wohooo! another chapter down - took me a while to wrangle this, but I made it in the end.

I'm looking forward to the next one - I'm putting some things that I hope are fun in there

Problem 3: EOS

When Brains attacked Thunderbird Five, the first thing he did was disable the security systems, including the ever-vigilant resident AI, trapping her in a looping set of protocols from which there was no escape. Well that's what he first thought when - of clearer mind and waiting for news about John's surgery - he went back over his actions. In those anxious hours he transferred her core data onto a mobile storage unit, and had been studied it closely: based on his findings he now wasn't so sure.

Anaylising the patterns showed that each cycle was getting shorter and he scratched his head over whether this was because her code was degrading or she was breaking out of the protocol. He wasn't an expert on AI's, it was far from his speciality and luckily he didn't need to be. Because they had an expert.

Brains had meant one of the others to take EOS to John but somehow Virgil cajoled him along with talk of a change of scenery and the old NASA museum, so he found himself standing in a clean, bright, antiseptic-smelling corridor.

A nurse stopped them just before they reached the closed door: "Make it quick, make it quiet. He didn't have a very good night." She cautioned.

"Maybe I should come back another day?" Brains said, eager to get out of this visit if he could. He hadn't thought about it too much on the flight here but now his nerves were pinging and stomach tightening at the thought of facing John – conversing with him – for the first time.

"No," Virgil told Brains firmly, "we need to get EOS sorted," then telling the nurse more politely "We will keep the stress to a minimum. What's the problem?"

"He didn't sleep well and we're titrating the pain relief down now: it's too dangerous to keep it at higher levels."

Virgil nodded and stepped into the room, dragging Brains behind him.

"Morning!" He said cheerily, but got a dull, slow blink in response. John had been coming back to himself over the past few days – shaking of his long nap and becoming more alert, but today clearly reversed some of that progress. Yesterday John had been sitting up, talking, eating, but now he laid back and looked completely exhausted.

"Don't start." John said grimly. "Everyone has been unbearably upbeat today."

"Well, if you're the odd one out you are probably the problem." Virgil told him, pulling a chair round.

"Thanks. That's really helpful." John said with a deep slow breath. "What are the chances you can persuade them to let me home today?"

"About as low as the chances of you persuading me to fly you home." Virgil said, quickly quashing that idea. "You not enjoying your holiday?" It was indeed rare that any of them got any extended time away and John was harder than most to tear away from the day job, but the joke only got a glare in response.

"You'll be pleased we bought you something to do then." Virgil waved Brains forward, from where he had been shifting nervously by the door.

"I...er..." Brains visibly swallowed, eyes fixed on the ground.

"You ok Brains?" John asked, a wave of concern passing over his face, chasing away the tiredness. It was amazing how quickly someone else in distress could push a Tracey's own problems to one side. They were irritatingly admirable like that which made Brains feel even worse.

"I …... I." Brains took a couple of steps closer and tried to keep the shaking to a minimum. This was his first visit. The first time he had seen his friend in person: seen the fading bruises, dark circles under the eyes, heavy bandaging. It was almost too much: the weight of the damage he had wrought pressing on his chest.

John pushed himself up slightly, hissing as he moved "What's wrong? You look like you're about to pass out. Virgil, have you been keeping an eye out for after affects?"

"Keep still" Virgil said with exasperation, trying to push him back. "Brains is fine. Working himself a little hard even for him." Virgil shot him a reprimanding look.

"Oh," John allowed himself to be pushed back disappointment and a whole other sort of hurt creeping in to his voice. "I thought you ….. that you hadn't been because... well. Never mind. You were too busy."

Brains had kept himself busy. As busy as he had ever been to avoid thinking and so he went to bed too tired to dream: dreams that were confusing and haunting and always ended with a firework in orbit.

"Don't be like that John." Virgil told him "Brains has been putting together the plans for improvement to Five, right?" Brains nodded silently and John perked up a bit.

"That's great. Can I see?" He gestured to the storage device.

"This. This isn't the plans. This is EOS." He lay the unit of the bed, nearby to John's bandaged hand. "When I..." He licked his lips and didn't finish the sentence. "She's in a holding algorithm and it's deteriorating. And I don't know if it's a good thing."

John squeezed the device and the holo-status screen sprang to life. A brief glance was all it took for him to be able to diagnose "She's fine. Getting annoyed and dizzy no doubt, but look here" he pointed at a particular section of code "she's working her way out."

"Well that's a relief." Virgil said. "Can you unlock it? Save her all that work?"

"Sure. Might be better to do it on the island on a closed system though – Scott's always been a bit wary about letting her off the network."

"We'll do it here." Virgil said, firm. John raised a questioning eyebrow. "We're worried that she might be a bit, err how to put it, angry. And we might need your help to calm her down."

"What you think is going to happen? That she'll go on some sort of rampage?" John frowned.

"Yes, to be honest. Come on, she's got history." The last time John was nearly killed in space had been down to here and though John might have forgiven some, Scott in particular, didn't forget.

John rolled his eyes, and picked up the unit, pressing keys to enter whatever coding was needed to unlock the programme. "That's in the past. She's family now and you lot need to learn to trust her a bit more."

John took several deep breathes as he worked, his injuries clearly troubling him, at one point stopping completely and closing his eyes tight.

"We can come back later" Brains suggested, another wave of guilt surging over him.

"No, it's ok." John put the device down with a deep sigh. "It's done." Even that small effort had clearly wearied him.

The screen that usually showed John's vital signs flickered and warped into a familiar ring of lights.

"Ow." She complained, petulant "That tingled Brains, and not in a good way."

"I'm sorry EOS." Brains said, finding it hard to swallow for the tension he felt. He honestly had no idea what she might do, what vengeance she might reek. She had become very attached to John and though she often acted like a child she most definitely was not. Bringing her to the centre of a highly advanced, high security, highly secure defence facility.

"You are forgiven" she returned brightly and the visions of building burning and machinery turning against them faded away. "I know you weren't quite yourself. Neither are you John." She addressed the astronaut – who was looking more gray and struggling to keep his eyes open with each passing minute.

"I'll be fine EOS, I just need to rest." he sighed out.

"Agreed, and since it's your idea you won't have any objections when I get the staff in here to check on you, right?" Virgil said, and Brains could see that John had boxed himself into a corner. It was a mark of how off he was feeling that he had put himself in that position in the first place and he ungracefully conceded.

"Fine." He agreed, and Virgil started to move both of them from the room, grabbing EOS's unit – which she had zipped back to - as they went. "Are we all good EOS?"

"Of course," EOS pipped up, "I haves several ideas how we can strengthen our security systems, improve Thunderbird Five's power distribution and hunt down the Hood. And I am very keen to get started."