards around their neck. Others had the cards pinned to their shirts. One person seemed to have fashioned it into a bit of a bulky bracelet. A swipe of the card into one of the kiosks and the entering of a passcode, and Scott was checked in. (They'd taken the time to blur out the passcode, of course.)

"Morning, Ryan," Scott said to the receptionist closest to him. "How's it going?"

The man, a pale skinned fellow with a face full of freckles and a shock of bright blue hair, grinned up at him. "Hey there Mr. Scott!" he said happily. "Everything's good here." He looked past Scott to wave at the camera. "Giving the world an inside view of TI HQ?" he asked.

"Yup," Scott said with an answering grin. Ryan's exuberance was catching and was one of the reasons why he was such a good receptionist. "World, say hello to Ryan Banner, one of our daytime receptionists."

"Hello world," Ryan said with a smile. He focused on the camera for a moment, after getting a nod from Scott. "There are four daytime receptionists here, and two nighttime ones. It's probably the best job I've ever had, and I don't ever want to leave."

"That's good," Scott replied. "Because you're wonderful at this job. Although, I still think you could do amazing things in the HR department too."

Ryan shook his head, his wide green eyes staring up at Scott. "I'm a receptionist at heart, Mr. Scott. I live to…recept?"

Scott laughed. "Sure. Any news that I need to know about? You guys tend to get the best gossip."

"Just that something's going down in R&D," Ryan shrugged. "Carly could probably tell you more about that, actually."

Scott frowned. "Carly's supposed to be on leave," he said.

A laugh broke out from one of the other receptionists, and she spun in her chair to face them. "Ha! Like you'll ever get Carly to stop working!" she said with an amused grin. "She's a lot like you in that aspect, Mr. Scott."

"Thanks Teagan," Scott said, rolling his eyes. "I'll have a word with her." Teagan flipped her dark braids over her shoulder, her chocolate eyes shining with mirth at that thought and Scott shook his head in amusement. "Not that I can get her to listen," he admitted ruefully.

"If you can, you're more of a miracle worker than we thought," Teagan chirped.

"World, this is Teagan Danfurth, another one of our wonderful receptionists here," Scott introduced and she waved at the camera. The other two were still answering phone calls, but they waved as well when Scott pointed them out. "Clarice Richmond, and Han Lee," he said, motioning to the other man and woman respectively. "I'd better get upstairs then." He waved goodbye to the four, and made his way to the elevator bank, located behind the rather impressive glass and metal staircase that dominated the space directly behind the receptionist desk.

"So, as Ryan said, we have four daytime receptionists and two nighttime ones. This office usually closes officially at nine pm, but because it's the headquarters, we have to keep a few people on staff to field phone calls from around the world. Mary and Orson Webb are our two nighttime receptionists. They got married three years ago and are currently expecting their first through adoption," Scott explained absently as he waited for the elevator to take him to the seventy-nineth floor.

The elevator was pretty much the same as the first one he'd been in, if a little bigger. This one also had a lot more buttons, and those buttons seemed to be color coordinated. There were ten rows of buttons, the middle most having ten buttons each. The bottom row just had 4 buttons, reading Parking 1, Parking 2, Security, and Reception. The top row only held one button, reading Apartments. "Red for marketing," Scott explained as the camera focused on the buttons. The yellow section covered the first row of buttons, making up the first ten floors.

"Pink for Purchasing slash Supply," Scott said, moving up to the next row of buttons. "Green for Research and Development." The green buttons actually covered two rows of buttons, taking up twenty floors. "Purple for production," another ten floors worth of one row of buttons. "Yellow for HR, Orange for Accounting and Finance, and Blue for Legal." Those last three were each a separate row of ten floors each as well.

The elevator dinged its arrival and opened into a rather open space. "So, my office is at the top of the Legal department. There are a few offices up here, but most of Legal is on the floors below." A large reception desk was in the middle of the space, blocking a big dark door. There were two other doors leading to a couple different rooms. There was a large glass wall, showing a huge conference table surrounded by chairs with a large projection screen behind the head of the table. But Scott was focused on the lady behind the reception desk. "Carly Overton! You're supposed to be on leave for the next three months, at least!" he stated loudly.

The lady jumped a little, blinking up at him with large amber eyes. Her hair, a mass of red curls that seemed to defy gravity, bounced a bit, and she rolled her eyes. "Mr. Scott, I'm pregnant, not invalid," she drawled with plenty of good humor.

"You're due in two weeks, Carly," Scott responded, and Carly pushed herself to her feet, waddling over to a filing cabinet behind her desk to place something inside. "I'm pretty sure we've talked about this before."

"I was bored, Mr. Scott," Carly said, a faint Irish tilt to her words. "I was at home sitting on my laurels not doing a darn thing and was getting stir crazy. I swear my good husband was about ready to strangle me." She shrugged, lips twisting into a wry grin as her hand rubbed over her massive belly. "I had to come to work for my own good, you see."

Scott rolled his eyes. "Carly, if you're that desperate for something to do, you can take some of your work home with you," he conceded. "But not all of it. You're supposed to be resting. Twins aren't going to be easy."

Carly laughed. "Oh no worries, Mr. Scott. I'm not worried about after the babes are due, I'm just worried about being bored now." She sighed, staring up at him. "Fine. I'll handle stuff from my couch. You have two meetings scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. They're in your calendar. And Mr. Morimoto is waiting for your call back from TI Japan. Accounting is squared away as John demanded it be. And Marketing is about ready to roll out the new ads for the TiePhone 7. Is there anything you need right now?" she asked, pulling her bag over to her and starting to pack things away.

"No, you're just as efficient as always," Scott replied. "Now go home and get off your feet." She gave a huff but Scott leaned over the desk and gave her a peck on the cheek. "Let me know when those babies are born. I want pictures."

She rolled her eyes fondly and waved him away. Scott grinned and entered the door behind her desk, showing off a large office with an impressive view of the city outside the wall of windows. Scott's desk was a massive mahogany affair with a matching wall of bookcases behind it, filled with files, books and odds and ends. There was a computer on the desk, of course, and a nice leather desk chair. In front of the desk were two large armchairs.

Scott moved around to the desk chair and sat himself down, leaning his elbows on the desk and looking straight at the camera. "Okay, to continue on with the 'tour'," he said, complete with finger quotes. "Each department has about ten floors, except for R&D, which has twenty. One floor out of all of those has a cafeteria and break room, as well as the maintenance and janitorial areas. Your keycard only allows you onto the floors you're colored for. It's a security thing. The top floor has our 'penthouse' and three other small two-bedroom apartments that are used for visiting investors or TI members."

Scott paused, leaning back in his chair and pulling out his phone. "Now, we had someone compile all the questions you guys had about our business and I'm going to answer some of those," he commented, twisting the chair back and forth a bit. He blinked and then frowned. "Shoot. I forgot to ask Carly about R&D."

There was a moment where he obviously thought about tracking her down again but then he shrugged it off, rolling his eyes. "I'll undoubtedly figure it out later," he murmured. "Okay, question number one. How much is the starting wage at TI?"

Scott shrugged a little, running a hand through his hair. "That actually depends on where you're hired, and what you're doing," he said. "Everyone who works here has at least a decent living wage for the city they're hired in. I think here in New York, starting for college interns is usually around forty-five thousand. It goes up from there. Although high-school interns only make about twenty-thousand." He shrugged again. "It really depends on the department, your level, and where you're living at the time."

He glanced at his phone. "Which leads to the next question, how many TI buildings are there?"

Scott took a deep breath, not even wincing, which showed that he really was healing up well after being shot. It seemed like so long ago but had hadn't even been two months. "There's this building, which is our international Headquarters. So, this is TI HQ. The building in Kansas is referred to as TI Home Base or TI HB. We have about 250 other locations, varying in size and importance scattered around the globe. Most are named after the city or country they're located in. Our next biggest building is probably the one in Tokyo, which is referred to as TI Japan. And after that…Sydney? TI Sydney. TI Seattle. TI Auckland. We have a lot of places, and there's a lot of jobs to fill. If you think you're qualified, go ahead and search out the nearest one to you.

"Is Alan a high-school intern at TI?" Scott read off, and he tilted his head to one side, looking at his phone. "Not anymore," he answered. "We all started as interns in the company and worked our way up; Dad was super against blatant nepotism and said we had to work to earn a spot here. Alan was an intern up until he turned fifteen and took Legal to task over some fiasco or the other." Scott made a bit of a face. "High school interns can only work fifteen hours a week max. College interns work about twenty-five to thirty. Alan put in three months of forty-hour weeks over that debacle and was therefore officially hired." He turned wide eyes on the camera. "I think we're all lucky that Alan doesn't want to be a lawyer, because he would take the world by storm. And while that could be a good thing, that's a bit too much power for the squirt, I think."

Scott paused in reading off the next question as the computer beeped at him and he glanced at it. Apparently deeming it unimportant, he turned back to the camera. "Do we have offices in each building?"

Scott nodded a bit. "This and TI HB are the only two buildings in which each of us brothers, and Kayo, have our own offices. Mine is up here in Legal, John's is in Accounting, Gordon's is in HR, and Virgil's is in R&D. Alan's floating at the moment, but I think he's currently set up in Marketing. Each of us have our own offices and our own receptionists here at HQ. At HB we have our offices, but our receptionists are the ones that work here, just via telecom. Every other building, we have one large office that the six of us share. For those wondering, Kayo is head of security and has an office down there."

"How do you juggle both TI and IR?" Scott read. He gave a wry grin and a sigh. "Poorly at times, honestly. We mostly work remotely from home. That can make some things difficult. But it helps that all of us are capable of flying out when we need to, and that we have so many buildings. While this is HQ and our second building could arguably be HB, we tend to fly into TI Auckland more often than not, since it's the closest," Scott admitted.

Before Scott could read off the next question, the door to the office banged open, startling the man. "Gordon! What—" The camera turned a bit, still hovering in midair, and caught sight of Gordon, dressed in International Rescue blues, although a bit messy.

"Scooter! Hi!"

"What are you doing here?" Scott asked, getting to his feet with a frown. He edged around his desk to put his hands on Gordon's shoulders, looking him up and down in concern.

"So, you know how I said Virge was probably going to drop into R&D in person?" Gordon asked, sounding a bit frazzled and bouncing on his toes. "Well, hi, we're here. And Virgil's mad. Something about safety concerns and teaching idiots some lessons which means that something is probably gonna go boom."

Scott winced, just a little, his hands gripping Gordon's shoulders a bit tighter. "Okay. But what's got you in such a tizzy? Virgil does this a lot. You know how he and Brains are when it comes to safety."

"Virgil's hurt," Gordon admitted, making an utterly frustrated face. "That bridge pylon tore up his back when it crumbled and he's not listening to me and he's not listening to John." His cognac eyes widened as though he'd never even thought to not listen to John before. "And I found out you were here, so I figured I'd get biggest brother to make big brother sit down for a moment."

"Bridge pylon?" Scott repeated, voice going a bit bland.

Gordon shot him an incredulous look. "You really haven't been watching the coms?"

"I really haven't," Scott said, shaking his head. "Grandma said that if I continued to stress out over missions that you guys were on then I wouldn't be allowed to fly for another month. She and Kayo had John block my access. I can only get involved if one of you call me up."

"Huh," Gordon grunted. He looked thoughtful for a moment and then shook it off. "Right. Well. Virgil?" he asked, grabbing Scott's arm and practically dragging him from the office. The camera dutifully followed, although all the viewers were pretty sure that both men had forgotten about it at this point.

Gordon continued bouncing in the elevator, chewing on his lip, until Scott reached out and grabbed his shoulder again. "Calm down, you're making me anxious. Fill me in on what's going on."

Gordon took a deep breath and let it out slow, calming his twitchy bouncing. "Okay, so one of the people in R&D had a proposal for a car engine," Gordon said, actively focusing on his words. "You know how they've been working on that there. Anyway, Virgil and Brains both pointed out some glaring safety issues and wouldn't sign off on it. This guy decided that Virge didn't have the…uh…authority? I guess? To tell him no and somehow has gone ahead with the project. He said that if Virgil wouldn't even bother to meet in person than he didn't have any say in the project."

Scott frowned deeply, crossing his arms. "Virgil's head of R&D. It definitely doesn't work like that."

"I know that, you know that, practically the whole world knows that," Gordon replied, rolling his eyes. "But this guy has like two doctorates or whatever and sees that Virgil only has a bachelors and has been giving him grief." He huffed a bit. "He's one of Fischler's old guys."

"I thought we vetted all of them."

Gordon nodded, and the elevator finally dinged onto the right floor. "We did. But some of the cess-mess still got in."

Scott nodded, but glanced towards the camera. "Probably shouldn't call them cess-mess on camera, Gords," he said softly.

Gordon blinked. "Didn't realize you were filming," he responded, grabbing Scott's arm and leading him down the hall to a room at the end. This hall wasn't as open as the floor Scott's office had been on, just plain gray hallway with a multitude of doors.

There was a sudden explosion sound coming from the room that they were headed toward, and the two men exchanged looks before breaking into a run. They made it just in time to hear Virgil declare sternly, "And that's what you call a catastrophic failure! That would kill anybody near it!"

"You destroyed my prototype!" another man yelled back, looking absolutely livid. "Do you know how long that's going to take to rebuild?!"

"Frankly I don't care," Virgil replied, shifting on his feet. He was still in full uniform, although missing his baldric. His back was a mess of bloody field dressings, obviously hastily applied and then forgotten about by the large man. "Because you're not going to be building it here."

The other man gaped, his face turning red. "Excuse me? You can't fire me!"

"I just did," Virgil responded icily. "And not only that, but we will be pressing charges. You'll be lucky to be able to do any scientific work for a while, Mr. Cooper."

"That's Doctor!"

"Not for long it's not," Virgil stated blandly. "Denver doesn't like it when their doctoral graduates break laws and forge paperwork, Mr. Cooper. I wouldn't be surprised if they revoke your degree."

"I didn't know about the forgery," Gordon whispered to Scott, just barely picked up by the camera. "Explains how he got others to go along with moving the project forward, though."

The man blustered and raved for a moment before security stepped in and dragged him away. "Legal will be in touch, Mr. Cooper," Virgil said, watching him go before blinking at the sight of his two brothers. "Gordon! Scott!" he said, genuinely surprised to see them there.

"Virgil Grissom Tracy," Scott practically groaned. There were a multitude of people still in the room, all looking pale and shocked and some extremely guilty.

"Don't you middle name me, Scooter," Virgil grumbled, his face paling. He seemed to waver on his feet for a moment and both Scott and Gordon reached out to steady him.

"And you accuse me of pushing too much," Scott snapped, grabbing both Virgil's elbows. "Sit down before you fall down." Virgil's knees decided to give out at the exact moment, and Scott grunted as he took on the weight of his brother. He lowered them both to the ground, Gordon slipping behind, to start checking the bandaging on Virgil's back. At the grimace the younger blond gave, it probably didn't look good.

Virgil groaned, eyes squeezing shut as he leaned forward and rested his forehead on Scott's shoulder. "He was forging my signature, Scotty," he whispered. "Was trying to bypass everyone and get that engine straight into production. He was going to get people killed."

"I get that," Scott responded with a sigh, glancing at Gordon, who had gotten one of the other people—someone he'd called Nicole—in the room to hand him a first aid kit. He cupped the back of Virgil's head with one large hand, keeping it in place on his shoulder as he looked at the injury to his brother's back.

It was blurred out on camera, but Scott's face told all. Virgil's back was a mess, but the long, deep cut running down the length of it was probably the worst part. "That's going to need stitching," he said softly.

Gordon gave a nod, applying new dressings to the wound with what he could find in the first aid kit. "I already did a scan on the way over," he replied, just as soft. "No nerve damage. All superficial, but he's lost a lot of blood."

"Two is on the roof?" Scott asked and Gordon grunted, giving a nod. And it spoke of Virgil's piloting skills that, even when injured, he could land that beast of a 'Bird lightly enough that Scott hadn't noticed two floors down. Also, it said a lot about the building's sound-proofing, because wow. "Go grab a stretcher."

"Can walk," Virgil murmured. The adrenaline was clearly wearing off, and he was sinking further against Scott.

"I'd rather you not," Scott said firmly.

"Hold that there," Gordon said, taking Scott's free hand and pressing it against a dressing at the worst spot of the long cut. He got to his feet, ignoring the blood that painted his hands red, and headed for the door. "I'll be back in a minute."

"How about next time a bridge freaking falls on you, you listen to your brothers and sit the f*** down," Scott murmured into Virgil's ear.

"Was important," Virgil responded, his words a bit slurred. He was practically in Scott's lap at this point, and only half there.

Scott rolled his eyes but held his brother a bit tighter. He looked over at the still smoking prototype of the engine, and at the fifteen or so people milling about. They were the ones that had been working with Cooper, then, however misled they had been. "I want that cleaned up," Scott said firmly, frowning at the group. "And I want each and every one of you to do a complete writeup on how and why it failed." Because they needed to learn that safety was paramount at TI. And that you never, ever cut corners.

There were frantic nods and murmurs of agreement and suddenly they were all scrambling to clean up the mess that Virgil had made in proving his point. Scott gave a nod and looked to the camera with a look that screamed frustration and concern.

And the camera went black.

EverFowardAndBack 9 hours ago
Whoa. When a simple Q and A turns into something intense. Virgil looked about ready to kill someone for a moment there.
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JeffHoldam22 8 hours ago
Dude. TI is organized as ****. Color coding and everything.
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ILoveMyDoggo312 7 hours ago
Do they know the names of like everyone? My dad's a lawyer and he can't even remember the name of his secretary.
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IHaveAKatana 6 hours ago
Dude that whole bridge thing was intense. And he went straight from there to yell at people?! How?!
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LemonTartsForLife 5 hours ago
TI is one of the best companies out there. They treat their employees right, man. No matter who you are or what your job is. Even the janitors love their jobs! I would know, I am one!
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NarniaInMyCloset 4 hours ago
I hope Virgil feels better. Gordon too. He was looking a little frazzled there. Look forward to seeing Scott in action again to. You know what, I hope all of them are doing better!
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Note: My personal head-cannon is that Tracy Industries makes all sorts of aeronautics and electronics and green energy stuff. If it's in any way technical, they make it. However, the Tracy family doesn't like their name to be put on it, per se, and just used TI instead. Like in Avengers with the Starkphone or whatever, it was the TI Phone, but it somehow got turned into Tie via slang. So you have the TiePhone, or the TiePad or what have you. TiePlanes. You know. Just my own thought there.