Chapter Eight

Brains Lab

Tracy Island

Brains watched interested as Gear worked to modify one of his zap caps to deliver a nanobot charge to the side of Thunderbird One. It was interesting watching the other man work, he was so quick and though some of the tools Brains had provided had been unfamiliar Gear had adapted to them and was now using them like an expert. Brains had to admit that he was impressed with the metahuman genius, once this thing with Thunderbird One was dealt with and Gear had had a chance to look at Alan he would take the opportunity to speak with Gear. It would be nice to exchange ideas with someone who had equal – and possibly even superior – intelligence to himself.

"How are you doing Gear," Peter asked from the door.

"Almost done," Gear replied, not stopping what he was doing as he answered Peter. "Just another minute," he added as he started screwing the zap cap back together.

Within a few more moments he finished screwing the zap cap back together and checked it over to see it was working exactly as it should. It was. Which was a relief if it hadn't he would have had to start all over again. Which could have damaged backpack. He had taken and reprogrammed as many nanobots as he dared from his faithful robot to take any more would risk serious system damage since a number of backpack's functions these days were linked to the robots internal nanobots.

"Done," he said to Peter and Brains.

"Once administered how long will it take to clear the nanobots," Peter asked.

"Not long," Gear replied he did a quick calculation in his head estimating the number or nanobots needed to generate the transmission, the total surface area of Thunderbird One and the time it would take for his nanobots to destroy the target nanobots before dissolving themselves. "Five minutes," he said with certainty.

"Th…th…that was qu…qui…quick," Brains said stammering heavily as he'd been doing a similar calculation in his own head. Gear just shrugged he had gotten so used to his brain working at such a high speed that he now no longer thought about it.

"We should deploy that zap cap then," Peter said heading back out the door. Gear and Brains followed him.

Within moments they were standing underneath Thunderbird One again to find that Scott was still there.

"Good your back," Scott said in greeting. "I've been thinking how are you actually going to get that thing to hit the side of Thunderbird One considering that the throwing angle from down here is impossible."

"Leave that to me," Gear replied smiling backing up a bit until he was clear of the engine block with a clear line of ascent to the top of the silo not that he needed to go all the way up.

Then he turned on his boot jets. He'd replaced his original jet blades a year ago with newer and more advanced antigrav boots. They were quicker and more powerful than his older jet blades and didn't take as much fuel though the self sustaining nature of the fuel source he used meant he didn't have to fork out a fortune on that kind of thing anyway.

He shot up into the side of the silo for a short way until he was level with the red nose cone of Thunderbird One where backpack revealed the nanobot concentration to be at its greatest. Looking he could see a faint oily sheen at one point on the nose cone which is where he guess some sort of projectile carrying the initial load of nanobots in a chemical suspension agent – most likely gallium as it was the one most commonly used for nanobot suspension – had impacted and burst.

Arming the zap cap he threw it at the side of the rocket and the zap cap burst with a loud pop on impact. Immediately on impact the nanobots contained within the zap cap were released onto the hull. Immediately they passed through the outer paint work and began attacking the transmitting nanobots.

By the time Gear landed back at the base of Thunderbird One backpack reported that the transmission had stopped, as there were now no longer enough nanobots to generate the signal.

"The signal's stopped," Scott commented looking at his scanner.

"Yes," Gear agreed reading the data display on his helmet visor. "And the nanobot concentration is dropping much more rapidly than I thought it would. Obviously whoever designed the nano-trackers never anticipated that they would be detected so didn't equip them with a defensive capacity. Complete neutralisation in two minutes."

"What about your nanobots," Scott asked.

"Once they're done with their task they'll dissolve," Gear assured him.

"I see."

The Hood's Submarine

Four Hundred Miles Away

The Hood once again sat in quiet mediation in his quarters as his sub cruised at maximum speed towards the south pacific island where international rescue's base was located. They would arrive in a few hours and he was quietly preparing himself for what was to follow and to keep his expectation under control. Finally after all these years revenge would soon be his.

"Tracking signal loss," the subs computer abruptly reported. The Hoods eyes flew open. What, he thought.

Standing up he left his quarters and went to the submarines control centre.

"Transom what is going on," he asked. A woman in a cat suit looked up from one of the main consoles.

"We've lost the beacon signal from Thunderbird One," Transom reported frowning at her display. "The Thunderbirds must have found and neutralised the nanobots somehow impressive."

"Is that admiration I hear Transom," Mullion said from where he was working. "You shouldn't admire your enemy."

"On the contrary Mullion," the Hood countered. "You cannot defeat your opponent if you don't know his full capabilities and your own. As Sun Tzu said 'know thy enemy and know thyself and you shall always be victorious'. We now know a little more about the thunderbirds capabilities."

"Yes sir," Mullion replied not really believing. The Hood looked at the huge former wrestler turned metahuman mercenary. He didn't like Mullion's tone at all. He concentrated and anyone noticing would have seen a strange glow come into his eyes.

Mullion abruptly stiffened and gasped in pain as his brain suddenly felt as though it was being held in a vice.

"You must learn to appreciate your enemies strength's Mullion. One of the basic tenants of eastern martial arts is to use and opponents own strength against him. You cannot do that if you do not completely know your opponents power."

He released Mullion from the mind lock and Mullion gasped in relief. Had anyone else done that to him he would have beaten them to a pulp but he dare not try that with his current boss. Though not a metahuman the Hood was extremely powerful and even with super-strength Mullion knew he wouldn't have a chance. One time The Hood had made an example of a minion who tried to betray him to the authorities – the results hadn't been very pretty that unfortunate minion was now as good as dead. Mullion had no desire to end up like that.

"This doesn't change much," the Hood said as though nothing had happened. "We will just have to be much more cautious in our approach to the island. International Rescue will be on its guard now. Transom keep an eye on the sensors if were detected I want to know immediately."

"Yes sir," Transom replied.

The Hood then turned and left to return to his quarters. While this was a worrying new development he had designed his plan with contingencies to cope with such shocks. He would adapt.

The secrets of International Rescue and revenge would still soon be his.

Thunderbird One Silo

Tracy Island

Gear smiled when he saw the nanobot count on the hull of Thunderbird One drop down to zero and his own nanobots go into safe dissolve.

"The last of the nanobots have been eliminated," he said to the other three stranding beneath Thunderbird One with him. "My own nanobots are now dissolving themselves."

"We will ha…have to s…s….speak of this la…la…later," Brains answered. "I will ha….ha…have to develop n….n…nanobots of our own to c…c…c stop this from happening again."

"I'll be glad to help," Gear replied.

"Now we need to go upstairs and get back to why we originally asked for you to come here Gear," Scott said.

"Yes you need to see Alan," Peter agreed.

"Indeed," Gear agreed remembering the original reason why Peter had brought him here.

He was especially intrigued by why if Alan Tracy had been exposed to big bang gas at big bang number one he had not shown that he was a metahuman before now. Why had ten years passed before his powers had shown themselves? And probably scaring the poor kid half to death in the process. There were a number of possible reasons for the long delay but until he actually did a proper scan of Alan Tracy he had no idea what the reason was.

"Lead on then," he said to the others.

"This way," Scott paused. "A word of warning though Alan might not appreciate some things that you might tell him."

"Well whether he likes what I find or not he's going to have to deal with it," Gear replied.

"I know its just don't expect an easy time convincing Alan of that he can be somewhat stubborn."

"Hark whose talking," Peter replied. Scott blushed embarrassed.

"I'm not that bad Uncle Peter," he objected.

"Yes you are," Peter replied. Scott sighed knowing he wouldn't win this argument with his uncle. They'd had it before and he always, always lost.

Without speaking any further he left the silo and headed across the main hanger floor back towards the lift. Gear, Brains and Peter all followed quietly. All eger in there own way to get to the bottom of the mystery of why Alan's powers had shown themselves so suddenly.

As he walked Scott thought about his baby brother. Maybe Gear would be able to convince Alan that being a metahuman was not all that bad, that metahuman power was not either good or evil, that it depended on the individual. It was down to the metahuman in question to decide what he or she used their powers for. But Scott also knew that no matter what Gear said one of the biggest deciding factors in Alan accepting that he was a metahuman was if his family accepted it. And of that Scott had no doubt. Alan was still Alan as far as he was concerned. And he knew dad and his brothers felt the same – even though he hadn't spoken to John. They just needed to convince Alan of that.

Assuming of course that Alan hadn't already realised it himself.