Fork In The Road

By Sapphire

Disclaimer is in chapter 1

Part 6 – Gateway

Tracy Island – IR dimension

The small cave was fairly crowded with Brains, Virgil, 'Scott' and Jeff and all the equipment Brains had brought along. As there had been not enough room for Alan and Gordon to fit in as well, the two brothers had to wait outside, which hadn't made them very happy.

It had been only logical to pinpoint the cave where Gordon had found Scott as the most likely location for the transition point from one dimension to the other. Brains had done some measurements and it hadn't taken him long to find the place. For the naked eye, the wall that was the transition point looked like any other wall in the cave, but Brains had set up some of his gadgets and now the wall glowed in a weird iridescent light.

Though everybody was very careful not to touch the wall, they had thrown a couple of stones at it. Virgil had to admit it had been a pretty strange sight when the stones simply disappeared, causing not even a ripple on the surface of the wall.

After discussing their plan, it had been decided that Virgil was to be the one to go into the other dimension, find their Scott and bring him back. Alan and Gordon had naturally protested, as they wanted to come as well, but in the end they had conceded. Virgil had a time limit though. If he wasn't back in three hours, Gordon and Alan would both come after him.

The other Scott would go with Virgil, but remain close to the cave. As they didn't know the situation on the other side, they thought it best if only one Scott was seen. Brains didn't believe it would be a problem if the two actually met each other, but still was in favour to keep the contact as brief as possible. Virgil was also to try to get out of his own counterpart's way.

'Scott' had proven to be fairly reasonable after he had overcome his first shock. Deep down, he was 'Scott' after all. With a different career maybe, but essentially he was the same person they all knew. He might not know anything about International Rescue, but where it counted he was their oldest brother and the man they all could rely on in a bind.

Virgil checked his gun one last time and then put it back in the hidden holster at the small of his back. Though he had no intention to shoot any of his family, he had deemed it better to be prepared for all eventualities. The gun was loaded with small knockout pellets only.

"You're sure we're going to the right dimension, Brains?" he asked, trying to cover up his nervousness while watching the wall with trepidation.

"A…a…absolutely sure, Virgil. I…I…I measured the Wiebrecht Resonance Constant three t…t…times."

Virgil turned to Brains. "I don't doubt you, Brains. I'm just a bit nervous, that's all. First time alter all I make a trip to another universe."

"It's not all it's cracked to be," 'Scott' remarked off hand with a smile. "What are we waiting for? I want to go home."

Jeff placed a hand on his second son's shoulder. "Be careful, Virgil. And bring Scott home."

"I will, father."

And before he could change his mind, Virgil stepped towards the wall and through.

ooooo

In the other place

The family had gathered in the lower living room. The room had only three walls, the fourth open to the pool deck. On both sides of the swimming pool was an area with a cultivated garden, which provided some of the fresh food for the household. Beyond the pool, the view was open to the ocean, glittering in the bright midday sun.

Nobody was paying attention to the beautiful vista, though.

Scott found himself as the centre of attention as his mother explained what they had talked about earlier.

"Maybe it would be better we get a doctor involved," Alan said thoughtfully. "It might be something medical. You were out for almost a day after that fall after all."

Jeff shook his head. "I would like to leave that as a last resort. If we take this outside the family, there's no saying who might hear about this. Scott's career would be over for sure."

"I feel fine," Scott said. "It's just this memory thing. Maybe I'm crazy, I don't know, but I do feel fine."

"I don't think you're crazy," said Joyce. "You don't act crazy."

"Yeah, and clobbering dad is normal behaviour to you?" Alan murmured, but everybody ignored him.

Scott was struck again by how everybody acted just the way he was expecting him to. Father was for keeping it all in the family and Alan was making remarks that nobody listened to. Virgil and Gordon were both paying attention, but as they had nothing to say at the moment, they held their peace.

He felt himself relax.

Suddenly, a high whining sound cut through the sounds typical of the tropical island. Scott looked up and saw two high-speed boats closing in on the island.

"What the …?" Jeff got up and moved to the porch.

Scott followed and saw how the boats landed on the beach and a half a dozen men jumped out, all carrying large guns. They started to run towards the house.

This was definitely not good.

"Boys, hide," Jeff Tracy commanded in a cold voice. "Joyce, you go with Gordon."

"What about you?" Joyce asked, fear evident in her voice.

"I'll find out what this is about. They won't hurt me."

"Jeff…" she started again, but was cut off by her husband.

"I said move!"

His tone of voice didn't allow for any more protest.

Everybody scrambled. Scott kept himself close to Gordon and Joyce. He wasn't too sure about the lay of the house, so he thought it to be better to stay close to one who knew it. Of course, in the house he thought he knew there were hundreds of passages one could hide for hours, but in this house he wasn't sure about anything. But then, on the island he knew, nobody would have come within a ten miles radius without triggering five kinds of alarms. They also had more than enough defenses to keep anybody away.

Gordon was heading to the back of the house where the kitchen and the storage area was located. As they were walking through the kitchen, Scott eyed the knife block on the counter. He stopped, pulling out the largest knife.

"Gordo, do we have any other weapons in the house?"

"No, there was never any need for them," was his reply. "You know, Dad doesn't like them. He even makes us leave our guns back at the base whenever we come to visit."

That was a slight deviation from the father he knew. Jeff Tracy had taught all his sons – with varying degree of success – how to handle a gun. They carried weapons on their rescues and had had to use them often enough. Of course, they only used them to defend themselves.

He pulled a knife for himself, but stopped his mother when she was about to get one too.

"Do you know how to defend yourself, mom?" he asked earnestly. "You never got any formal training."

"I will do what I have to do," she replied, then pushed Gordon's hand aside and pulled herself a knife as well.

Scott actually would have rather seen her without a weapon, but it was clear from her expression she wouldn't give up her knife without a fight. Those men had guns. There wasn't much one could do with just a knife against guns. If they should be caught, it was far more likely the thugs wouldn't harm them if they believed they were not armed.

With a sigh he conceded. If there was one thing he remembered from his mother, it was that she could out-stubborn a mule if she wanted to.

"Just be careful with it, mom," he said.

"What do those people want anyway?" he then asked Gordon, as they left the kitchen through the back door.

"I'm not sure," Gordon replied. "They might be modern day pirates. There were some reports of pirate activity in the area, but I thought they had caught those guys weeks ago. WASP is patrolling the islands looking for nests, but so far no luck. I took two days leave because of mom's birthday, but I'm supposed to be back tomorrow helping them out."

Mom's birthday? Scott did a quick calculation in his head and realized that yesterday had indeed been his mother's birthday. He had all but forgotten about it. The family didn't pay that much attention to that date anymore, though father would still fly to the mainland where Joyce Tracy's was buried and put some flowers on the grave every year. One or two of his sons would usually come along, but Scott tried to avoid being one of them. He always felt uncomfortable there.

This at least answered one question he had had at one point. If there was no such thing as International Rescue here, how come that most of his brothers were on the island? Why was he here, for that matter, if he was working for the Air Force? The military wasn't really great on giving their personnel long periods of leave.

"Sorry, mom, I forgot your birthday," he turned to his mother.

Joyce smiled. "It's all right. You had other things on your mind. It's not your fault."

There was a crashing sound coming from the kitchen. Joyce was about to turn back, but Gordon grabbed his mother at the arm and pulled on. "We have to go, mom."

Somewhere behind them, gunfire erupted.

Tbc

So, how's that for a little bit of action? Virgil to the rescue, pirates on the island, mayhem to follow.

Reviews:

Yeah, I get reviews again happy dance (I know it was FFN's fault, but still, I missed them sniffle)

A few hours later: grumpf FFN is down again, can't post, no reviews, life is not fair.

Claudette: The reason Scott hasn't thought about an AU is that he's a pilot first, and scientist much later. The way I set the whole thing up, is that it's a pretty obscure branch of science to begin with. Brains, of course, would have heard of it, he knows those things. Isn't technobabble wonderful wink (though I just realized the other day that a resonance is a frequency and thus has to be measured in Hertz, not Lambda. Lambda is for wavelength. I should have known that. Ah well)

Sorry about the lack of John. I wanted to keep the cast of characters as small as possible, hence grandma's and Tin-Tin's absence, and John being shoved off to NASA. Still, I almost forgot that Kyrano was still running around on the island on one point. But John lovers rejoice, the fic I'm working on right now, will be very John-centric.

Well, yes, you've hit on a weak point in the story. Why does Tracy Island looks pretty much the same in both dimensions and why does the family live there in the AU reality? No reason really, except that I needed it to be that way grin. I hoped to 'lighten the disbelieve' by having the island in the possession of the Tracy family for a long time, just never settled. I know that's not really cannon, but then I haven't heard anything to the contrary.

What caused the swap between the universes? My money is on some Weird Inter-dimensional Swirly Plot Device (TM)

Knottaclue I'm glad I've managed to bring Joyce across as likable. She was the toughest to write, as I didn't know much about her. Used to be married to Jeff – check. Had five sons – check. Is dead – check. That's about it.

Jules47: Yeah, the boys depend quite a bit on Brains, don't they. Of course, he can find a solution. He's Brains after all!

Gismo: uuhh, thanks blush I haven't written anything in quite a while, and I'm glad to hear that I'm still able to string together a couple of words. Of course, I would be lost without my beta reader. You wouldn't believe the stuff she spots – though even she's not infallible. Just re-read chapter 4 and this big, blaring mistake jumps at me. It should have been: 'one of the easiest rescues they've ever had' not 'one of the easiest rescues they've every head' groan I take the blame, after all I wrote that in the first place sigh

andrewjameswilliams Who says that the Non-IR's will find out that the Scott they have right now, is not their Scott? But then, maybe they will … wink

And, what are you doing reviewing this? Go on writing 'Thundershock'!!! shoo I can't wait for it to finish, so I finally can read it (I have this little problems with WIPs, but I've taken a couple of peeks at your story, and what I've seen so far, I really liked)