Chapter 7
It was with a sense of deep relief that John pulled the bundle of uniforms out of the space elevator, tossed Scott's to him and shook out his refurbished spacesuit. "This feels so much better." He declared as he stepped into it and pulled it on.
"Agreed." Scott wasted no time climbing into his uniform, clipping the armoured boots and greaves into place and bouncing on his toes to help them sit properly without the aid of the robotic arms of the launch tube. A corkscrewing scratch on the left bracer caught his attention for a moment and made him half-smile at the memory, then out of curiosity he glanced over the other parts of his uniform to see what other bits of damage he could spot. At John' querying look he pointed at the bracer scratch and explained. "I recognised that one, broken masonry in Toronto."
"Should I be worried that you can identify what mission damaged your uniform?" John asked, but his tone was teasing as he settled his baldric into place and pulled on it to make sure the connecting points were secure and locked into his space suit.
"I can't identify all of them, just that one. It was memorable." Scott defended himself as he fastened his uniform and tugged the neck piece up to his chin, then put his helmet on so he could run a quick system check and make sure his suit was indeed space-proof. It was probably unnecessary, but today he had to be doubly sure.
John, doing the same, just chuckled. "Uh huh." Was his remark as he got greens across the board on his HUD, unclipped his helmet and hooked it to his belt, then picked up the bundle of Alan's uniform. "You go warm up Three, I'll get Alan. EOS?"
"Yes John?" EOS' camera glided into the room.
"We're going down, keep running your searches, make sure Five is locked down and at the slightest sign of trouble or the Hood raiding somewhere, signal me, okay?" John asked, looking up at her camera.
"Understood." EOS was not happy about it, judging by the two yellow lights amidst the white in her indicator ring, but she didn't protest- without spare suits and replacement parts it just wasn't safe for John to stay up on Five for long.
"He'll be back as soon as he can." Scott found himself promising, knowing how much EOS hated being left alone on the station.
"Thank you, Scott." EOS' camera nodded to him, the green of gratitude/thanks/happy colouring her lights.
The siblings turned to their tasks and EOS returned to her own, delving back into the invisible web of data that enshrouded the world below her. As far as she could tell, the Hood hadn't moved yet and this apparent lack of action was deeply concerning to her.
0o0o0
At the same time that Three detached from her sibling Thunderbird, Kayo was slipping through the darkened manufacturing plant at Bayfield Electronics like a wraith, Rigby at her back and his team fanning out around them as they searched for any sign of the Chaos Crew's presence and where exactly they had sabotaged the production line. EOS was still working on the break in the security, they had an idea of when Havoc's (and maybe Fuse's) first visit had been- three weeks ago with at least four subsequent visits, including last night- but no idea of where she'd been in the factory, so it meant a long, arduous search into every nook and cranny, and in a place this size there were a lot of them. They'd already been at this for almost an hour and they'd covered maybe a sixth of the production floor.
As they carefully searched the building she couldn't help a frisson of trepidation that made her suppress a shiver. No matter how many empty or abandoned factories, warehouses and office buildings she investigated, the inherent eeriness of a silent and still space that should have been bustling with life and movement never failed to unnerve her. It wasn't like the empty feeling of an evacuated danger zone, those were supposed to be empty, it was something different and it had that spot between her shoulder blades prickling like she was being watched.
"You okay?" Rigby must have picked up on her tension, the older man murmuring the question softly.
"Fine." Kayo responded, then changed the topic. A danger zone was not the time to wax poetic about philosophies regarding liminal spaces. "I'm impressed with your team." And she honestly was, unlike most soldiers always stomping about, she barely even knew that they were there.
"Thanks." Rigby's pride was evident in his voice, even though she couldn't see his face in the gloom. "I've been training them for months now, hand picked all of them."
She made a noise of acknowledgement, filing the information away for later investigation- the GDF getting a competent team together was useful, but having a specific team was like lining up targets for the Hood to attempt to corrupt. She'd have John browse through their personnel files later, after the current crisis.
"Sir, ma'am!" One of Rigby's team called in a hushed voice and waved at them from across the other side of a conveyor belt. "I found something."
They clambered over the conveyor belt to see him pointing to some fresh-looking scuff marks on the dulled steel surface of a large machine. "These can't be more than a day or two old." He told them, pointing to the faintest trace of purple on one of the scuffs.
"Okay, we're going over this with a fine-toothed comb." Rigby instructed, looking around his team as they spread out to examine the machine. It was about half the size of one of Two's modules, a hulking thing with tanks, pipes and vents and covered in gauges and readouts.
Moving slowly, Kayo played her torch over the section she'd picked to examine, shining it into every gap and crevice. She hissed softly when her torch illuminated a splash of very familiar purple and directed the light onto it to find a detonator the length of her forearm tucked into a gap between two towering pieces of equipment that she couldn't identify but had enough warning signs on it that she knew it would be a very, very bad thing if the explosives went off. "Rigby." She murmured, pointing to it.
He crept over and looked into the narrow space. "Well, if we needed any confirmation that it was them, we have it." He wryly commented, then gestured for his team to spread out around them. "Can you disarm it?" Rigby asked.
"No, but I know someone who can. Virgil." She touched her communicator and directed the camera towards the list of warnings on the side of the machine. Most of them were the standard warnings about crush risk, electricity, fire risk and corrosives, but some of the stickers listed chemical formulas and that had the hair on the back of her neck standing up in alarm. "I'm at Bayfield, we just found one of Fuse's explosives against this machine. How bad is this?" She slowly scanned the warnings and waited for the response.
"...oh shit." Virgil's voice came back to her after a long pause. "Kayo, that machine uses chlorine trifluoride!"
"Which is?" She prompted. Swearing over comms usually indicated something was at minimum Very Bad, but she needed more intel to decide if this was simply Very Bad or Extremely Bad.
"To give you an idea, the Nazis decided it was too dangerous to play with," was Virgil's response. "It's one of the most vigorous oxidising agents we know of- it'll set asbestos and concrete on fire."
'Oh shit' indeed. 'Extremely bad' confirmed, Kayo very carefully backed away, happy to see Rigby backing off as well. "If this thing goes…"
"It'll destroy the factory. Even if the owners cooperate with TI and let us make the parts, we won't be able to get replacement components for weeks, and the GDF will be crippled right alongside us." Virgil's voice was tense and Kayo could hear movement in the background. "I'm on my way."
"Can't you talk me through disarming it?" She asked, reaching for the knife in her boot. She could probably pry the casing off with it and Rigby's team could find anything else she needed, they were in a manufacturing plant after all, there had to be tools around somewhere.
"No." Virgil clearly wasn't in the mood for debate. "I've got enough of a uniform to fly Two safely. Wait for me Kayo, I mean it. The slightest mistake and it will kill you."
"Understood, we'll hold our position," Kayo nodded even though Virgil couldn't see her. "Thunderbird Shadow out."
0o0o0
It was a long, tense wait until the familiar roar of Thunderbird Two made the building reverberate with the sound. The thought crossed Kayo's mind that this really wasn't the stealthiest arrival, but she comforted herself with the knowledge that if Havoc and Fuse were close, they'd have struck by now- neither of them were exactly known for their patience, that was their boss' forte. She'd stayed on guard at the device while Rigby went outside to bring Virgil through the maze of machinery to their location and Rigby's team continued the slow, painstaking sweep of the factory- if there was one explosive, she certainly wouldn't put it past that lot to have set more.
Finally Virgil arrived on the scene, a tool kit in one hand and a mechanic's creeper trolley tucked under the other arm. "Where is it?" He asked as he put the trolley on the floor.
"Just here." Kayo pointed, stepping aside so Virgil could see it for himself.
"Hn." The middle born grunted expressively as he crouched down to get a better look, brown eyes narrowed and mouth set in a thin line. He tried to reach his arm into the space, but his forearm was already comparatively wide and equipped as it was with his bracer, he just couldn't reach it. A dip into his tool kit brought out a wand-like scanner made specifically for tight spots and he ran it over the detonator.
Kayo left him to it, turning to cast her eyes over the rest of the space and tuning her ears to the sounds of the factory and the occasional faint noise from Rigby and his team. If she was Havoc, now would have been the perfect moment to attack with three of their key opponents all in the one place.
"Damn." Virgil's scowl was ferocious as he backed away and brought up a schematic of the explosive. "Magnetically locked, mercury anti-tamper switches and remote detonation equipped." He looked up at her, concern etched into the lines around his eyes and mouth. "This thing could be set off at any moment."
"What do we do?" Kayo glanced at him, then turned her attention back to the factory.
"Watch my back." Virgil said as he dismissed the holo and pulled what looked like an emergency foil blanket out of his tool kit. "I can disarm it, but I need time." He partially unfolded the blanket and used the scanner as a rod to poke it through the gap and arrange it so it was draped over the device. A couple of magnets pinned the top edge into place and ensured it wouldn't fall down. "Improvised Faraday Cage." He explained as he worked. "It's not perfect, but they'll have to be within arm's reach to set it off now."
"Here's hoping not even Fuse is crazy enough to do that." Was Kayo's observation.
"Agreed." Virgil nodded and picked a few more items out of his tool kit before lying on his back on the crawler and scooting himself under the machine to get to work.
Time seemed to stretch out as she waited, every second melting into a minute. She tried to keep a lid on her tension, her hands clenching and unclenching, her eyes narrowed as she traced the shape of every shadow and the source of every movement. Behind her, the click and clack of tools against metal and the odd muffled curse as something didn't do what Virgil wanted was an oddly comforting noise- it meant progress, acting instead of simply reacting to what had happened.
But despite bending her indomitable will to the contrary, she could feel she was flagging. Yesterday had bled into the small hours of the morning and she'd been up again before dawn. Now, hours later and in the dark, her brain was sending the signals that it was needing to rest. Her muscles were aching too, she'd been tense, on alert and active for a long time now without rest and adrenaline could only carry you so far before a body naturally went into a lull to allow itself to recover. A twinge of hunger reminded her that she hadn't actually eaten since… breakfast? That was a bad habit. Maybe she should adopt Virgil's practice and start keeping some snacks in a pouch or pocket. On a rescue their heavy lifter often burned more calories than Scott and Gordon put together, he knew the value of keeping supplies easily at hand.
"Focus!" Kayo ordered herself, digging her nails into her palm and using it to help corral her wandering thoughts. "Maybe this is part of The Hood's plot? Wait for everyone to frantically run around and exhaust themselves before he strikes? Or am I giving him too much credit? …wait… hang on…"
She turned her attention outwards again as something changed in her environment. It took her a moment to parse what suddenly drew her notice, instincts and training telling her to sit up and pay attention. When it clicked, Kayo moved slowly, easing herself down to the floor to blend in with the shadows and reaching out to place a warning hand on Virgil's knee.
It wasn't the noise. It was the lack of noise. No more scuffs of boots on concrete, soft calls to others on radios or the odd clack of someone bumping something.
Virgil had noticed her touch by now and stilled, murmuring a soft "What is it?"
"They're here." Her voice was little more than a whisper as she pinged Rigby's comm with her free hand, a silent alert to make his communicator vibrate and warn him. "Keep working, but quietly."
"F.A.B. Just keep them off me for a little longer." A nearly inaudible buzz was one of his tools as he picked up where he'd left off.
"Will do."
CLANG!
Training and focus was the only thing that kept them from jumping as boots landed heavily against the metal grating of a catwalk high above.
"I see you've found my handiwork." Havoc's voice carried the sneer as she announced her presence. "I found all the soldiers, but I saw your Thunderbirds, I know there's at least two of you here." She chuckled darkly. "There's a bomb, big enough to blow this place sky high. Either you come out or I'll set it off with the captain and all his merry men all tied up in here with it."
She heard Virgil's low growl of anger at that threat, but Havoc's announcement distracted her before she could linger on it. "There's only one!" Kayo realised, a smile flitting over her face. "There's no way she wouldn't boast about it if there was more than one!"
"What, no answer?" The still unseen Havoc taunted. "I'll be nice, you've got ten seconds before I set it off." Kayo saw the shadows shift as Havoc changed position, heard the soft thuds of her climbing wires attaching and detaching as she swung to a new walkway. But it was the thud of detaching magnets behind her that gave her a reason for her smile to broaden.
Virgil scooted out from under the machine, the guts of the detonator in hand. He stood and cast the tangle of wires and its case out into a clear area between the conveyor belts. "You mean that one?" He asked, projecting his voice so it echoed off the still and silent machinery.
Havoc jeered something as she swung across the cavernous manufacturing plant, but Kayo's attention was on her brother- his bleakly cold tone alarmed her and what she could see of his face was blank in a way that scared her, a deliberate shelving of emotions everywhere but in his eyes…
Seeing that look in Virgil's eyes, Kayo was reminded of a moment from years ago when she was ten. She and Scott had been in the gym- she'd been pummelling the sparring robot and he'd been spending some time on the boxing speed ball while they waited for John to come home so the three of them could go on a run together.
She'd taken a break, plunked herself down next to Scott when he was done with his set and gulped some water before asking him "So, who would you ever be scared about fighting?"
To be honest she'd been expecting the answer to be Gordon. It'd surprised her when Scott had thought for a moment, tapping his water bottle against his chin, and with what she now knew to be an insight from beyond his years answered "Virgil."
"Why?" She'd asked, perplexed.
"Because he's the gentle one." Had been his reply. "You push the gentle ones far enough, you make 'em angry enough, and they're the scariest ones."
Right now, she could see that Virgil had officially been pushed too far.