Lady P was having no luck. After the kids landed TB1, she left them to confront the Hood, but now she was currently handcuffed to a railing in one of the vaults, being taunted by Mullion. How utterly distasteful.
Gordon was nowhere to be seen and Lady P wasn't sure yet if that was a good thing or not. Ah, never mind, there he is.
"Ah, Gordon Tracy. What a pleasure." The Hood chuckled as he turned away from what he was doing to watch the man glaring daggers at him.
"I'll only ask once. What the hell did you do to Alan?" Gordon demanded.
'Alan? I thought he was in Thunderbird Four, safe.' Lady P thought.
"Nothing he wasn't already suffering from. I merely amplified what was there." The Hood smiled. "You and your family brought this all onto yourselves."
"Don't lie to me." Gordon hissed.
"I never lie." The Hood said, his eyes glowing suddenly. Gordon felt his breathing slow and started to gasp for the air that the Hood was depriving him of.
"Let him go!" Shouted a voice from the entrance of the room.
The Hood dropped his influence over Gordon, to see Jeff Tracy had just arrived. Gordon dropped to his knees, trying to catch his breath.
Jeff made to run towards Gordon, only for the Hood to telekinetically throw him into the cage with Lady P and shut the gate.
"Dad." Gordon groaned.
"Gordon!" Shouted a new voice. Alan had just entered as Jeff hit the bars of the cage.
"Ah Alan, wonderful of you to join us." The Hood said.
"Let them go." Alan demanded.
"I'm afraid that can't be done." The Hood replied. "I have a job to do, and you won't be standing in my way."
Alan suddently felt the cold edge of a blade against his neck and grew very still.
"Leave him alone, he doesn't have anything you want." Gordon said, dragging himself to his feet.
"He doesn't. But you do. We'll make a trade, you and Thunderbird Four, in exchanged for your brother." The Hood said.
"Done." Gordon quickly replied, without hesitation. Jeff and Alan both yelled at him not to, but what was done was done.
Without warning and without realizing it, Mullion had dragged Alan over to Gordon and landed a knockout blow to the back of Gordons head, throwing Alan to the floor and picking up the Aquanaut.
"Until next time Jeff. Which will be never." The Hood said, as he disappeared along with Mullion carrying Gordon over his shoulders.
"Gordon!" Jeff shouted, trying to force the cage open.
"Dad, I gotta go after him-" Alan said, trying to drag himself up from the floor, but struggling.
"Stay down Alan, give me a minute to get out of here." Jeff said, running over to Lady P to pick the lock of her handcuffs.
Once released, Lady P opened her handheld mirror, secretly her IR communicator.
"Parker, we need you here now. Gather everyone." She said.
"Right away M'Lady." Parker said, hanging up the call.
"If I can just override the system..." Alan said, running towards the cage and attempted to trick the locking mechanism.
"Alan, you need to sit down or you'll collapse." Jeff said. "The others are on their way."
"We don't have time! Gordon doesn't have time!" Alan insisted, hitting the bars with the palm of his hand in frustration.
"Sit, son. That's a direct order." Jeff said.
Alan stared at him for a couple of seconds before turning and sliding down the bars to sit against them. Jeff put his hand through to ruffle Alan's hair before turning his attention back to the mechanism, with Lady P's help.
A couple of minutes later, the others arrived, including John being supported by Tin-Tin.
"Allie." Virgil said, running over to assess him, crouching by his side.
"I'm fine." Alan replied. Jeff frowned, he sounded more tired by the second.
"Give me a s-second... got it!" Fermat said, having overrode the mechanism and freed Jeff and Lady P.
"Get to the Thunderbirds, we need to find 4. Virgil, John, Alan and I will get in 2, Scott in 1, Fermat, Tin-Tin in 3. Let's move."
Jeff pulled Alan up to his feet roughly and made to throw Alan's arm over his shoulder when Scott beat him to it.
"I got him Dad." Scott said. Jeff nodded, moving to take John with Virgils help instead. Fermat commenced complete lockdown of the Mole, preventing anyone from being able to start it up in their absense. They rushed to the Thunderbirds, Scott placing Alan in Jeff's possession before ruffling his brother's hair and running off to TB1. Jeff pulled Alan inside and sat him down in a chair, strapping him in and observing Virgil do the same with John.
Alan grabbed Jeff's sleeve. "I think I know where Gordon and 4 are being taken."
"How? Did the Hood tell you anything? Give you any information about their next hit?" Jeff said, kneeling in front of him as Virgil set about starting up TB2 and taking off in pursuit of TB1 and TB3.
"They're not making another hit. Security will be too high in the worlds major banks after what happened here." Alan said. "Four isn't equiped for breaking into banks for obvious reasons, that's not why they stole it."
Alan's head started to drop a little.
"Alan, stay awake, just a bit longer." Jeff said, pushing Alan's head off his chest.
"They're heading into the ocean to rendez-vous with their original submarine, if I know Gordon well enough then he would have put a tracking device on the hull." Alan muttered. He then dropped his head against the backrest, and fell out of consciousness.
"Alan! Alan, wake up! Alan!" Jeff exclaimed. John and Virgil were both merely watching up until this point, but now Virgil saw fit to spring into action.
"Dad take the controls, give me Alan." Virgil said, tone leaving no room for nonsense, even from his father and superior. Jeff obeyed, trusting Alan's health in Virgil's hands.
Virgil opened Alan's eyes to shine a light in them, glad to see Alan's pupils reacting to it. He checked Alan's pulse twice, and his blood pressure, both normal, so Virgil was at a loss.
"Thunderbird 2 to Thunderbird 1 and Thunderbird 3, abandon the search and head back to Tracy Island." Jeff said. He was met with protest from Scott and Tin-Tin, and a bewildered look from Virgil as he snapped his head back to look at his father.
"We are not in good shape to confront the Hood right now, even if we did manage to find them. For now we have two people down, and in need of immediate medical attention. Lady P is on the case, as soon as she knows anything about the Hood's whereabouts, she'll contact us." Jeff explained, shutting down all arguments.
"Damn it, FAB." Scott said through gritted teeth.
"Alan's sick?" Fermat asked.
"We're not sure what's going on with him, Fermat. He passed out a few minutes ago." Jeff said.
Scott's swearing was heard by everyone when he said that, and it was all Jeff could do to let it slide because god knows they all feel like they failed three brothers.
"What do we know so far?" Virgil asked.
"The Hood isn't planning to attack another bank anytime soon, according to Alan. I'm inclined to agree, security would be raised too high after the London incident hitting global news this morning." Jeff said.
They are all gathered in the island infirmary, in order to include John in the meeting. Alan was still out of it, merely looking asleep to anyone who was none the wiser. Tin-Tin and Fermat was sitting on his bed, either side of him, while Jeff and Scott were standing. Brains was sitting in the chair next to John's bed, while the astronaut was sitting up and leaning against as many pillows as Virgil could find on the island it seemed. Virgil was tending to Johns fractured arm, on the other side of Brains. Kyrano and Onaha were also there, standing by the door. Lady P was on a monitor, eager to help even while on her own mission to locate Gordon.
"Do we know what happened?" Virgil asked. "Alan is otherwise healthy but you said he just got more tired as time went on and lost his energy?"
"Correct." Jeff frowned. For Virgil to be at a loss was a bad sign. He was a trained paramedic.
"If I may, Gordon might have noticed something vital." Lady P spoke up. All eyes turned to her so she continued. "In the vault when he confronted the Hood, he knew the Hood had done something to Alan."
"What did the Hood say exactly?" Scott asked.
"He said he didn't do anything that wasn't already inflicted onto him. That he had merely amplified what was already there." Lady P said.
"What?" Scott whispered.
"He also said it was your fault." Lady P sighed.
Fermat gasped and covered his mouth with his hand as soon as he realized he brought attention to himself.
"Spit it out son. What aren't you telling us." Jeff said.
"I-I'll be right b-back Mr T-Tracy." Fermat said, running out the room before anyone could blink.
"What the- okay then." Scott said, bewildered.
"Have you found anything yet Penny?" Jeff asked.
"Not yet Jeff, I'm afraid all communications have gone quiet. Even Parker's shady contacts have neglected to call him back regarding a man with glowing red eyes." Lady P said, with Parker in the background echoing the word "allegedly".
"Keep at it, please, Penny." Jeff said, rubbing his hands over his eyes.
"You know I won't dream of stopping until I find Gordon." Lady P said, smiling sympathetically. "Rest, Jeff, all of you in fact, it's been a long week."
Lady P closed the call.
"Indeed it has." Jeff whispered, looking over at John who was kicking up a fuss about his arm, then to Virgil who was threatening to sedate John. He then looked over to Alan, whose hand was being held by Tin-Tin. He found Scott watching them too, and thought his eldest son must have been feeling like he failed his two youngest brothers.
"I'm b-back. And it's e-ex- precicely what I was d-dreading." Fermat said, out of breath. He dropped a small box on John's bed, the man himself picking it up to inspect it.
"Why was Alan taking anti-depressants?" John asked.
Silence rang out through the room, all the occupants failing to find words for the new revelation. Alan was depressed?
"Fermat, whe- when did this start?" Scott asked, carefully.
"I'm n-not sure. I only had my suspicions about it." Fermat said.
"When did your suspicions start?" John asked.
"Three m-months ago. Alan started to zone out in classes, and at times he would be too exhausted to even p-participate in sports. All the signs pointed towards d-depression and while he d-denied it, he p-promised he would b-be fine." Fermat explained.
"Was he?" Virgil asked.
"At t-times, yeah. Other t-times, no." Fermat said.
"What happened three months ago?" John asked, a deadly tone in his voice that stopped everyone in their tracks.
All eyes drifted towards Scott, who paled at the memory of a huge argument that broke out between the two of them over Alan's grades and attraction for trouble.
Flashback
Scott was furious. Alan had failed in more than half his subjects on his last mock examinations and he wanted to know why.
"You had better have a good explanation for this Alan." Scott told him in a deadly tone.
"I'm sorry Scott, I lost concentration for a while, I'll pull back, I promise!" Alan said, voice wavering.
"You lost concentration? Is this a joke? Do you think you can afford to lose concentration in International Rescue? You'll end up getting someone killed if we put you in one of the ships. Want to be a Thunderbird? Pull your damn act together!" Scott shouted.
"Why are you bringing up International Rescue? This is school Scotty, and not the real exams anyway! I'll pull back, I promise!" Alan said.
"Are you even taking this seriously? Forget about being part of the team, you're immature and not cut out for responsibilty. You have a lot of growing up to do." Scott said. He ended the call before Alan could reply.
End flashback
"I overheard th-the argument accidentally, Alan told me he w-would be fine. He went out for a r-run to clear his head b-but didn't come back until t-three hours later. A rumour travelled around the school th-that Alan ran until he c-collapsed." Fermat said. "He c-came back to the d-dorm and said he had made peace with you, Scott."
"Damn it." John glared at Scott. "What the hell were you thinking?"
"I wasn't. I just got back from a thirtysix hour long rescue. I saw red when I saw Alan's report card on Dad's desk." Scott whispered.
"Tch, seriously? Fermat you said three months ago?" John asked. Fermat nodded and John groaned. "Scott you idiot, one of his best friends died a few weeks before his mock exams began, he was grieving."
"What?" Jeff spluttered. "He didn't tell anyone."
"He told me." John said. "He thought you would tell him to move on, that International Rescue doesn't mourn people."
"This was one of his best friends though, why did he feel like he couldn't trust us?" Virgil asked.
"Between the near-cruel teasing and the treating him like a child who doesn't know any better? I can't think of any reason!" John said. He suddenly started coughing, prompting Virgil to grab a glass of water for him.
"We've been joking forever with him though, if he had an issue, he would have said!" Scott said.
"He did say. Did I not call in at the most random times to point out that Alan had been skipping meals and coming to me for various reasons?" John asked. "I didn't want to straight up lay out the kids problems without his permission, that was for him to do, and I told him as much. I also told him I would fight in his corner when he did."
The room was silent. John continued.
"This isn't a new development. It's been happening ever since the Thunderbirds started up six years ago. Dad, Scott, Virgil and I were there from the beginning. Gordon was too young still, but he was training. Alan watched as an eight year old as his elder brothers started flying rockets and driving little yellow submarines, he watched as we all became too busy with International Rescue to properly pay attention to him. You changed your good relationship with him into an outlet for you to vent your frustrations over missions- all the merciless teasing? That's practically your coping mechanisms!" John exclaimed.
"You- you think his depression started while he was so young?" Tin-Tin asked quietly, having been silent all this time.
"Maybe, maybe not. I suspect Scott's argument with him dragged it to the surface though, and it just never left. Skipping meals? Recent. Sleeping in? Recent, he was always a morning person." John said.
"We royally screwed up didn't we? I royally screwed up." Scott said, collapsing onto the floor and leaning against Alan's bedframe.
"If I m-may, in th-theory, Alan is merely suffering from ex-ex- severe exhaustion." Brains said.
"Not just in body, but in mind." Kyrano quietly added.
"Young Alan's emotional t-turmoil was d-dragged violently to the surface by the Hood's p-powers. He was simply overwhelmed and collapsed from it, adding in all th-the events that pr-preceeded it." Brains continued.
"The invasion." Virgil said.
"R-right." Brains replied.
"Okay, we should let John and Alan rest, since that's clearly what both need right now." Virgil said, standing up.
"There will be nothing more we can do until we hear from Lady Penelope. All of you get some rest, we need our strength and full concentration when we get the signal." Jeff said, eager to clear the room and get everyone to go their own ways to deal with the onslaught of information they had recieved. God knows he needed about six cups of coffee to deal with what he just heard.