Sorry to be so late. Just retired and moved to a new house. Lots going on + 1000.

37

Pod 4, creaking and wallowing, scraping the wreck of a bleak flooded city-

John pulled the trigger, and everything went right to h*ll. Erupting out of a magnetic lens, the tachyon beam traveled forward in space and backward in time, looping around to strike Virgil before he stepped up to the mark. Already, the timeline was warping, and only seconds had passed.

Those intensely swift particles blazed right through him, smearing Virgil like a

charcoal sketch scraped with a rag. As if he'd been chalk rubbed on concrete, he left a long trail; anchored to the present by his physical body, hurled back in time by that searing-hot tachyon beam. His vision reduced to a scarlet-edged tunnel, while his surroundings plunged into sudden reverse.

Earth rolled backward. A dim blob of sunlight slid eastward, arcing behind dusty clouds. Sea level boiled and altered; first flooding upward, then rolling back and away, as Venice rebuilt herself.

Buildings, bridges, roads and canals constructed themselves out of tumbling rubble, to stand once more shining and whole. Flailing people shot out of the water and wreckage, soaring upward like gnats. They landed on bridges and rooftops and ornate balconies, pointing, shouting and racing about.

The sky cleared of dust within jerky-fast seconds, as the grey-brown plume compacted itself; winding snake-wise into that refilling crater. Venice tottered, then stabilized…

...and Virgil was there, flickering-pale as an image projected on smoke. He could feel himself crinkling and shriveling up at the edges, spotting and tearing, within. But Harmony Square and the Unity Building were right there in front of him. At the top of the steps, smiling for pictures, stood Chancellor McGill. Her surfer-blond husband was along, too, with two laughing children swinging around on each hand.

Virgil knew there was something he had to do… something important to tell them. Only, his memory turned into roiling mush, as "did happen" faded to infinite "could be", all crowded, chaotic and hazy. It was terribly hard to remember… but he forced himself to concentrate, to hold onto all he would see and do in the hours to come. He was only an image, burning and staggering forward, but Virgil meant to deliver that warning. He had to. Started toward the Chancellor, causing people all over the plaza to gasp and dive out of his way.

Sunny square, fluttering pigeons, sparkling water, startled tourists… Virgil hardly noticed his mended surroundings, which blended and ran like a painting. The tachyon beam that had brought him this far was losing coherence, making him ripple and fade. Virgil kept his mind on the job and his eyes on Careena McGill. Whispered that memorized message over and over, fighting not to forget.

The chancellor was no longer smiling, a hand coming up to hover close to her gleaming security badge. Her husband stepped forward reflexively, as did a squad of GDF peace officers.

The little girl… Sara… jumped up and down, shrieking,

"It's a ghost! A spooky ghost! Look, Mommy! Look at the ghost!"

Luca, older and less excitable, just wrinkled his nose.

"There's no such thing, dummy," he scoffed.

But Calvin McGill had taken an IR publicity ride, once. Frowning, he said,

"It's Virgil Tracy, Hon. He pilots Thunderbird 2."

The chancellor handed her squealing young daughter back to Calvin, saying,

"I recognized him. Something's wrong. Get ready to move in a hurry, Cal. You and the kids." Then, she strode down the steps to meet Virgil.

"What is it?" she asked. "A message from Thunderbird 5?"

Now was the time. Now was the moment to give her that warning. Only, it was so very hard to recall things that hadn't yet happened. That were already being erased.

"Evacuate," he told the chancellor. "Collapse… flood… less than two hours."

Careena glanced aside at her husband and sceptical bodyguard. She seemed uncertain.

"Venice is quite a big city," she gently remarked. "Evacuating the entire populace would be extremely…"

That's when he did it. Feeling himself burn like crumpled paper tossed onto fire, the pilot said,

"Careena, this is that… that one big mistake you've always been scared of. Don't…"

"Make that one d*mn mistake," she finished off, in a hoarse whisper. Then, turning to face the GDF peace officers, McGill snapped, "Emergency powers act! Everyone out of the city. Arrest them, if you have to. Call in all local and government forces, now!" Pausing her rush of orders, the chancellor turned her attention back to her worried husband and children. "Cal, sweetie, take the babies and go, first available flight. I'll join you as soon as I can!"

Calvin McGill bent down and kissed his wife with rough urgency, in the process scooping up Luca and Sara.

"Hon, be careful," he mumured, as everything started to waver and blur. As Virgil Tracy, trapped between present and history, saw the whole d*mn timeline begin to dissolve.

The pilot crashed to his knees; physically there in Pod 4, mentally caught in a fast-changing past. His head seemed to twist and swell with a sudden burst of new memories, washing away who he was; how he'd gotten there. The universe flew apart like a cloud of sparkling hologram pixels. And then, it began to re-form.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Globe Studios Navy contestant wing, very early morning-

Emma Kraft bolted upright in her narrow rack, scattering sheets and gasping aloud. A cobweb of nightmare still smothered awareness; the sense that she'd fought through a truly horrendous dream.

Alerted by movement, the floating time display blinked back to life by her rack. 04:45, Triday, 09 Acceptance… just before starting round two. Nothing strange about that, but…

Her head and heart were still pounding; nerves on full-stretch alert. Only, nothing seemed out of place. No intruders or blaring alarms, and her video drone was just now leaving its cradle, lenses still dim and unfocused. Not some kind of psych beam from Maxton, then. Probably.

Emma shook off residual panic and vaulted upright. She stood there panting a moment, in tank-top and joggers, trying to clear her thoughts. To remember.

Virgil… something about the guy she might've been falling for. Somehow, something was wrong. Got a sudden text on her smart watch, from Rigby: WTH?

Kraft swiped the message away, too distracted for conversation. Three strides took her across the small dorm room. A moment of fiddling with the keypad let her out into the dimly-lit hallway beyond.

The IR dorm was just a few hundred yards to her right. Emma set off at once, reaching the glass-and-chrome shared space and racing across to hall three. Blue carpet and painted diagonal stripes… three doors down on the left, beside those of his brothers, Scott and John Tracy.

(So, she'd been there once to have a look at some holos and talk; had remembered his door code. Want to fight about it?!)

3-7-7-1-6, blue-yellow-blue…

...and she charged on in, as subtle as anyone's meteor-strike. Virgil was crumpled up on the carpeted floor, vomiting mostly clear fluid. There were noises from all of the dorms now, but Emma paid no attention. Just got a washcloth and bottle of water, hit the medical call button, and then dropped to a crouch beside Virgil.

Thinking: hangover, she dabbed at his face and made all the usual quietly comforting noises. He did not smell like alcohol, but seemed very disoriented, responding only in grunts. Pupils were dilated… skin clammy and cold… too weak or shaken to stand… still dry-heaving his guts out. Weird.

Scott and John entered the room moments later; the one in Air Force PT sweats, the other in rumpled jeans and a tee-shirt.

"What happened?" snapped Scott, squatting down beside Virgil and Kraft. Black-haired, blue-eyed and stern, he stared at Emma as though she was somehow responsible for his brother's condition. Only, nope. Not having it.

"I don't know," she told him. "I woke up a few minutes ago, because of…"

"The communal nightmare?" suggested John, coming over with washcloths he'd warmed in the microwave. Taller than Virgil and Scott, he had longish, silver-blond hair and a beautiful, nearly expressionless face.

Kraft did not waste any time in surprise at the question. Nodding at John, she said,

"Generalized dread, migraine and sudden alertness, about ten minutes ago, aye. Felt like… like they'd sounded general quarters, and I couldn't remember my battle-station."

John quirked a silvery eyebrow, pausing long enough from patting his brother's back to say,

"Copy that. I shot out of my bunk thinking: hull breach. Fell on my face, too, because: gravity." (Which he spat like a four-letter word.)

Scott interrupted, then. Took some buzzing, John-made contraption out of his pocket, scowled and said,

"Dad's calling. Wants to know what the h*ll happened."

...which pretty much summed it all up.