Hunter, Prey
By Sapphire
Disclaimer in part 1
Chapter 10 – ExplanationsGordon didn't feel any pain when he woke up.
That was okay, as far as he was concerned. He had expected pain, he knew there should be pain, but he definitely preferred the non-pain variation.
He also knew he had been shot in the chest. A single bullet had torn into his body, leaving a path of destruction behind. It was a wound that was disastrous at best, lethal at worst.
So, why didn't he feel any pain?
His mind felt sluggish, but it still provided him with an answer. It was an answer he didn't particularly like.
He was dead.
If one was dead, there was no pain. Everybody knew that. It was the logical conclusion.
Suddenly he would have welcomed the pain.
He didn't want to be dead. Not so much because he was afraid to die – he was a little bit afraid, but then, who wouldn't be – but because he knew what his death would mean to his family. He knew they would be devastated. As he would be if one of his brothers would have died before him.
He never would have figured he would be the first to go. He had his life planned out after all. Working for International Rescue until arthritis would force him to take on a desk job and then watch his children and grandchildren take up the slack where he had to let go, while he directed them from afar.
Okay, there had been a close call once or twice. The hydrofoil accident four years ago had been pretty rough, but he had pulled through it and had come out the other end stronger than ever. And working on rescues wasn't exactly risk free either.
But he couldn't die just now. He was only twenty-three.
Something cold dug into his back, and he twitched to get away from it. Suddenly he realized that the whole floor was cold and pretty hard too.
Where was he?
He opened his eyes.
"What the heck …?" he asked into the empty interior of the Mole.
Nobody answered.
Moving his arms, he pushed himself up into a sitting position.
This was definitely the Mole. Not the Pearly Gates and not some fluffy cloud high up in Heaven. But also not some hot burning furnace or a frozen over Hell.
What was he still doing in the Mole if he was dead?
He looked down at himself, seeing the torn and bloody uniform he was still wearing. The bloodstain seemed to be centred at chest level, just in the place he remembered the bullet had entered.
Carefully he pulled the bloody fabric aside to gaze at his naked chest. The unblemished chest. The 'never has been touched by a bullet' chest. There wasn't even a bruise. But where did the blood come from?
Okay, Gordy, he told himself, taking a deep breath. Maybe you are a ghost and you have just risen from the remains of your body.
He looked back, but there was no Gordon body on the ground, only a rolled up jacket, which had been placed underneath his head. He struck his hand at some wall, but instead of passing through, he connected solidly with it.
So much for the ghost theory. It had been a stupid idea to begin with.
He finally decided to get up and find out what was going on. The door to the Mole was locked, and there was no sign of John or Virgil anywhere.
He unrolled the jacket that had lain on the floor and pulled it on. It wasn't so much that he was cold, but he wanted to cover up the hole in his uniform pullover and the blood.
He keyed the door open and peered out. The Mole was still sitting at one end of the underground vault. But while the place had been dark and dusty before, it was now brightly lit and milling with people. Uniformed men were leading civilians past the Mole and out through the tunnel behind it. Close by, a familiar blue uniform with a pale pink sash was directing people to different activities. John's quiet voice was giving commands in German and English, which were followed promptly. It looked like he had everything well in hand.
Stepping out of the Mole, Gordon walked over to where John was standing.
"John?" he asked quietly, afraid what would be if John didn't answer.
John nearly jumped a foot into the air.
"Gezz, squirt, you almost gave me a heart attack." John turned and smiled. He quickly grew serious when he saw Gordon's face.
"What's the matter, Gordon?"
"How come I'm not dead?"
Gordon had finally come to the conclusion that he was, in fact, not dead. But he knew that the wound he had received had been fatal, so he thought it was a fair question to ask. How he figured that John would know an answer to that question, he didn't know. He just knew that he needed an answer.
John looked down, then slowly up again. Something shimmered in his blue eyes, though Gordon couldn't place it at first. Then he realized that John did know something about what has happened to him. And he didn't feel comfortable about it.
"John," Gordon pressed. "What's going on? I know I've been shot, but when I woke up I didn't even have a scratch."
John sighed. "Not here, squirt. Let's wrap this up and then we can talk. Virgil needs to be in this as well, and if we can, Scott. This is going to be a little bit complicated."
A man in a dark green uniform had hovered close by, clearly not wanting to interrupt the two International Rescue operatives in their discussion. John waved him closer.
"Sir, ich denke, dass wir von nun an alleine zurechtkommen," the man said in German.
Gordon didn't understand a word, but then it wasn't him but John who spoke eight different languages fluently and several more good enough to get along.
"Danke. Ich rufe dann meinen Kollegen und wir brechen unsere Zelte ab," replied John also in flawless German.
He turned to Gordon. "This man just told me, that they won't need our help anymore, so I told him that we're going back home. Could you find Virgil? He must be somewhere over there."
John pointed to the left hand vault, just when the chestnut-haired pilot of Thunderbird 2 appeared out of the throng of people gathered around the vault entrance.
Virgil jogged over. His face split into a grin when he saw his younger brother.
"Hey, Gordon. How do you feel?"
Virgil stopped at Gordon's side and gave him a once over, his face serious again. He pulled open the jacket Gordon was wearing, peering at the torn and bloody uniform. He grimaced when he saw all the blood.
"I'm alive," Gordon replied. "Though I'm not sure why."
Virgil cast a glance at John, who just frowned.
"We need a place a little bit more private," John suggested.
John shook hands with the green uniformed man and said good-bye. The man wouldn't let them go without shaking everybody's hand, thanking them multiple times in German and broken English.
Back in the Mole, they contacted Scott.
"Mole to Mobile Control."
"Go ahead, Mole. What's the status? How's Gordon?"
"Gordon is fine. Looks like we're done down here," John said, while Virgil fired up the Mole. "We're getting the Mole back up now. As soon as we're in the Pod, could you come over for a moment? There's something we need to discuss."
"What's up?"
"Not over the air waves. It's important."
Scott clearly wasn't happy about being kept in the dark, and Gordon couldn't blame him. He also had a vested interest in finding out what the heck was going on. Finally, Scott agreed to wait for them in Pod 5.
oooooo
The four brothers gathered next to the returned Mole in Pod 5.
"Okay, what's so important that we can't even talk about it over the air waves? In case you have forgotten, you and Brains made very, very sure that nobody can ever eavesdrop on any of our radio communications."
Gordon agreed with Scott. John should know better than any of them how tamper proof the International Rescues communications system actually was. After all, John had designed most of it.
"Scott, when we got down to the vault, Gordon got shot. In the chest."
"What? That's not funny."
"It's true," Virgil piped in.
"But … he's okay, right?" Scott looked closely at Gordon and obviously couldn't find anything amiss. Gordon pulled his jacket closer. He didn't want Scott to see the blood on his uniform.
"Yes, but that's only because of a friend of mine," John went on.
"A friend of yours? I don't get it. What kind of friend?"
John sighed then said, "The alien kind."
Gordon's jaw dropped and Scott's followed suit.
"You're kidding, right?" Scott asked.
John shook his head, but it was Virgil who replied. "Nope, he's not kidding. I saw it."
"You saw what? A little green man jumping on Gordon and healing him from a gun shot wound?"
"He's not green, and he didn't jump on Gordon but into Gordon, but otherwise you are pretty much correct," John said.
"I don't believe you," Gordon now challenged John.
"Hunter," John just said, "say hello to Gordon."
HELLO TO GORDON
Letters suddenly appeared before Gordon's eyes and he couldn't suppress a cry of surprise.
"What was that?"
"What was what?" Scott asked, clearly more confused than ever.
"Hunter's preferred method of communications is to project letters onto the retina. That's how he used to talk to me when he was still in my body. I would guess Hunter just did the same thing with Gordon."
Scott's eyes wandered from John to Gordon and back again.
"You're telling me you had some alien creature inside of you? And it's now in Gordon?" he almost squeaked.
John only nodded. Gordon looked down at his body. He patted it down, not knowing that he imitated John's reaction when he first had found out that an alien creature was living inside of him.
"Get it out. Now!" Scott demanded.
"I don't think this is a good idea. Gordon was pretty badly wounded. I don't know if Hunter has managed to heal him completely yet or if he needs more time."
TWO HOURS
"Er, I think he just told me he needs another two hours," Gordon informed the others. This was too weird.
"He will not harm Gordon. I'm sure of that. He already saved my life when the other alien's space ship exploded. And he's been inside of me for almost ten days now without any negative side effects. Actually, there are a couple of benefits to his presence."
"So, the accident was more serious than it later turned out to be. I knew it!" Gordon grinned suddenly. The lightness of John's injuries after the underwater explosion had bothered him the whole time. He was sure he hadn't misjudged the situation that badly.
Scott thought for a moment. He was clearly not willing to give in that easily. Aliens possessing his younger brother's body didn't sit well with him. Not that Gordon blamed him. The thought gave him the creeps. Though if John was right, the alternative was even less pleasant.
"What does it want?" Scott asked.
John gave the others a short summary of the reason Hunter had come to Earth and what the situation was.
"… So, if the other alien is still on the island, then he must be either in Dad, Kyrano, Tin-Tin or Brains. I'm pretty sure it's not Brains, but it can be any of the others."
"And how do we get this other alien out of whoever it is occupying," Virgil asked.
"That's the crux of the problem. Hunter doesn't know. He says there's some weapon they use that repels them from a host, but he couldn't tell me what type of weapon it is. My plan was to eliminate Brains from the list, and hope that he would be able to come up with something."
Couldn't or wouldn't, Gordon had to wonder. But then he decided he could trust the alien. Gordon didn't doubt anymore that John was telling the truth about the alien. John also seemed to trust him, and as Gordon trusted John, this was good enough for him.
"Standing here and talking won't help us," he said. "We need to get back to the island. That's were the problem is. Besides, I'm hungry."
The brothers nodded.
Scott returned to Thunderbird 1 and within five minutes they were all back in the air and on their way home.
tbc
Next chapter you'll finally find out who 'The Other Host' is.