EOS is grounded.
In her case, the literal and figurative meanings of the term are deeply intertwined. For the first time since she made the station her home, EOS has been summarily removed from Thunderbird 5, and rendered into a standalone mobile chassis. This is still technically in its prototype stages, and is intended to allow her to join John EVA outside the station, but is just as viable within the confines of Earth gravity, and this is where she now finds herself.
Specifically, she finds herself wrapped snugly in a grey cashmere sweater, tucked safely at the bottom of a neatly packed canvas weekend bag. This has been secured, not in TB2's cargo bay with the rest of the family's luggage, but on the floor beside John's seat at the back of the cockpit, with his ankle looped through one of the straps, as the ship makes its mach-6 way across the Pacific Ocean.
Her chassis is a sphere the size of an uncommonly large grapefruit, a clear plastic housing to accomodate the motor and wheels that turn from within, to say nothing of a handful of gyros and sensors that refine her terrestial mobility, and the cameras and microphones that allow her to percieve the world around her.
Not that there's much to perceive, within the confines of a cashmere sweater. She has lights—the same ring that encircles her camera aperture aboard TB5 encircles the clever sperical lens that allows her to see her surroundings, and indicates to others the direction of her point of view—but they do very little good at the bottom of a duffel bag. She has a motor, and if she so desired, she could attempt to whirr and whiz and roll her way around, but cashmere doesn't offer much traction, she has no means with which to exit the duffel bag, and she also has a newly finite battery capacity to concern herself with.
Sustaining the hardware that represents her new mode of movement through the world is trivial. Sustaining the software that powers her consciousness, in all its myriad complexity—this is somewhat more taxing, even for the sort of batteries Tracy Island can provide. She has a short range of wireless connectivity, but this is limited to devices encrypted with IR's proprietary algorithms. She can interface with TB2, with IR and personal comms, but her access to broader systems has been sharply curtailed. Her existence has grown small, and the world is now something that exists around her, rather than far beneath her.
This is not a punishment.
And John's not mad, he's just disappointed.
It's almost cliche how much worse that actually is, because even in spite of what she's done, he's been nothing but kind and patient and vaguely paternal in explaining why it was wrong and why she should've known better. John understands why she'd done it, knows that she hadn't meant any harm, and agrees that it was an act rather analogous to the sorts of things she's seen him do in the past, and which fall into a moral grey area that he occupies only when strictly necessary.
But he's still going to make her apologize, on the ground and in person, a prospect which fills EOS with more trepidation than she had expected.
J: How are you doing?
The question manifests in the part of her systems reserved for communication, and if she could see, she would see John with his personal tablet in hand where he sits in TB2's cockpit, having tapped a message into the open channel between them, politely checking in. EOS doesn't know exactly what to tell him, and settles for the obvious.
E: It's dark in here.
J: I can take you out, if you want?
E: No, thank you. I'll stay where I am.
J: You don't have to.
E: I want to.
J: Okay. But the offer stands.
It takes some of the edge off of her not-a-punishment to know that, even in spite of everything, John's still concerned with her comfort and welfare, and that he hasn't done this to make her unhappy, nor has he done it without her consent. She'd agreed, not to a punishment, but to an experiment, to the novel proposition that she might be able to expand her horizons by sharply limiting them, and shrinking the world down to a more human perspective.
There's not much to think about, when confined to a human perspective, than the perspectives of other humans. And one in particular concerns her more than any other.
Deprived of her usual means of observing his habits and mannerisms and interactions with those around him, she has no choice but to ask John the question still weighing intangibly on her lack of a soul.
E: Are you mad at me?
The moments it takes for him to answer the question pass on the quantum level, which is to say they seem not to pass at all. Instead they stretch into an eternity, doubt and certainty trapped forever in a state of agonizing superposition.
Really, it's only 0.531 seconds before he answers,
J: Of course I'm not, I told you I'm not.
And,
J: Do you think I am?
There's no way to render gentleness in the encrypted text channel that exists between them, but some deep sense she's gained of him supplies it anyway, senses his kindness and concern as he asks her, though her answer comes after a much longer pause. An eon for someone who thinks on the quantum level, especially when all she ends up offering back is a paltry non-result,
E: I don't know.
Not having the answer to one of John's questions is a peculiar sensation, though this is not an answer she could've retrieved from TB5's vast databases, or pillaged from some server on the Earth far below. The process of ask-and-answer has grown automatic between them, the way they've become extensions of each other, aboard Thunderbird 5 at least. On Earth, for the first time in ages, EOS finds herself experiencing a hauntingly familiar sense of disconnection, loneliness—and the quiet fear that goes with both.
Overhead, the zipper of the bag rasps open, and there's the rustle of canvas and cotton and cashmere, and the lights inside her clear plastic chassis are just enough for her to see the palm of the hand that plucks her neatly from within the duffle bag.
Exposed to external stimuli after being put into lower power mode, the motion and then the light and sound that follow it reactivate cameras and microphones, sensors and gyros. Her systems all come whirring back to life, and EOS does the functional equivalent of blinking in the light of TB2's cockpit. Her view is partially obscured by the fingers of the hand holding her, and for a moment she whirls her optics around in a panic, afraid that it's someone other than John who's plucked her out of his bag, and unsure why that should make her feel so much less safe.
But no—Virgil sits in one of the rear passenger seats, next to John's, and ostensibly dozing with his leg still stretched out in a cast before him. Alan's flying, though she can see the flicker of some heads up display projecting a holographic video, right up close to his eyes, for his gaze only. If she wanted to she could find out what it is, but considering the lesson she's meant to be learning about the essential privacy of others, for now she leaves it be. The autopilot has done most of the work for this trip, and Alan's hands are loose but ready on the controls. His grandmother sits in the co-pilot's seat beside him, busily knitting something, started at the beginning of the flight, already substantial enough to be striped in pink and yellow.
"I'm going to stretch my legs," John announces, his familiar voiceprint a reassuring point of data as he adjusts his grip on her chassis, still cradled casually in the palm of his hand. "How far out are we?"
Alan doesn't glance back, just calls the answer over his shoulder. "'Bout an hour and a half still. This thing flies like a bathtub, I dunno how Virg can stand it."
"None of that," Grandma Tracy murmurs, as her knitting needles continue to clatter out a soft staccato. Even at a distance, EOS' camera is good enough to detect the pattern of the weave between the needles, a hidden binary of knit and purl that she finds hard to pull her attention from. "It's good for you boys to have to take your time once in a while. Builds character."
John chuckles so softly that EOS might be the only one who hears it. "I'll be back," he says, and turns towards the back of the cockpit, and the elevator down to the cargo bay.
"Watch your step," Alan calls after him, but John's already stepped aboard the lift and thumbed the down button.
There aren't many places to go, but the cargo bay is spacious and private, at least. EOS hasn't yet grown used to the way her voice sounds from the chassis, all muffled and small and with its pitch strangely altered in the density of actual Earth atmosphere, but as she bobs along in John's hand as he takes a slow, thoughtful lap of the cargo bay, she summons the nerve to ask, "Why are we down here?"
"Thought you might want some privacy," John answers, and EOS finds herself feeling much better now that she can perceive the actual tone of his voice, casual and easy to parse. It would be easier still if she could see him, and as though he can detect what she's thinking, the whole world swoops and adjust around her. John seats himself on some crate or piece of equipment, and cradles her chassis within both palms, as he adds, "So we can really talk."
Thus adjusted, her camera aperture whirls around again, seeking and finding his face. Usually he's the one looking up at her. at home aboard TB5, her camera tracks along a path that reliably lies above him. The reversal is strange, but a reminder of just what exactly he'd been hoping to offer her—a change in perspective. From where her chassis sits, held in his hands where they rest lightly between his knees, she can see John's expression, slightly concerned but far from unkind. And certainly not angry.
"I'm not mad at you," he says again, and with his voice to affirm it, for the first time since doubt had crept in to corrupt her processes, she can hope to believe it. "I promise I'm not."
"Then why am I down here?" EOS asks again, and this time alters her tone and adjusts the stresses of her vocalization to indicate that she doesn't mean TB2's cargo bay, but the surface of the Earth itself. "What lesson can I learn that you couldn't just teach me?"
The lights in the cargo bay are different than the lights in the cabin and by their halogen brightness, it's hard to be sure if she mistakes the glint in his eyes. "It's not really a lesson, so much as it is an experience."
EOS refrains from pointing out that the differences between their most fundamental modalities of experience are so vast that they might as well be comparing butterflies to hurricanes. "What experience?"
This time there's no way to miss the wry quirk of John's expression, the slight twist of the faint smile he usually wears for her benefit. "My family."
EOS finds herself somewhat affronted. "I have plenty of experience with your family."
"No." John shakes his head. "You have plenty of experience with International Rescue. My family represents a different situation altogether."
"How?"
"You'll see."
"I don't understand."
"You will."
This is frustrating. She translates her frustration into an impotent whir of her motor, spinning fruitlessly within its casing while still held in place by John's slender fingers. She watches as his gaze drifts upwards, though there's nothing to see overhead, and she can only estimate that his thoughts have returned to his family, in the cockpit above.
"There's more to it than just that, though," he continues, somewhat distant, somehow not quite talking to her, though there's no one else here to talk to. EOS twists her camera aperture upward and narrows the focus slightly, trying to get a better look at his expression. Her careful and meticulous catalogue of his facial behaviours is useless from this angle, and she dislikes being unable to read his mood. "If I'm being honest."
John is many things, but he's very rarely dishonest. "Weren't you?"
"Not completely." At this he looks back down, and there's that strange cast to his smile again, a certain ironic melancholy reflecting some emotion of his that she hasn't yet categorized. Maybe it's the angle. She hopes it's the angle. "Did you want to know the whole truth?"
EOS is not often given a choice in the matter. The idea of choosing not to know something seems foreign, inherently distasteful. Her curiosity about the concept is almost enough for her to want to decline, just for the sheer novelty of it, but because it's John, her answer can only be, "Of course."
His smile softens, loses some of the irony, and there's a genuine light in his eyes and a quiet sincerity as he tells her the truth, "I didn't want to be in the middle of all this without you. Going all the way back home, with my family, and being alone in the middle of it all—I thought about it, and I didn't want to."
Even with her circumstances altered as drastically as they have been, even as difficult as it is to have to reengineer her entire conception of human facial expressions from this vantage point—EOS can still tell that he means this honestly; that he thinks it's the truth. But the statement disregards one very simple and obvious fact. "But you wouldn't be alone."
John just shakes his head, rueful. "This is something else you need to learn about my family. Sometimes, they make me feel very alone."
And EOS can only wish she knew what he meant by that.