Chapter 6

Virgil stretched in his seat and felt his back pop in three places as he uncurled himself long enough to take a sip of water and rub his gritty eyes. Before him lay the remains of one of his own uniforms- one of the new batch. The systems had already shorted so he felt safe enough to strip it for the non-electronic bits that he needed. He had one uniform in the testing booth but because of the usual wear, tear and mission damage, compounded by how his exo-suit rubbed on his uniform, he'd had a hard time finding enough intact bits of old-batch uniform to assemble a complete one, but he needed a second just in case this one didn't pass testing. He glanced down at the pile of different shades of blue with green trim on the floor beside him- by his rough tally, he'd taken apart about seven of his uniforms already and still needed to strip various parts out at least another five to make a second uniform.

At the work table in the middle of the room, Brains was carefully running a silicone welder over a seam of Gordon's uniform. The embedded Kevlar and other materials that gave their aquanaut his full range of movement while protecting him from the incredible pressures of the deep ocean had given them no end of trouble- both of the drysuits they'd finished so far had failed less than halfway through the testing cycle. MAX was at Brains' elbow, trilling as he scanned each layer to ensure there were no bubbles or weak spots in the joins.

As for Gordon, he'd been ordered away by Kayo to get their defences up, just in case the Hood paid them a visit again. Virgil frowned as he considered the Hood and the chances of him making another play for their home, his fingers tightening around the handle of the uniform cutter he was using.

He wasn't a violent person, but he was well aware of what he was physically capable of. They all were. It was a necessary part of the job- you had to know how far you could jump, how fast you could run, how long you could grip and hold and what sorts of loads you could carry. Out of curiosity he'd once set up an impact sensor in one of their punching bags and they'd all had at it, so he was pretty aware of the level of force he could put out when he wanted to.

He also knew exactly how many of their suits had been dangerously close to that thirty hour mark.

So between that, the close call that Alan had had, IR going dark and the GDF being grounded, Virgil was self-aware enough to know that his temper, usually the most even out of all of them, was simmering under the surface and looking for an outlet. If the Hood did show his bald head, well...

"Tsunami barriers are up, electronic cloaking is active, fog bank is on, sensors and scanners are at full power and all storm shutters are lowered and locked." Gordon crisply announced as he entered the room and reclaimed his work station where he was carefully peeling the inner lining out of one of his suits to transplant into the one Brains was working on. "The whole island is locked down now."

"Good." Virgil turned back to his work, then paused and looked at Gordon from the corner of his eye. The aquanaut wasn't carrying his 9mm Glock that was known about but never spoken of, but he did have his dive knife hanging from his belt, mostly covered by the hem of the loud Hawaiian shirt he customarily wore off duty. The sight of it worried Virgil- despite all their defences, Gordon was feeling unsafe to the point his WASP training was kicking in and he needed to be armed.

With that in mind Virgil briefly considered the gun safe under Scott's bed that was also known about but not spoken of. Defeating the lock would be easy enough- he'd done it before- but no, he didn't need to resort to that just yet. If Gordon went for his pistol, then he would go raid Scott's gun safe for the Remington shotgun. Until then, there was a mighty big pipe wrench in the corner, that'd do nicely if he needed something.

He'd just set aside the remains of the uniform and reached for the next one when a flash of colour and motion in the corner of his vision caught his attention.

"Brains, Virgil, Gordon, that's enough for now." Doctor Tracy announced as she strode into the room. "You're all exhausted, you need to take a break."

"B-but the suits..!" Brains protested, gesturing with the (deactivated) welder at the pieces of dry-suit strewn before him.

"Can wait." She finished, arms crossed and giving him a look over the rim of her glasses. "If you're tired you'll start making mistakes which will cost you more time. I can watch the testing booth, I can call John when it's done and I can most certainly bag up their space suits and load them into the space elevator without you."

"The defences?" Gordon tried. To his credit he didn't cringe back when the look was upgraded to a Look and swung in his direction.

"I may be old, but I can read a radar screen just fine." Was her reply, edged with frost. "Who do you think watched those screens when your dad and Kyrano were away?" She swept her glance over them all again. "Food, hot shower, rest. Move it."

The three men looked at each other, then reluctantly set down their tools.

When Doctor Tracy made an appearance, she wasn't to be argued with.