Chapter 3
Brains' workshop was a scene of controlled disorganisation when he got there. Large crates, bins and boxes had been hauled in and were lined up on one of the workbenches. Each was labelled with the name and type of suit they contained. Their body forms- high tech, articulated, full-body 'dressmakers dummies', riddled with sensors and sized exactly to them- had been pulled out of storage so Brains and Virgil could put completed suits on them and run them through the testing booth to make sure they were at spec.
As he watched, MAX pulled two damaged helmets out of a bin marked 'Alan- space rated' and brought them over to a table so that Virgil could start pulling them apart for spares for the helmet he was working on. At the same time, Brains was examining the seams of a glove with the aid of his headset.
"How can I help?" Gordon asked as he entered the room.
Without looking up from his work, Virgil pointed in the direction of a box of baldrics all mixed together. "Go dig through that and pull out John's ones." He instructed. "Find the best looking one and run a diagnostic to see what needs replacing."
"Got it." Gordon nodded and started collecting them, looping the baldrics over his arm. There were only ten and they all looked in pretty good shape; while John was arguably the busiest of them, he didn't physically go on as many rescues so his gear didn't have as many opportunities to get damaged as the rest of them. In comparison he could see one of Scott's baldrics where the surface had been rubbed away right down to the internal circuitry- the eldest had somehow gotten caught up in some cabling for a collapsed crane a couple of months ago and the friction from the rapidly unspooling inch-thick wires had done a heck of a lot of damage to his uniform. Thankfully he'd gotten away with only a few sore muscles and an absolute chewing out from Virgil and Grandma for that particular stunt.
He laid the baldrics out on a worktable, scanned each one for damage, selected the best and started pulling apart the others for the parts he needed. Kayo appeared opposite him and wordlessly started pulling the damaged components out of the baldric.
"Surprised you're still here." Gordon glanced up at her as he prised the lens out of the projector on one of the donor baldrics.
"I'm waiting on my suit to finish testing." Kayo nodded to the testing booth in the far corner. "Mine was the easiest so it was finished first."
"Right." Gordon gingerly set down the lens and started stripping the back off the baldric so he could get at the connecting points that tied the baldric into the uniform.
"This would be a lot easier if we weren't so quick to recycle old uniforms." Virgil grumbled to the room at large. He set aside the completed helmet, swept the leftover bits into a box and directed MAX to fetch him some of John's old helmets. "New procedure: we keep an intact spare of everything from the previous batch every time we do a new batch."
"A-agreed." Was Brains' succinct but absent response, his concentration on the delicate wiring he was soldering together.
"Where are we up to?" Kayo asked on her way to the tool racks to pick out what she needed.
"Testing booth has another ten minutes to run. Almost done with Scott's, halfway through Alan's." Virgil pointed to the respective piles of uniforms on the bench beside him. "John's is giving Brains some issues, it's all that integrated circuitry and he's got an antenna running down the whole left side of his body, wrist to ankle." Virgil pulled a face. "It doesn't help that his uniforms tend to get changed out when they're worn out, not when they're damaged, so finding components is harder."
"Anything else we can do to help?" Gordon asked.
"Just keep working at that baldric, if we had to we could send John a uniform without one, but he's like a cat without whiskers if he doesn't have comms tech and he'll need the jets if he goes outside for any reason." Was Virgil's conclusion.
"F.A.B." Gordon nodded and set to his task once again.
0o0o0
Up on Five, Alan had warmed to the point where his brothers had felt it safe enough to let him put his undersuit back on and curl up under the blankets on his own to get some more rest. He'd made a valiant effort to prove he was back up to spec, but his body had betrayed him with a jaw-cracking yawn and he was given another sachet of glucose and told in no uncertain terms to get some rest and let his body recover some more.
The eldest two, unmoved by the youngest's mutterings of 'double standards' and 'see if I cover for you the next time you make a break from the infirmary', had left him to it under EOS' careful watch and relocated to the kitchen where they were following the instructions that Grandma had sent them and cobbling together a cream for treating Alan's chapped and reddened fingers and toes. Since they had no idea when they'd be able to go back home yet, it was deemed best to start treatment sooner rather than later.
"Found it yet?" Scott asked as he sifted through the collection of containers that John had retrieved from the cargo bay, found the one he was after and measured out a scoop of antiseptic cream to add to the basic moisturiser he'd been directed to use as a base.
"Yeah, just now." John plunked the last ingredients down on the bench at Scott's elbow. "Hey, don't use that cup, that's my favourite."
"They're all the same." Scott squinted at the plain white coffee cup he'd appropriated for mixing in in lieu of a bowl, then looked at John curiously. "How do you tell the difference?"
"I just know." John turned to hunt through the cupboard and pulled out another mug that to Scott's untrained eye looked identical to the one he was using. "Here, use this one. It's not my favourite."
Amused but not commenting on it, Scott obediently scooped the cream out of the mug into the other. "Better?" He asked as he handed the used mug to John so it could go through the dishwasher.
"Much." Was John's reply, immediately putting the cup in the machine to be washed.
One of the projectors chimed for attention and both brothers left off their work as Lady Penelope's image appeared. "Scott, John, I have just discovered something alarming." She began without preamble. "International Rescue are not the only buyers of that particular component, the GDF are their other major customer."