Chapter 13.
Virgil sighed as Alan threw down his spoon and pouted so hard it was a wonder his face didn't split in half.
"Alan, finish your breakfast," Virgil instructed, suddenly realising why Scott complained of so many headaches.
Alan scowled and shoved the bowl in front of him away like it had personally offended him, "Why won't you let me eat and watch TV?"
"Because we'll be landing in twenty minutes," Virgil countered, silently grateful for his brother's wonky time telling skills, "If I let you turn on your tablet now, you'll be too engrossed to help us unpack when we arrive at the airport."
The scowl on Alan's face turned septic as he shovelled the last few soggy spoonful's of cornflakes down his throat, confused and angry as to why Virgil was, in his eyes, parroting Scott in both word and form.
"Done," Alan announced, unbuckling his safety belt and scuttling towards the bathroom to wash his hands, only to yelp when he nearly torpedoed into his grandmother on her way back from her morning shower.
"Whoa, kid!" Sally exclaimed, pasting herself against the wall so that Alan could scamper past, "Virgil will be making preparations to land soon, so don't dally in there for too long."
"Don't bother," Virgil interjected, dragging a hand across his face and accepting the coffee that Kayo was offering him, "You'll have better luck arguing with a revolving door than with him."
A smile of time-honed patience made itself at home on Sally's face, "Oh, but can you blame him? I hardly slept a wink last night. Just think, the same little boy who used to overfill the bathtub is now within range of an Olympic medal. And he can't even drive yet!"
Virgil felt nostalgia grip him. He was having a hard time establishing a link between the Gordon who he'd once taken rock pooling at the weekends and treated to ice creams whenever he did well at school, and the Gordon who was donning a swimsuit with the five Olympic rings on. His brother was so young, yet so capable at the same time, and the realisation that the world would now regard him as a professional in his field was enough to choke Virgil up a bit.
"Stop overthinking things," Sally instructed, placing a comforting hand on Virgil's back, "Geez, you're as bad as Scott. He's still our Gordon, and nothing will ever change that. Now, you go ahead and request landing clearance from JKIA, and I'll sort our bags. I have a feeling today's race will be a doozy, and faffing about over who packed what just won't do, I'm afraid."
Virgil smiled and nodded, grateful to have instructions to follow. His stomach felt heavy with nerves, though he knew full well that what he was experiencing was nothing compared to what Gordon was probably going through.
Unsurprisingly, that realisation brought him little comfort.
-x-
Gordon closed his eyes and exhaled steadily, his fingers flexing slightly as he stood in front of his window and gazed at the same trio of giraffes he'd first laid eyes on exactly one week ago.
So much had changed over the last seven days, not least of which was his ascension from newcomer to Olympic finalist. In addition to the obvious, he'd also managed to navigate some of the perils of independent living, networked with some leading industry professionals, done his first proper televised interview, ironed over his insecurities with his dad, and made a handful of new friends, one of whom he had a feeling would be for life.
Medal or not, he definitely wouldn't be leaving Nairobi empty-handed.
-x-
"Alan! For goodness sake, HEEL!"
Much to Virgil's despair, his demand fell on deaf ears as Alan took the opportunity to scuttle off towards the gift shop, his freshly stamped visitor pass clutched between his sticky fingers.
"Let him go," Sally advised, her eyes wide as she drank in the sights the Olympic Village had to offer. It had been quiet and largely uninhabited during her last visit, a stark contrast to what it was now, "I'll settle the bill for whatever he picks."
"Gordon's at the physiotherapists with Sam," Kayo announced, her thumb swiping across her phone screen as she caught up on messages, "His shoulder has apparently been giving him some grief, so he's headed down early to get it sorted before his race is called. Scott says we're to meet him and John outside the Aquatic Centre. There are no queues at the moment, so he's recommending we turn in our tickets now."
"Now?" Virgil nearly choked on his tongue, "But Gordon's race doesn't start until ten-thirty."
"And tickets for it sold out yesterday," Kayo countered, "Which means fifteen thousand people will be fighting over a place to dump their butts in just over an hour and a half. I vote we secure our seats now and wait like the patient saints we all like to think we are."
A sigh filtered through Virgil's teeth, accompanied by a head shake. The flight from Tracy island had been long, and he was sick of sitting down. He'd been hoping to grab a coffee and go for a walk around the compound with Scott, but Lady Luck clearly had no intention of siding with him. It didn't help that patience wasn't one of his strong suits either.
"You can grab a drink and stretch your legs once we've claimed our seats," Kayo assured, reading Virgil like the open book that he was, "But trust me when I say that the last thing any of us want to be doing an hour and a half from now is fighting with every man, woman, dog, and vegetable within a ten mile radius for access to the seats Scott has so kindly paid for. It's a recipe for disaster."
"Speaking of disaster," Virgil muttered, inclining his head in the direction of the gift shop which Alan was now tramping away from, his arms laden with what could only be described as a random assortment of crap. Hot on his heels was a young cashier, who was holding a receipt and patiently questioning him on where his parents were.
"That's my Granny, right there," Alan exclaimed, pointing at Sally without a shred of remorse, "She has a purse with lots of money in it."
Virgil could only snort as Sally eyeballed the stack of souvenirs Alan had laid claim to, her earlier promise to foot the bill coming back to bite her square in the butt.
"Wakyeewa ata, madam! Will you be paying by cash or card?"
-x-
Sam fidgeted with the sleeves of his jacket as he watched Gordon squirm under the hands of one of the American physios.
The pressure was on. He'd managed to drag the kid this far, and he certainly wasn't about to let him go down without a very significant fight. He knew that most people, including the Tracy family, thought of him as nothing more than a money-minded taskmaster. In all honesty, it wasn't an inaccurate description, and it certainly wasn't one that he made a conscious effort to deny. He worked hard at his job and had invested a lot of time and effort into the kid. The fact that he'd managed to claw his way into the final was no coincidence in Sam's eyes. Gordon was the youngest athlete he'd trained to date, and he'd found himself having to be a childminder as well as a coach on more than one occasion. The saying 'never working with children or animals' had never rung truer.
Still, he couldn't take all the credit. Gordon was a tenacious little squid, and had shown maturity well beyond his years for the duration of the Games so far. He'd listened, done as he was told, improvised where necessary, and was now on the precipice of making sporting history.
Though he'd never admit it out loud, Sam was fond of the kid. His eagerness to please and relentless optimism made him impossible to not like. He had the uncanny ability to brighten a room with that trademark cheeky grin of his, and was able to find humour in the gloomiest of situations. Sam wasn't sure if the latter was more of a curse than a blessing, but it certainly helped when you worked in an environment that thrived off rivalry and jealousy.
Unfortunately, it was that very rivalry and jealousy that would be fuelling the seven other competitors Gordon would soon be facing off against. While Gordon himself was still star struck at having made it to the final, the others were seasoned Olympians with one goal in mind: to add a Nairobi 2053 bronze, silver, or gold to their collections. Ten years older and six inches taller than the teenage Gordon in lane seven, they would be true forces of nature to be reckoned with.
Sam sighed heavily, realising with a pang of regret that there was nothing he could do to protect his little squid from the shark infested waters he was about to dive into.
-x-
Jess felt nervous tension rip through her as she watched Nubby parade around his stable like a camel on steroids.
She'd been unable to shake the feeling all morning that something was off. His performance the night before had been exemplary, but his behaviour ever since had been just…off. She couldn't articulate it any other way, much to the frustration of Greg, who'd reminded her that they all felt 'off', considering the team final was only a matter of hours away. Though not usually one to assign emotions to the animals he trained, Greg had made the suggestion that Nubby was merely feeding off the energy of the humans who cared for him, thus explaining his slightly erratic behaviour.
Jess wasn't convinced. The vet report she'd commissioned first thing that morning had come back clear, yet even that wasn't enough to allay her nerves. She knew her horse, and her horse was off.
Unfortunately, being the youngest and the least experienced gave her zero authority within the team. There was the weight of expectation on the shoulders of Team USA now, and a diagnosis of 'off' wasn't sufficient enough to warrant any kind of interest in the concerns she had over Nubby's behaviour.
She was on her own.
-x-
Gordon dug around inside his duffle bag, muttering curses as his fingers searched for his goggles.
He'd come down to the changing rooms early for the express purpose of having plenty of time to change and generally get his shit together. So far, things had gotten off to a less than ideal start. In the space of fifteen minutes he'd managed to put his swimsuit on back to front, lock himself in one of the toilet cubicles, lose his locker key, and nearly tear a hole in his swim cap. The only saving grace had been finding his beloved plush squid, Splash, zipped into one of the side compartments of his bag, her tentacles well chewed and the soft feel of her fabric underneath his fingers achingly familiar.
Gordon's first thought was John. He'd deliberately left Splash off his packing list for fear of looking childish in front of Sam and his teammates, so her appearance was obviously the result of an interfering brother.
An interfering brother who apparently knew him better than he knew himself.
Splash's plastic eyes bulged as Gordon gave her a quick squeeze. She'd been with him throughout all of his major life events. His first day of school, his first swim lesson, the time he'd had to stay overnight at the hospital when he'd run a fever of a hundred and three, and his mom's funeral. It only made sense that she be with him for his first Olympics.
The post-it note stuck to the back of her head with his brother's seat numbers on in John's familiar handwriting made her appearance even more welcome.
-x-
Jeff balled his hand into a fist and whacked the O.D.D.M console with enough force to shift the asteroid belt.
The blasted thing had had yet another 'EMP fart' as Lee liked to dub them, meaning that her connection with Earth was hazy at best. While he would have usually taken something like this in his stride and kept a cool head, the countdown to Gordon's final race was on, meaning he had less than forty minutes to repair something that usually took two hours to service, let alone fix.
Jeff bit his lip and closed his eyes, grateful for his helmet obscuring his face from Lee's prying eyes. Despite not being one for self-doubt, he couldn't help but feel as if he'd failed in his duty as a father. He'd made a promise to be there for all of his boys after Lucy's untimely death, and yet here he was, stuck inside a malfunctioning base in orbit above Alaska while his fifteen-year-old son got ready for the biggest event of his life.
Scott had managed to get a message to him shortly before everything had gone offline, assuring him that they were on-site and ready patch him through via a video feed if he was available. Despite the good intentions behind his eldest son's offer, Jeff had felt his anger compound. He'd never been one for relying on other people, and the fact that he'd left pretty much all of Gordon's physical and emotional care in the hands of his mother and remaining sons filled him with guilt. It was his duty as a father to be there through the good, the bad, and the ugly, and he'd failed at a time when Gordon truly needed him.
Anger completely overtaking logical thinking, Jeff balled his hand into another fist and brought it down on the console again, this time with all his might. His son had been through enough trauma in his relatively short life, and the least he deserved was a father who could own up to his mistakes and move heaven and earth to support him.
Static burped in his ear as the console's lights illuminated and the station hummed back to life, the connection with Earth clearing second by second as Lee began searching for the first television or radio network he could find that was live broadcasting the men's one hundred-meter butterfly final.
They didn't call it 'The Jeff Tracy Fix' for nothing.