"John? I have some questions about this archive." EOS asked, her indicator lights flickering white.
She had a growing concern that she could not ignore any longer, but the subject was potentially a delicate one so an oblique approach was required.
While her threat/danger/fear drive was much reduced these days, she had discovered a new variant of it that had sent her processors into a flutter- threats to John and to his family triggered the same need for protection/preservation that had initially made her aggressive to the person who was now her companion in Five. This was a problem. EOS did not like problems.
John looked up from the comm sphere and glanced over the archive she'd brought up. "Post mission reports? What about them?" He queried, head tilted slightly to one side.
"Why do you require them?" EOS asked. She'd learned all their procedures and 'the big book of rescues' as Virgil had called it, in a matter of moments, but knowledge did not equate understanding and that was what she needed here.
"They're for us and for the GDF. They need to know what we found and did on site for the clean up and repairs and these reports tell them." John explained. "We need to keep records so we know what we did, what worked and what didn't, what we used, if any equipment was damaged or needs looking at, that sort of thing. It keeps us organised."
"Can you tell me about this section?" She brought up a blank template and highlighted a tab marked 'Cause'.
"Well, knowing the cause helps us identify hazards we can expect before we get there and afterwards any patterns there may be, such as six space freighters of the same model having similar emergencies." Was John's explanation, his hands absently gliding over the holographic projection of the Earth as he tracked his brothers' progress back home to the island. "If it's anything related to things like health and safety or building code violations we can pass our data on to the GDF to do something about it."
"Like Fischler?" Her indicator lights were yellow this time. He was a vexing human and she was keeping very close tabs on him. She felt well justified in designating that particular human as a threat to John.
John chuckled- he'd missed the yellow flicker, distracted by a message from Scott asking what he wanted to watch for movie night. "Yes, just like Fischler." He confirmed, flicking a message back to Scott of 'Anything Star Wars/Trek'.
"And this one?" She asked, now highlighting the tab on the 'visible to IR only' section of the template that said 'Medical'.
John sobered. "Injuries. Recording if we get hurt lets us pick up any patterns so we can try to prevent them in the future. It's part of how we figure out what to upgrade on our equipment or where we need training. Like our gecko gloves, Brains designed them because of all the times we've lost our grip on something."
EOS was silent for a moment, processing that. "Thank you, John."
She trawled through the years of files in a matter of seconds, cross referencing the various metrics provided on injuries with the general categories of the cause of the crisis. Minor injuries- bumps and bruises- she disregarded, focusing on anything requiring higher levels of care with a sub report on anything that required grounding a pilot.
What she found reinforced her concern.
By a significant margin the more serious injuries and corresponding downtime were linked to call outs for malicious intent, poor construction, poor maintenance and health and safety violations which created a more dangerous environment for rescues.
Fatigue and preventative groundings had a direct correlation to high levels of call outs, a generous percentage of which were also linked to preventable causes.
She couldn't help but notice all the times the 'Pilot experiencing fatigue' checkbox had been selected and the number of times there was a corresponding 'Y' in the Pilot Injury Y/N section. A quick skim of the internet threw up alarming data on how often fatigue led to accidents and injuries.
But what to do with this? What was in the past was useful for analysis and it's potential in harm prevention or reduction, but little else...unless she could take the proactive prevention that updated their equipment and training a step further.
That was worth considering.
Thunderbird Five was linked to the world and she was linked to Five. This was a digital age and though data could be hidden, nothing could ever be completely removed. A little digging could bring many things to the attention of the right people before a disaster occured and obliged the Tracys to put themselves at risk when it shouldn't have happened in the first place. The GDF and other government organizations even had anonymous tip websites and whistleblower inboxes for exactly this sort of thing.
It was certainly something within her abilities. She knew she would not be able to keep these potential activities covert for long, not from the very people who's Thunderbird was now her home. So now the question of could was answered the next was if she should.
Virgil would say no, that she knew immediately. His engineer's mind, programmed with the rules of physical matter- tensile strength, density, tolerances and temperatures- was too black and white. The rules were the rules and the rules stood firm for reasons. What she wanted to do would violate many, many rules.
Alan was still developing, still leaning on his siblings and elders for what patterns he should follow. She was unsure what he would advocate. Doctor Tracy was also an enigma, she advocated doing the right thing, but would she still see it as right if it involved breaking the law to prevent a potential emergency, not an actual one.
Scott had a little more flex, Gordon did too. They were military trained, and while they knew regulations, they also knew how those regulations could be bent to give some wiggle room. That Scott had a habit of asking John for not quite legal things for the purposes of a rescue was a positive indication of how he might react to what she was considering.
John, Kayo, Lady Penelope and Parker used the rules to define the loopholes and exploit them. There was a certain pragmatic philosophy about 'means' and 'ends' for those four alongside the key phrases of 'plausible deniability' and 'don't get caught'.
So she kept all of this in her recent memory while she set up her decision tree around three main factors.
Thus far there hadn't been any negative outcomes from a usual pilot being grounded and the team being one or two members down, but that was a matter of time and probability.
High volumes of rescues led to fatigue and higher chances of injury.
Emergencies later deemed as preventable were the ones that consistently resulted in more or more serious injuries.
The conclusion was simple. Less preventable emergencies meant less injuries, less fatigue and less downtime. This would drastically reduce the danger and harm towards the Tracys.
So EOS decided to be proactive.
Two months later EOS listened in as Scott told John that Colonel Casey called to say that the anonymous whistleblower inbox was suddenly bulging with safety violations, unsafe practice reports and shoddy building work alerts all linked to information that builders, owners or management had suppressed. They'd even had to hire new inspectors to cope with the influx. Casey had asked Scott if he knew anything about it and he'd replied it was news to him but he'd ask John and get back to her.
John had innocently and truthfully replied it certainly wasn't him, he didn't have the time for something like that. But it certainly had to have had something to do with the corresponding drop in preventable emergencies they'd attended lately and as far as he was concerned that was a good thing in his books. John couldn't help but flick a knowing and pleased smile at EOS' lurking camera.
Scott had quirked a smile at that and dropped the topic. If he didn't ask, he wouldn't have to lie.
EOS' processors hummed with something she had recently identified as satisfaction as she compiled her latest report and sent it spinning off through cyberspace to the tip off inbox.