Thank you to everyone who has been giving me ideas. I have a lovely list now and am more than happy to keep adding to it. I'll be honest, this fic is bringing back my love of writing (a love that was slaughtered by my job as a freelance writer). Enjoy!
Chapter Seven – Know When to Fold Them
Lady Penelope was laughing when the video started, the camera shaking slightly with the force. Virgil was seated on the floor, blinking up at her in slight confusion, piles of laundry surrounding him. "Hello world," Penny stated, her giggles dying down. She panned the camera around a bit, showing off the set of massive, industrial sized washer and dryer, two soaking sinks and a long folding table. Despite there being a folding table, though, Virgil was clearly seated on the stone-tiled floor in front of the dryer. "We're joining Virgil on laundry duty today."
"You haven't exactly explained why, though," Virgil muttered, absently folding a shirt and sticking it in a pile. There were five piles, one for each brother, with all the unfolded clothes still in the open dryer behind him.
"I thought it would be interesting," Penny replied from behind the camera. It seemed that this video wasn't going to have her starring in it, aside from her voice. Nor did it seem as though she had a clear plan for the video itself. "Virgil, dear, how can you tell whose laundry is who's?" she asked, as Virgil tossed another folded shirt into a different pile.
Virgil shrugged. "I just know? I mean, I've seen each of us wear these, so it's not too difficult to figure out."
"Plus, you each have your own distinctive styles," Penny acknowledged. "Do you ever wash anyone's laundry aside from your own and your brothers? I'm only asking because there was no one else on the chore chart aside from you five boys."
Virgil shrugged. "Brains, Grandma and Kayo all do their own laundry unless they can't. If that's the case, then whoever is on laundry duty takes care of it for them." He tilted his head to one side. "Why?"
Penny shrugged, the camera moving with her. "Someone was asking if you folded each other's unmentionables, and were also wondering if that included Kayo's." It was an odd question, but definitely not the weirdest one they'd had come their way.
Virgil, though, sighed and rolled his eyes. "Penny, honey, I've held people's guts in their bodies. I've delivered babies at thirty thousand feet. I've had to recover remains from disasters. If I, and my brothers for that matter, can do all that, then we can clean and fold pieces of cloth without any discomfort, no matter who they belong to."
"That's a valid point," Penny acquiesced. "For that matter, everyone, if you're too embarrassed to handle your partner's unmentionables, then you're too young or too immature to be in a relationship."
Virgil laughed. "Didn't know we were giving relationship advice on our channel, my lady," he said, raising a single eyebrow.
"Oh, it's a well-rounded set," Penny said with a wave that was just barely caught in the edge of the camera. "Okay, then, how do you wash your uniforms?"
Virgil blinked at her, startled by the sudden change of topic. "Um…we make sure the sensors are disconnected and then throw them in the wash?" he answered, sounding confused. "Brains made them machine washable. Also, we each have like six sets, just in case."
"What are the sensors?" Penny asked, clearly fishing for a little more information. She knew that the viewers were curious about the inside of IR as much as they were curious about the lives of the Tracy brothers. She was willing to let them have a little bit of information, especially as this wasn't exactly classified.
"Bio-readers," Virgil said, focusing on the pair of jeans he had pulled from the large lump of laundry in the dryer next to him. "Designed to relay if we're in any kind of distress. Rescues are dangerous, and IR tends to do the rescues that are far too dangerous for anyone else."
Scott wandered in then, flopping unceremoniously to the ground and slumping against Virgil's back. The younger grunted, taking his brother's weight easily, but with look that was a cross between amused and concerned. "Why are you filming Virgil folding laundry?" Scott muttered around a yawn.
"To answer the age-old question of boxers or briefs," she replied flippantly.
Scott shot her an arched look over Virgil's shoulder before sliding further down. "Why?"
"Because the people want to know, darling!" Penny practically crowed, stifling her giggles. "However, it seems that the answer for all you boys is boring old boxer-briefs."
"You've seen our uniforms," Scott mumbled. "Skin tight is best."
Virgil waggled his eyebrows. "We like to be well supported," he added, with a wicked grin. Penny gave a delighted laugh and Virgil gave a shrug, his grin becoming a little less saucy. "After the Hood, we changed our uniforms, as I'm sure everyone knows. We didn't have to hide our identities anymore, so we went with a tighter design. It's helped with movement, as well as to be able to add better sensors, and keep any material from snagging on anything." The explanation finished, Virgil turned his attention to Scott, shifting slightly. "Weren't you on the mainland today?" he asked. "You shouldn't be this tired."
"Ugh," Scott groaned.
"Story time!" Penny chirped, sliding over a bit so that she could better catch Scott on camera. He gave her a glare but after a moment sighed.
"Okay, so I was at TI today, right?" he said, sitting up just a little. Virgil hummed in response, continuing his folding and Scott looked into the camera. "Right, so Tracy Industries. Big, world-wide mega company focusing on green energy and aeronautics and tech and what have you. It's not a public company. It's currently solely owned by myself, my brothers and Kayo, split evenly six ways. I'm CEO, with John as my second. Right. So. It has a board. Dad set it up as a sounding board, so that he could have some help making big decisions or whatever."
"Right," Penny murmured. "It's a good idea, considering the size of the company."
"Well the board today told me that Tracy Industries would no longer be funding International Rescue."
Virgil paused in his folding, brow furrowing. "Wait… TI doesn't fund IR though…"
"Exactly!" Scott exclaimed, throwing his arms up and nearly whacking his brother in the head. He gave a soft apology at Virgil's warning glare. "So, I told them that. And then I figured that I'd better inform them that even if TI did fund IR, they didn't have the power to be able to pull any of the funding."
Virgil winced. "Hold up. I remember you telling me that right after Dad disappeared, Johnson took over the board and replaced a bunch of people. They didn't like that, did they?"
"It's been a nightmare, Virge," Scott groaned, rolling his eyes. "I swear, I envy the fact that you don't have to deal with them." It went without saying that Virgil had little to do with the business side of the company.
Penny cleared her throat. "Boys? What gave this Johnson the right to replace anyone on the board?" she asked.
There was a large sigh from Scott. "So, when Dad first disappeared, there was a lot of upheaval. What with the Hood outing IR, and the CEO of TI being MIA, it was a mess. Johnson's been on the board the longest, and he seems to think that that means that he's entitled to more power. He was actually vying for control of TI, stating that we weren't capable of heading up the company or whatever."
"It was a load of crock," Virgil said, his voice just short of being a growl. Scott patted his arm absently, running a hand down his own face. "Anyway, Scott and John stepped up and took over."
"Mm-hmm," Scott nodded. "And, after seven months of Dad being gone the authorities called his death and had his will read, which put us firmly in control of the company. But the damage to the board had already been done." And then Scott smirked, pointing at the camera. "But you see, TI doesn't need a board. So today I disbanded it."
Virgil froze again, eye wide as he twisted a bit to look at Scott over his shoulder. "You just disbanded it?"
"Uh huh," Scott said with a satisfied smile as he relaxed against his brother. "John's looking into people to build a new board with. Preferably no one that Johnson had chosen."
"So…what happened to Johnson and his tagalongs?" Virgil asked.
"Considering the amount of fighting they put me through, as well as iron-clad evidence of some money laundering happening from a few of them, all eight of them were terminated effective immediately. Legal cases are to follow," Scott responded. He gave another sigh. "It's gonna be a bit before TI is back to where it needs to be, but hopefully it won't be such an uphill struggle anymore."
Penny was silent for a moment, the camera just focused on the two boys, one lounging while the other diligently folded laundry. "So," she spoke up, gaining their attention. "If you don't get funding from TI, where does International Rescue get it's funding from?"
There was a pause and then Scott gave a little shrug. "To be honest, that's mostly classified," Scott said. "But I can say that we are legally funded, and honestly don't use as much money as you would think. Most of the funding goes towards medical and rescue supplies, with the other amounts going towards repairs for the Birds and the Pods."
"What about fuel?" Penny asked. Fuel wasn't cheap in this day and age by any means, and machines as large as the Thunderbirds had to use a lot of it.
Virgil cleared his throat, tossing a pair of shorts into a pile that just had to be Gordon's considering the amount of brightly-colored Hawaiian print shirts it held. "The Birds don't use fuel. Brains and I designed the propulsion systems, and it's a technology that actually doesn't effectively work in anything smaller than our Birds as of yet. It's a bit dangerous, you see and the containment systems that we use are a little large. We've managed to shrink them enough for Thunderbird Four, but that's still a big machine compared to many others. We're working on a way to make it work for cars and normal planes and all, but it's slow going."
"So…" Penny drawled. "You guys essentially saw that you'd be spending billions on fuel and decided to just cut that issue out of the equation?" She sounded impressed. And a little incredulous. She hadn't ever bothered to ask about fuel before, and her car still ran on it, instead of the propulsion system the Birds used.
Both Scott and Virgil exchanged looks and then shrugged. "Pretty much," they chimed in unison.
Penny sighed. "Tracy logic," she muttered. "They don't just fix a problem; they blow it completely out of the water."
"I mean," Virgil drawled. "You're not wrong…"
Penny huffed, and the screen went black.
Tomo Utada 10 hours ago
They just invented a fuelless propulsion system because they didn't want to spend billions on fuel in their effort to save the world? Holy crap these guys are like super humans or something.
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RobbyReturnLine 9 hours ago
I guess once you've delivered a complete stranger's baby in the middle of a crisis situation folding someone's underwear isn't gonna faze you much
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Charity Graff 8 hours ago
Dude, we learned more from this domestic piece of fluff about the company and IR and stuff than we did during the Q&A.
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314 7 hours ago
Do you think we'll ever get to see stuff with the actual Thunderbirds? Not that I don't love this stuff, but like I kinda wanna see the Birds.
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HappyHasACow 6 hours ago
Who the heck thinks they can just take over a company that they have no ownership of? I mean, really? Everyone knows that TI isn't a public company.
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SingMeToSleep 5 hours ago
They're reminding me that I have piles of unfolded laundry on my chair and I don't even have a world to save or a company to run keeping me from folding it. The guilt is heavy.
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