Chapter 4.
Scott roused John at five o'clock as promised. The redhead looked somewhat better after a short sleep, despite the groans he emitted as he dragged himself into the shower.
Scott bit his lip. Maybe giving him two tranquilisers had been a bit excessive.
Kayo descended the staircase at five to six, dressed in a black skater dress and heeled boots. A black handbag swung from her shoulder and her hair was up in its signature ponytail.
"I wasn't sure where you'd be taking me, so figured it was better to dress up rather than down," Kayo elaborated when Gordon's eyes nearly fell clean out of his head, "I can change real quick if this isn't suitable?"
"It's fine," John squeaked, silently wishing he'd taken another tranquiliser. Unfortunately, Scott had beaten him to it and hidden the packet.
"Alright Space Carrot," Kayo beamed, checking her reflection in the kettle before turning to face her ginger-haired companion, "I'm all yours. Our date officially commences now."
A deafening kind of silence descended over the room as John desperately fought the urge to faint. When he failed to offer anything on the reply front, Virgil intervened, "I know Scott offered you Thunderbird One, but why don't you take Two instead? The ride will be slower, but you'll be comfier. Plus, you've accrued more flight hours in her."
John gave a slow nod and was rewarded with a backslap, "Excellent! Kayo, are you okay co-piloting, or do you need me to walk you through the basics real quick?"
"No need," Kayo gave a dismissive wave of her hand, "I've watched you do it enough times. We should be fine."
Nervous glances were exchanged between brothers uno and dos as John visibly gulped. When it became apparent that the third brother wasn't going to move without the assistance of dynamite, Scott's impatience got the better of him, "Okay then, well, you guys have fun. Don't talk to strangers and remember to be back by ten!"
Kayo snorted and began to steer her charge in the direction of the hangars, "In your dreams. All the decent places don't even open until ten."
No sooner had the special ops spaceman duo disappeared, than Scott and Virgil treated each other to matching deadpan stares.
"You put a portable camera in his pocket, didn't you?"
"You put a listening device in her purse, didn't you?"
A beat passed before the sky duo exchanged a high five of mutual camaraderie.
"I couldn't let him go at it alone," Scott confessed, kneeling to tinker with the holoprojector in the middle of the lounge, "I figured I could provide some off-site support if he really struggles."
A laugh bubbled up Virgil's diaphragm, "He could have used it a minute ago. Poor kid looked a sneeze away from an early grave."
A mutter of agreement floated out of Scott as he pulled up the live feed from the camera and covert listening device. The camera was miniature and capable of being controlled remotely. After familiarising himself with the controls, the eldest Tracy gingerly maneuvered it out of John's pocket and up his sleeve until it was resting on his shoulder, safely concealed underneath his shirt collar.
"Okay, I think we're in the clear," Scott declared, patching in the audio feed and jumping clean out of his skin when Kayo's voice reverberated around the room.
"I've been meaning to go and see it for a while, but just haven't had the time-"
Virgil rubbed his hands together in barely concealed glee as Scott bolted to the kitchen to grab supplies of the food and drink variety. Consistent with the laws of Tracy Luck, the sound of the fridge door opening summoned an extra (if slightly unwanted), body.
"Family movie night?" Gordon exclaimed in delight, "Awesome! I must have missed the memo."
Scott groaned into the vegetable drawer as the aquanaut dangled over the first floor balcony, his keen eyes instantly locking onto Virgil's less than discreet attempts at disconnecting John's camera feed.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Gordon's jaw went slack as he zipped down the stairs and began walking around the holographic display in awe, "Do my baby browns deceive me, or are you spying on John and Kayo?"
A sudden pattering of feet announced Alan's arrival onto the scene, "Wait! Did I just hear that right?"
An affirmative 'whoop' danced out of Gordon's mouth as he gave his younger brother a double thumbs up, "Alan, get your butt over here! A whole night's worth of top-quality entertainment is about to start!"
The youngest Tracy wasted no time in relocating said butt over to the holoprojector, his socks sliding precariously on the hardwood floor. Scott felt the clouds of irritation begin to descend as he slammed the fridge shut and began filling a huge bowl with popcorn. Giving the Terrible Two fodder to stuff in their mouths was a tried-and-tested way of keeping volume to a minimum.
There was a low rumble in the distance as Thunderbird Two's engines ignited, signalling her imminent departure from the island. Much to Virgil's dismay, the normally majestic sight of the great green aircraft taking to the twilit sky was somewhat dampened by the cackles bursting out of a certain aquanaut.
"John Glenn Tracy is go!"
-x-
Three hours into John's livestream, and Gordon and Alan were bitterly disappointed.
Their ginger brother had touched down at a fancy wine bar in Melbourne and wasn't engaging in any of the embarrassing behaviour they'd expected. On the contrary, he seemed to be doing kind of…good.
Sure, none of his dialogue was setting the world (or Kayo's scoring, no doubt) on fire, but he was certainly doing an admirable job of pretending that he had his shit together.
Back in the safety of Tracy Island's lounge, the ever optimistic Virgil was busy hunting for a silver lining, "On the plus side, this is at least giving us tips about how she performs on a date. Might help us when it's our turn."
Scott made a noise of agreement over the popcorn in his mouth.
Alan meanwhile, was gazing reproachfully at the holoprojector as if it had just offended him, "Ugh, if he's not going to embarrass himself, I'm off to bed."
"She seems kind of into him," Gordon observed, sipping idly from a can of soda and burping loudly. They'd turned off the audio after it became clear how bad of a conversationalist their ginger brother was. There was only so much one could say about the weather, Grandma's cooking, and Sherbert's fashion sense in three hours and ten minutes.
Grunts of agreement were offered by Scott and Virgil. While Kayo certainly didn't look as if she was being swept off her feet, whatever John was saying had her attention.
"She's leaning in!" Gordon squealed, the implied tone of his announcement causing Alan to abort his bedroom journey and sprint back to the sofa. Crumbs were sprayed across half the floor as Scott choked on his mouthful of popcorn, and it was without a shred of dignity that Virgil nearly decorated his lap with his drink.
"Holy hell on a submarine!" Gordon exclaimed, clutching a cushion as Kayo extended a hand and placed it on what little they could see of John's arm, "Guys! This just got real! Should we play a fart sound over his comm?"
The glare Scott managed to shoot the aquanaut in-between bouts of wheezing was nothing short of epic, "And why would we do that?"
A 'duh' expression was offered by Gordon in lieu of a verbal reply, "We can't seriously let Johnny boy there get off to a strong start! This first date is a valuable chance for us to gather data, and I'll be damned if that carrot sets the bar out of my reach before I've even had my turn!"
Scott thumped his chest a few times to dislodge a stray kernel, "You're taking this too far, Gordon."
"But how will the rest of us fare if John does well?" Alan whined, gesturing helplessly at the holographic scene in front of them, "One of the benefits of him going first is that I'll look good by comparison."
Snorts of mirth gave way to gapes of disbelief when Kayo threw her head back and laughed at whatever John was saying. The sudden shift away from the third brother's predictable awkwardness was enough to make Gordon start gnawing on his fingernails like a beaver with a branch. Spying an opportunity to thwart the vengeful aquanaut, Scott grabbed the microphone and shoved it into the safety of his pocket, "No fart sounds on my watch."
Robbed of his only weapon, Gordon could only watch in horrified silence as Kayo put down her drink, scooted even closer to his ginger brother, and leant in. Several feet away, Alan took cover behind the nearest available cushion.
3….
2….
1….
…
THUNK.
"What the-?"
Brothers four and five allowed their eyes to open a crack, only to be met with a scene that was dramatically different to the one they'd just been watching. Kayo was still the central focus, but she had somehow flipped ninety degrees to the left. She also looked mildly alarmed, and was doing something with her hand that was making the camera shake.
Virgil wasted no time reengaging the audio, his eyebrows knitting together in concern as Kayo's voice once again echoed around the room, "John? Are you okay? John? John?"
"Virgil, tap into the telemetry from John's comm gauntlet and pull up his vitals," Scott instructed, brotherly compassion giving way to professional concern, "It looks as if he might have fainted."
The engineer did as ordered and pulled up a screen parallel to the video feed. He tapped and swiped until John's stats materialised in front of them, "Heartbeat looks normal, temperature isn't out of the ordinary, blood pressure seems to be okay, blood oxygen saturation is within normal parameters…"
Despite his lack of experience in the medical field, Alan's keen gaze was quick to latch onto a figure below Scott's line of vision, "What does BAC mean? Its looks kinda high."
Scott frowned, "Blood alcohol concentration. Indeed, his is way outside what it should be. The legal limit is 0.08, and his is 0.12."
Alan felt his freckles pale, "Is that bad?"
Scott shook his head, "Not in the long-term, but he'll feel dreadful tomorrow. His motor skills won't be up to much, so Kayo will have to pilot Thunderbird Two home by herself. What I'm more concerned about is why he relied on alcohol to get him through the night. Did you see how many beers he had, Virg?"
"I stopped counting after the fourth one," the engineer confessed, "Figured he was just enjoying himself."
"Well, Kayo certainly isn't. At least not anymore," Gordon quipped, leaning forward in anticipation when the scene on the holoprojector shifted yet again. They were now being treated to various views of what looked suspiciously like concrete, and Scott's attempts at piloting the mini camera away from John's shoulder to a higher vantage point seemed to be hitting a snag.
"He must be supine," the eldest muttered, rolling his eyes when Alan predictably asked for a definition, "It means he's lying on his back. No part of his body is higher than the rest at the moment."
The scene shifted again, and this time movement was evident. Scott activated the rotors on the camera and steered it away from John's unmoving form, grateful for its tiny size and silent engine.
"Oh, god…" Virgil groaned, palm meeting face as Scott panned the lens around to get a full-bodied look at their unconscious brother, who was utterly dead to the world and being dragged by his legs across what looked like a carpark towards the waiting form of Thunderbird Two.
A weird noise that sounded halfway between a snort and a hiccup escaped from Alan as he tried desperately to keep his humour in check. Unfortunately, the sight of Kayo staggering along in her heels and looking utterly pissed off was too much for poor Gordon to handle, much to the dismay of several reef herons who were forced to vacate their evening roosts prematurely when he started cackling.
"Should we wait up for them?" Virgil asked, cringing when Kayo accidentally dropped one of John's legs.
A soft whistle sounded as Scott inhaled through his teeth, "We should probably be around to take him off her hands. I doubt he'll be her favourite person by the time she gets back."
The expression of disbelief on Virgil's face was one for the history books.
"I'd love to know what makes you think she'll be any better with us."
-x-
One hour later and Kayo was beelining Thunderbird Two back towards the welcome silhouette of Tracy Island. The mini camera was still active, as was the accompanying audio surveillance device. Unfortunately, the latter had had to be turned off yet again, thanks to Kayo's appalling language.
"I'm not a baby!" Alan huffed, "I've heard half of those words from you!"
"Doesn't matter," Scott replied, snatching up Gordon's empty soda cans, "I don't want you being exposed to that calibre of language more than necessary."
The youngest brother deployed his trademark pout and channelled his frustration into hoovering up the crumbs at the bottom of the popcorn bowl. He'd just gotten started on a particularly stubborn kernel when Gordon suddenly burst into the room.
"They're back!" the aquanaut warned, flinching when the familiar sound of the palm trees retracting filtered into the house, "What should we do?"
"What do you mean, what should we do?" Scott snapped, kicking the dishwasher shut with his foot, "We sit up here and wait, like adults. None of us have anything to hide."
The other three hummed in hesitant agreement, their eyes tracking the eldest brother uncertainly as he began idly rinsing a glass out under the tap. Alas, peace never lasted long in the Tracy household, and it was with a rather unmanly shriek that Scott dropped the plate he was working on several minutes later when the hangar door slammed shut two storeys down.
"Shit, they're coming! Everybody hide!" Scott hissed, completely backtracking on his original statement and diving behind the kitchen island.
A three-way 'deer in headlights' glance was exchanged between Virgil, Gordon, and Alan before the battle over prime hiding spots commenced. Virgil torpedoed to the end of the lounge and shoved himself behind a bookcase, while Gordon flung himself onto the floor and belly-shuffled his way underneath one of the sofas. In a state of utter panic, Alan threw caution to the wind and launched himself into the pool.
Several seconds passed (much to Alan's dismay) before Kayo materialised in the lounge, John slung over her shoulder like a roll of carpet. She'd ditched her heels and was barefoot, her tights slipping against the floor as she lugged the redhead over to the same sofa Gordon was sandwiched beneath and dumped him unceremoniously onto the cushions. The springs bowed under John's weight, eliciting a small squeak of panic from the now trapped aquanaut.
Without bothering to retrieve her shoes, Kayo stomped off up the stairs, her tirade of foul language continuing right up until the moment her bedroom door slammed shut.
One by one, the conscious Tracys materialised. Scott poked his head up from behind the kitchen island, while Alan dramatically surfaced from the pool. Virgil shimmied his way out from behind the bookcase, and Gordon stuck a hand out from underneath the sofa, signalling desperately for help.
"Well," Virgil cleared his throat and seized Gordon's flailing arm, "That could have gone better."
"Such a shame," Scott sighed, dropping the ladle he'd armed himself with, "He was doing so well for most of the night."
A pained wheeze of triumph sounded as Gordon was dragged to safety, "Yes he was, but at least Alan was right."
"Right about what?" Scott asked, placing a glass of water and some aspirin on the coffee table for John to wake up to.
Gordon grinned and cracked his spine back into position.
"We'll all look good by comparison now!"