Beep

Beep

Beep

Scott groaned turned over and batted at his alarm clock. At least, he tried to. His arm didn't respond and so the clock kept going.

"Scott? Can you open your eyes for me?"

De ja vu.

He took a moment for himself before he did that. Breathing in carefully he put together the pieces of what he could remember and tried to add them to what he could hear and feel now. He could hear beeping; he was lying on something comfortable. There was an ache deep in his chest but it didn't hurt – it just promised it would if he moved too much. He tried opening his eyes and was met with white light. Ah, hospital then. Hospital and his brother trying to wake him up. He wasn't sure he was ready for that yet.

"Come on Scott, I know you're in there." The voice started out teasing but tinged just a little on desperate and that was the final motivation Scott needed to fight his way back to full awareness.

"Hey" he managed, opening his eyes and focusing on the relieved face of his middle brother. His middle brother who wasn't in uniform. He went to ask why but ended up coughing against a dry throat. Virgil was there immediately with a cup of water and a straw. "Thanks" he managed, swallowing roughly and trying to blink away the last of the fuzz in his head.

"You broke a couple of ribs and ended up with some internal bleeding. Don't worry though, you've had a small op to repair the damage. You'll be fine."

Scott narrowed his eyes at his brother, who was clearly giving a watered-down version of events. Broken ribs didn't generally cause you lose enough blood to go into shock and require transfusions. They didn't usually need operations either. His heart monitor jumped as a thought struck him.

"The fire crew! Did you get them out?"

Virgil hesitated and ran his hand through his hair.

"I think so."

"You think so?" Virgil winced at Scott's incredulous expression. "What do you mean you think so? You either did or you didn't."

"Calm down, Scott, or we'll be overrun by doctors and they'll sedate you again."

"Again?" That bought Scott up short.

"Yes, again. What do you remember? Clearly I mean."

"Er, I lost contact with John, I found the fire crew" he smiled at that. "I sent half of them out but then we saw a man in the back of the factory. Two of the crew came with me to evacuate him." Then he faltered. He remembered bits but they didn't make much sense. An explosion? People in cages? Being hit with something. He relayed as much to Virgil who nodded.

"Here's what we think happened. After the explosion the man you saw attacked you and Mackie."

"What about the other man? Peter – something?"

"Peterssohn" Virgil scowled slightly at the interruption. "Mackie and you were thrown into the back room by the explosion, Peterssohn rebounded off the wall. I found him outside after finding the others from the fire crew. As I was saying; we think he hit you whilst you were still disoriented. From what he said to me he wasn't expecting the explosion either. Dad and Brains think it might have been some kind of final line of defence that got triggered by the fire."

"Defence against what?" Scott was starting to get a headache but he wasn't going to let this go.

"Well, that's just it" Virgil shrugged helplessly. "We're not sure. Do you remember the people on the monitors?"

"Uh, kind of. I didn't get that great a look."

"That's to be expected. Well, the man in the room said he was trying to stop whatever was happening to those people. He was making copies of all the data and the monitor feeds, at least John thinks he was."

"Then why attack us? He must have known International Rescue wouldn't stand for abuse like that!"

"Easy" Virgil warned again placing a hand on Scott's arm even though Scott hadn't made an attempt to move yet. "I have no idea. He seemed really spooked when I found him."

"Okay so what next? How does this lead to you not being sure if you completed the rescue?" Scott tried to keep the irritation out of his voice but injury and tiredness were getting to him.

"Do you not remember the military arriving Scott?"

"No?"

"Thank heavens for small mercies" Virgil said quietly. At Scott's quizzical look he explained; "they weren't exactly gentle with you. One minute I was checking you over, the next I had a gun in my face, we we're both in cuffs and being dragged out and thrown in a van." He gave Scott's arm squeeze to try and take back some of the horror of what he'd just imparted. "We we're thrown out in front of the birds' and given ten minutes to get in the air and leave. I don't know what happened to the fire crew. Mackie and Elle-Zahn were in the room with me, the others were already trying to evacuate Peterssohn."

"We can't just abandon them!" Now Scott did try and get out of bed but he was surprised to find that Virgil's hand, now resting lightly on his chest, was more than enough to keep him in place.

"Scott, that was two days ago" if Virgil expected the news to calm his brother he was in for a shock. "Dad has been negotiating with the South African government every day since then. They say the crew is fine, recovering at home."

"But?"

"But" Virgil blew out a long breath "we can't confirm that. Look, something else is going on here. The SA government has returned the dozer pod and my exo-suit as a gesture of good will. One which they very heavily implied will be void if we breathe a word about what we saw in that room."

"Well, I didn't see much" Scott groused.

"Maybe not, but I did, and I had an open comm to John who recorded as much as he could. Audio and visual."

Scott looked at his brother with something akin to pride, a grin slowly spreading across his face.

"Sneaky bastard."

"I learnt from the best" Virgil re-joined. "The thing is, dad is adamant that this isn't our problem. People trafficking isn't something International Rescue should get involved in but…" he tailed off looking away from Scott. Scott understood immediately the problem. These were people in need, people who needed saving and there was no way his kind hearted brother could just forget about something like that. But on the other hand, their dad was right. Breaking up a trafficking ring would involve some high-class espionage and just wasn't something any of them were trained for.

"I hate it too Virgil but dad's right. This isn't something we're equipped to deal with. Dad will send your footage to the GDF, they'll know what to do with it."

Virgil's smile didn't reach his eyes as he nodded.

"He already did. It's not just that though, there's something else. Something I need to show you, to see if I'm going mad."

Scott watched as Virgil called up an image on his comm. It wasn't great as it was taken from an awkward angle on a wide beam from Virgil's own comm when he was in the room. It showed one of the people in a cell. Scott gasped suddenly and grabbed Virgil's arm to bring the image closer to him. But there was no mistaking it.

"That's the woman from the mugging in London a couple of weeks ago!"

Virgil sagged looking validated, relieved and sad at the same time. She stood as passively as any other men on the other screens, a deep bruise shadowing the right-hand side of her face.

"That's what I thought as well."

"So, someone took her off the street, potentially not long after we saw her and now she's stuck in that facility in Johannesburg?" Scott looked even paler than he had when he'd woken up.

"No."

"No?"

Virgil manipulated his comm again. This time it showed a different cell. The man inside it had his back against the wall and had curled himself up into as small a ball as possible. His cell door was opened and a man entered carrying a pad. Virgil froze the image and it then ticked through a series of enhancements no doubt put together by John. The data pad showed a time and a date of more than a year ago.

Scott looked at Virgil with wide eyes and Virgil nodded back.

"I think she was here, and she's escaped somehow. Now she's maybe living rough in London? I thought at the time she looked malnourished and she gulped down the water I offered her like she hadn't had any in ages."

"What did dad say?"

Again, Virgil looked away.

"I haven't told him."

"Why not?"

"He's being very odd about this Scott. I can't put my finger on why but he doesn't want to talk about it, and I wanted to be sure it was her before I took it to him.

Scott didn't answer straight away, finding himself well and truly caught in a moral dilemma. On the one hand they had done all they could reasonably do in the situation, including handing over their evidence to the GDF. On the other, there were still people out there who he knew needed rescuing. Or were there? If John was right and these were old images maybe the people had already been freed. But Scott thought back to the woman. Free or not, life still wasn't being easy on her. He remembered how Virgil said she'd vanished once the police had arrived. Something was clearly going here.

"I'll talk to dad" he said trying to smother a yawn.

"Get some more rest first, Scott" his brother admonished him. "Dad will be here in an hour or so, so there's nothing we can do until then."

Scott nodded and closed his eyes, settling back against the pillows. He'd talk to his dad soon enough but it would have to be a pretty persuasive argument to make him drop it all together. He knew for a fact that Virgil wouldn't be able to forget about it either. Not with the image of the woman they'd met being held in a cell now burned into both their minds.