They'd been forced into what had to be an interrogation room, their bags taken from them and quickly looked over for weapons. There'd been a lot of frowning at the device on Alan's arm, but thankfully no one had actually taken it from them.
And then they'd been left alone for a while.
Alan was lounging in the chair at the table, leaning back on two legs with his feet on the table's surface. Virgil had shot him a look for it, but Alan had grinned that smile that annoying little brothers knew how to perfect and had ignored him. "So…" Alan drawled, giving a yawn. He hadn't been sleeping well lately, even sharing a bed with his big brother. To be fair, Virgil had been sleeping even worse.
While Alan suffered from sleepwalking and a weird inability to sleep in a bed most of the time, Virgil suffered from intermittent insomnia brought on by stress. And this had been an incredibly stressful week. They were both tired and just shy of being irritable.
Falling into a world where they'd been immediately taken into custody was not helping with that stress at all either.
"Where do you think we are?" Alan ended.
Virgil heaved a sigh, adjusted his baldric and sat down in the other chair. He was a little surprised that they'd been allowed to keep their baldrics, but they had been searched and there wasn't anything but medical supplies or ration bars in them. Their laser penlights had been confiscated, though.
"All these people were wearing US Air Force and Marine uniforms," Virgil grumbled, twisting his neck until it popped. "So, I would guess we're somewhere in the US."
"Okay," Alan frowned. "How the heck do you recognize the uniforms?" Because he hadn't, that was for sure.
"They're similar to Scott's Air Force uniform," Virgil said with a shrug. Not quite the same; there were some glaring differences. But the symbols had been there, and Virgil knew those symbols. So whatever world they were in, they were in custody of the US Military.
"See, I don't remember much about Scott's uniform," Alan pointed out. "He hasn't put on an Air Force related uniform since the Terrorist Wars." Because…well. Four months MIA and a blackened out file and an honorable discharge. And then International Rescue had started up, Dad had gone missing, Gordon had had his Accident in WASP and…
They all needed a vacation.
"That's fair," Virgil sighed. He looked up at the ceiling with a frown. "I think we're underground," he said.
Alan rolled his eyes. "Why?"
Virgil shrugged. "Just a feeling. I've been on enough underground rescues to get used to that feeling." He gave his little brother another look, raising an eyebrow and tapping his fingers against his plaster cast. Jeff had wanted them to wait until the break had healed before they left to go through the worlds, but neither brother had wanted to be gone from home that long. Broken bones took weeks to heal, and they just wanted to go home. "Where do you think we are?"
"Not in a time similar to ours," Alan shrugged, nodding towards the camera in the corner that was steadily watching them. "The tech isn't right."
"It wasn't in the last world either," Virgil said.
Alan pointed at him. "And see, that world was in the year two-thousand-four," he said. Because Virgil had just proven his point. They both fell silent for a moment, a little bored with no one to talk to or anything to do. They didn't have anything to hide, so they weren't really bothering, but it was still a little disconcerting to just be sitting there.
The door opened, then, and a man and a woman walked in, taking the seats across the table from them. The man had salt and pepper hair but was clean shaven. There were crow's feet wrinkles around his eyes, either from glaring a lot or laughing a lot. The woman was a bit younger, with her blond hair cut into a pixie style. Both were in the Air Force uniforms of this world. The man scowled and Alan rolled his eyes, dropping his feet from the table and thumping the chair back onto four legs. "Now," the man said. "Who are you?"
Alan and Virgil exchanged looks and then shrugged in unison. "Virgil Tracy," Virgil replied, pointing at himself. He then pointed to his little brother. "Alan Tracy."
"And how did you get in here?" the woman asked.
The two world-travelers blinked at her, not entirely sure how to answer that. "Well," Alan hedged, scratching at the back of his head. "To be honest, we didn't mean to. We can't pick our landing spot."
"Which, in hindsight, could be a problem," Virgil murmured to himself. Who knew what sort of problems they could fall right into the middle of.
"Landing spot?" The man asked, eyes narrowing.
Alan shrugged again, glancing at Virgil who just waved him on. "Right. Well. We're kind of traveling through worlds trying to get back home."
"Uh huh," the man nodded, raising his eyebrows. "That's the story you're going with?"
"Considering it's the only story we have?" Virgil said with a sigh. "We're not trying to hide anything. We're literally just trying to get home."
"Back home with a bag full of prescription drugs?" the lady asked, a little disparagingly.
Virgil frowned, raising an eyebrow. Sure, they had some prescription drugs in their first aid kits. But they were well trained on how and when to use them. She wanted to cast judgements? Well, fine. Let her, but he could be an annoying little brother too. "First, I have a broken arm," he said, waving his casted arm. "Second, I'm literally a certified EMT."
Alan snorted and the attention turned back to him. "Sorry, sorry," the kid said, waving his hand a bit as he chuckled. "It's just, I'm the trained EMT. Virgil here is the equivalent of an ER trauma specialist." Virgil opened his mouth to retort, because he'd always been taught not to brag, but he'd also been taught not to lie, so he closed his mouth and shrugged instead.
"You're a kid," the lady pointed out.
Alan shrugged. "Yeah? What of it? We literally just said we're from a different world." Because, yeah, he was a kid, but he'd made sure he'd gotten the training he needed to be a Thunderbird. That had been Scott's deal; if he could pass the training, he could pilot. Scott hadn't really expected him to pass the training at fifteen, but that was on Scott. He should be used to genius little brothers by this point.
"Carter," the man groaned. "Let's not offend the aliens."
"We're not aliens," Virgil said.
"We're kind of aliens," Alan replied with a shrug. Virgil rolled his eyes and reached out to shove him lightly. The man and woman just watched for a moment, looking a bit bemused. "I mean, come on Mozart," he grinned. "We're literally from a different world."
"But not a different planet," Virgil said. And then he frowned, looking to the man. "We're on Earth, right?"
"Yeah," the man said, blinking at him.
"See," Virgil said, looking at his brother smugly.
Alan rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out. "Fine. But hey, it's not like they can't get to other planets." Both the man and Carter froze, eyes narrowing. Alan blinked at them. "What? It's not like you could hide that big stone ring from us. We landed right in front of it."
"Wait. What?" Virgil asked, because he'd seen the big stone ring too, but hadn't thought much of it. But from the way the two military personnel were watching them, Alan had clearly rattled them a bit.
"Okay, just a theory, right," Alan said, holding up a finger. "But the big stone ring creates a wormhole to other planets. That's why it had all those star charts printed around it."
"That's a little sci-fi, even for you," Virgil frowned, wondering about the physics of how that would even work. And the amount of energy creating a wormhole like that would require was astronomical.
"Virge, you doofus," Alan groaned. "We're literally travelling through worlds because of a machine some stupid scientist made and we copied and stuck to my arm." Virgil shot him an annoyed look, because those two didn't need that much information, did they?
"How did you know about the Stargate?" Carter asked, her voice frosty.
Alan raised an eyebrow, very much the annoying little brother again. "I didn't. I did say it was just a theory." He grinned. "But you calling it a Stargate kind of proves my point." She opened her mouth but shut it again when the man next to her nudged her. "Virge!" he exclaimed, suddenly excited. "They can go to other planets!"
"Doofus," Virgil grumbled, rolling his eyes and sitting back to cross his arms over his chest. "We're literally travelling through worlds," he repeated.
"Yeah," Alan countered. "But different worlds are not the same thing as different planets!" They weren't quite ignoring the two military presences at the table. But being annoying brothers was in their blood, even Virgil's for all that he was the least likely to participate in shenanigans most of the time. Even John was more likely to get into trouble than Virgil…but then John wasn't stuck here in this current situation.
"You fly to other planets all the time, Sprout," Virgil pointed out.
"But I'm limited to our Solar System!" Alan whined, flapping a hand. "And I hardly ever go past Mars."
"And we're all incredibly thankful for that," Virgil countered. "Do you know what it would do to Scott's blood pressure if you were in a different galaxy? Not to mention mine."
Alan glowered at him for a moment. "We're literally in a different world."
"But on our way back home," Virgil replied flippantly.
"That's enough!" the man yelled, slapping a hand on the table. Both Virgil and Alan stilled, not jumping or reacting any way to the outburst other than to calmly turn their attention back to the two. They'd gone through far too much training to let rising tempers and loud noises startle them. "The device on your arm is what allows you to travel?" the man asked, and Alan shrugged. "What would happen if I were to confiscate it?" he scowled.
Alan blinked at him, frowning. He turned his attention to the device, only one of the little LED lights glowing a faint green. The rest were still unlit. They had no idea how long it would take to charge fully. "I mean, I wouldn't be happy about it. But it's not like it would work for you. We built a safeguard in so it would only transport us. Didn't want anybody accidentally getting pulled along with us into a different world."
"We could reverse engineer it," Carter said, scowling a little herself. It seemed like a pride thing, actually. She didn't like being told something wouldn't work for her.
"I don't know why you'd want to," Alan said, sounding just a bit flabbergasted. "This whole world traveling thing isn't exactly fun."
"Then why'd you build the machine?" the man asked, sounding incredibly frustrated.
"Sir," Carter said softly, a gentle warning.
Virgil rolled his eyes. "To get back home," he answered honestly. "We didn't build the first one but got caught up in it during a rescue. We built this one so we could get home. It's just going to take a few jumps."
The man's eyes were narrowed and flinty, and he was frowning fiercely. "Who are you guys?" he asked, repeating the very first question he had asked. The two boys exchanged baffled looks, obviously a little confused by the question that they'd already answered. "You're kids, but you're trained EMTs, you fly to other planets. You build machines to travel through worlds. You just said you were on a rescue. Who are you?"
Virgil turned back to the two, taking a large breath and letting it out slow. "I'm Virgil Grissom Tracy, Pilot-T2 of International Rescue. Demolitions, Heavy Lifting, Logistics and Engineering."
"Alan Shepherd Tracy," Alan said, just as solemnly. "Pilot-T3 of International Rescue. Head Astronaut and backup Communications Specialist."
There was silence for a moment and then the two military personnel stood. "Stay there," the man commanded, and they stalked out of the room.