Barb, I tried to answer you question through email, but couldn't get through.
Clairie, confused, I would imagine; living part-time in Madrid, and surrounded by so many other European accents, English, Swedish, French, etc, on the swim team, he'd sound a bit muddled. Worse still, after hanging around with his brothers and TinTin...
9
A bit of trouble getting out...
There was some sort of track, or ladder, extending from the open end of their ventilation shaft to a metal balcony. The drop was a short one, maybe seven feet, so Alan simply jumped the distance, landing with a resounding clang, and waking echoes all along the hangar's vast length.
Thinking, disgustedly,
'Oh, well done, Alan!' Gordon followed his brother, gripping firmly to the ladder rails, and more or less sliding down. The balcony, or catwalk, extended many hundreds of meters to left and right, but the boys did rather less exploring than they'd hoped to.
Almost immediately, perhaps triggered by Alan's crashing arrival, a set of track-mounted laser cannons swivelled to face the source of the noise, then began to move, sliding across ceiling and walls to close on the intruders.
Gordon wasn't certain what they were about, but he doubted that the humming, sparking guardians intended a congenial welcome. Back up the ladder was out of the question. They'd never make it in time. Where...?
With visions of flash-frying, painful dismemberment filling his head, he shoved Alan toward the nearest likely shelter, a shallow doorway, and tried to block the lasers' view of his brother with his own, hopefully less unwelcome, form.
The tracked cannons converged from all directions, muzzles pointed squarely at the two boys. Some sort of scanning wave passed through them, setting up a weird internal vibration that reminded Gordon of the palm scanner, and made him long for a bathroom.
"Alan," he whispered, eyes fixed on the lasers, "can y' get th' door open?"
One of the wall cannons extended itself in a swaying, almost serpentine manner, attempting to fire past Gordon.
"Not squished like this!" His brother croaked hoarsely. "Anyways, it's got another palm scanner!"
The scarlet beam flashed out, quicker than the eye could follow, but not quite shallow enough to skirt the metal doorjamb on the one side, and the older boy's arm on the other. Instead, the laser skimmed Gordon's left elbow. Nothing burnt, or fell off, but he immediately lost all sensation in the limb clear down to his fingertips.
"Can't really turn around," Gordon informed his brother, in a rather strained voice. "Need t' keep this lot in view. Jus' guide my hand up there, an' try t' keep yourself covered."
"Gotcha."
Alan, to his credit, never panicked. He simply took hold of Gordon's right arm (the one that had been pressed against the threshold), and twisted it up and back, eliciting a long stream of truly colorful and inspiring language. At any other time, the younger boy would have applauded.
"Sorry, man," was all he said now, "angle's kinda weird."
"Just... get it over with!" Gordon hissed, as his shoulder made ready to part company with the rest of his body. Perhaps there was a Special Olympics team out there, somewhere, in need of an armless swimmer...
Then his palm was mashed against something cold and smooth. The tracked guns, meanwhile, were moving again, trying for a clean shot. They probably meant only to stun and capture, rather than kill, but Gordon had no desire to hang about and discover which it was.
The familiar, tingling pulse flashed along his hand, then stopped midway.
"Gordon, stop squirming around!" Alan snapped, a trifle desperately, "it can't get a good scan if you won't be still!"
"Sorry," the red-haired boy grunted, willing himself to absolute immobility. The scanner started up again, and this time, completed its business. A sharp click announced the unlocking of the door behind them. With a low hum, it slid smoothly sideways, disappearing into a slot in the rock wall.
The boys fell through, stumbled, then pelted off along yet another precisely-machined concrete tunnel. This one, too, was tracked, down the middle of the floor, but the hangar guns didn't follow them in.
Alan and Gordon never stopped running till the hangar door was well out of sight. Then they collapsed, trying to laugh and pant for air at one and the same time. Gordon spoke first, experimentally poking at the partially paralyzed arm with the nearly dislocated one.
"Thanks... ever so... for th' lovely tour... Alan, but on... mullin' it over, I b'lieve your shortcut... has a few too many unlisted hazards."
"Coulda... gone better..., yeah." Alan admitted, lighting up a shamefaced grin with his re-fired torch. He set it down for a second, and dug a spare can of cherry soda out of one of his board-shorts' zippered pockets. Holding the thing away from himself, he popped the top, muttering,
"Look out; it's probably all shaken up, but I'm gonna die right here, if I don't get something to drink."
It did, indeed, fizz up, jetting cherry froth all over both brothers and the curving tunnel wall, but there was enough left to share.
After taking a pull at the warm beverage, Gordon handed the rest back to his brother, saying,
"Anythin' else you forgot t' mention? Bombs...? Death squads...? More relatives...?"
Alan killed the remaining soda, then hit a tab at the bottom of the can, causing the shape-memory alloy to collapse into a small disk. (He pocketed the thing, confiding, "Save enough of these, and you can trade 'em in for some really cool stuff. I'm for real, man.)
Thirst slaked and pulses returned to normal, they got to their feet and wobbled off down the new tunnel, Alan lighting the way.
"Well," he responded, at last, "I dunno about bombs and death squads, but there's a girl here. On the island, I mean; not, like... right here."
"Really?" Gordon perked right up. He'd managed to flex the fingers on his left hand just a bit, and that, plus the promised female, topped off his mood, again. "Not another relative, is she?"
"Uh-uh. Her name's Delphine, but she'll kill you if you call her that. Everyone sticks with 'TinTin'. She's Kyrano's daughter, and she's, like, totally hot, but in a, um... too good for you kind of way."
Gordon chose to ignore this last bit, as he trudged along beside his suddenly suspicious brother.
"Good, 'cause... if there's but one good lookin' female on th' island, an' she turned out t' be my sister... I'd fall on m' damn sword."
Alan's blue eyes grew very wide.
"You've got a sword?"
"No. I'd order one, just f'r the occasion." Then, after listening hard to a faint, disturbing noise, "Alan... what's that sound?"
A low, throbbing hum had set up; barely audible at first, then increasing in volume till it seemed to fill all the world. It was coming from the tracks at their feet.
The boys glanced at one another, then both ways along the tunnel. In neither direction could they see anything, even with the aid of Alan's light. About fifteen meters up the track, however, they spied the gaping black cavity of another side tunnel.
"Come on!" Alan shouted, beginning to run. Gordon set off after him, just as a powerful gust of air, the leading edge of a mighty pressure wave, struck him full on. Something was coming their way, moving fast, and filling the tunnel.
Gordon forced himself to run faster, chillingly conscious that he was racing closer to the invisible juggernaut with each step. He stumbled, righted himself, and surged onward, ducking into the side passage just as something truly huge shrieked past, it's terrible momentum sucking the air out of the branching tunnel and pulling Gordon halfway back to the main track. Scrambling for something to hold to, he caught at a metal bracket of some sort, realizing, all at once, that Alan wasn't with him.
The noise and wind continued for what seemed a hellish long time, while Gordon clung to his bracket and prayed that there was room in that other tunnel for his brother to avoid being smeared like peanut butter. At last, the rushing faded into the distance. Gordon let go his cramped, bloodless grip on the metal handle.
Both terrified to search, and unable not to, he blundered into the dead-black main tunnel, calling,
"Alan!"
He collided with something, hard enough to knock loose an entire constellation of stars; his brother, very much alive, in one piece, and hurrying blindly along in the opposite direction. The passage was a T-junction, and they'd taken opposite ways. Alan clutched at him, near frantic with anger and worry.
"Gordon! Omigod... you're alive! What's the matter with you? Why didn't you follow me? I thought you got, like... like..." He couldn't finish, having apparently suffered the same gruesome visuals.
"There's another passage, on that side," Gordon replied, giving his younger brother's soda-sticky shoulder a relieved pat. Then, because dark, enclosed spaces had always depressed him, "What's become of th' torch?"
"The wha...? Flashlight, you mean? Dude, we seriously gotta work on that, y' know, speech problem of yours. Anyways, I dropped it somewhere... or something. C 'mon, man... this way."
Together, they fumbled their way back along Alan's branch of the tunnel, feeling about for the dropped light.
"Y' know," Gordon observed, with an exhausted sigh, "I'm not exactly havin' th' time of my life, here."
Alan snorted.
"Yeah, well..." he found the torch, which lit again, despite having a badly cracked case. "Just don't do anything stupid like that, again. Hey! What's that on you?"
Gordon glanced down.
"Same as on you. Bloody damn cherry drink. You're jumpin' at shadows, Alan."
The blond relaxed enough to give his brother a wry smile.
"Hey, man, I wasn't scared. Just, you know... nervous, kinda. I didn't know what happened to you, and it would sorta suck to lose your brother the same day as you met him. So, next time, stay close."
"Right," Gordon responded amiably.
Since Alan's branch seemed as good as any, and lacked anything remotely resembling a track, they picked a direction and started walking.
"Don't suppose you've any idea, really, where we are?" Gordon inquired, in his politest, least accusatory manner.
"Um..." Alan looked around, frowning slightly, then holding up a wetted finger to test the 'wind'. "In a general kinda way, we're, uh... lost. Yup. That's the word, all right. Lost. Not... a... clue."
Gordon chuckled, shaking his head. Figured.
"Jus' checking. Not your fault, really. Should've expected that International Rescue would turn out t' be one bloody well-guarded set up."
"Yeah, that's what they'd like to think," Alan responded. "But lookit; we got awful close, and we're still moving around under our own power."
Gordon made a loose fist with his left hand; flexed the arm at the elbow.
"Parts of us, at any rate," he quipped. Alan didn't question the statement, dropping the torch beam to squint ahead.
"Hey, Gordon...?" he said, voice falling back down to an urgent whisper, "see that, up ahead?"
His older brother peered forward, hazel eyes narrowing.
"Light. Looks natural."
"Yeah, buddy!" Alan exulted, "our tickets to the great outdoors are punched! Come on, and this time... keep up!"
They hurried forward, Gordon returning to a question that had him rather perplexed.
"So..." he asked quietly, as they stole toward the distant, greenish-gold sparkle, "who flies what? Virgil's in Thunderbird 2, I suppose, that's a fair match..."
"They do sorta go together," Alan agreed, glancing back with a mischievous grin. "Big and slow, both of 'em. What about Thunderbird 1? Who would you guess?"
The light was growing stronger; a warm, 'late afternoon in the tropics' radiance that soon made Alan's torch unnecessary. He switched it off.
"Well, th' papers an' news alerts say she's th' first t' th' scene, always," Gordon considered. "So... Scott, I'd say."
"Uh-huh. You got it. Captain Control-Freak and his Amazing Flying Machine, to the rescue."
The closer they came to the source of the light, the lower their voices dropped, till they were barely whispering. After all, for all the boys knew, the tunnel might open out in the midst of Grandmother's vegetable patch, which would have been most awkward.
"But, what about John?" Gordon probed. "Has he not got a Thunderbird of his own, then?"
"Sort of... Mr. Freeze spends most of his time in space, on Thunderbird 5, when he's not hauling crap to the moon station, for NASA."
All at once, Alan stopped talking; stood craning his head upward, at the round, vine-covered grate which capped a forgotten access shaft. It was through this opening that the most beautiful outdoor glow imaginable filled the tunnel like a benediction.
"We're in luck, Bro! All we need to do is find a way to drop the ladder, there... Can you give me a boost?"
Gordon nodded, squatting down and lacing his stiff fingers to form a cradle for Alan's suede Etnies skate shoe.
"Count of three," the older boy grunted, as most of Alan's weight came down upon his weakened arms. Alan, lower lip caught between his teeth, braced himself with one hand planted at the top of Gordon's coppery head, the other reaching upward.
"Ready?" Gordon asked.
"Yeah."
"Right. One... two... three!"
And the older boy heaved upward, first straightening his legs, then using arm and shoulder muscles to raise Alan high enough to reach the bottom of the ladder.
"Okay... got it... Dang! The catch is kinda rusted... Hold me up a few more seconds..." Alan twisted about, then began pounding away at something with the cracked handle of his flashlight. Finally, in shower of rusty flakes, the ladder came loose, the bottom half ratcheting down past him with the loud, ringing clatter of hail on a tin roof.
Gordon let Alan drop gently to the ground, returning his younger brother's cheery thumbs-up. Then, Alan leapt, seized the extended ladder, and began to climb. After a moment, Gordon followed, relieved when he'd got high enough to place his feet on a rung. His left arm was still feeling the lingering aftereffects of that paralyzing ray, making the long upward climb more of a challenge than it should have been.
"What about... the other pilots?" He grunted, to distract himself.
"There aren't any more," Alan whispered back, first having a listen at the opening, then working at the grate's long neglected catch. So close to freedom... "Dad and Brains, sometimes, in a real pinch, but mostly just Curly, Larry and Moe."
Gordon, clinging fast to the rungs just below, shook his red head.
"Odd. Thought it was a bigger organization, somehow."
"Yeah..." Alan continued working at the catch, with his skateboard zip-tool, now. "Everybody... always... (uh!)... does. It's kinda funny... (c' mon, you stupid piece of junk!) listening to 'em, like... speculate... Ah-ha! Gotcha!"
Hanging away from the ladder just a bit, Alan looked down and gave his older brother a broad grin. "We're outta here, Dude! Follow me!"
The grate was shoved open, and they scrambled, Alan first, then Gordon, free of the access shaft and out onto the mountainside. Black stone, huge trees, and distant, wrinkled blue ocean met their squinting eyes. Judging from the angle of the velvety shadows, and the nearly sixty-degree slant of the rocky slope, they were on the north side of the island, about a third of the way up.
Exchanging tired smiles and friendly shoves, the boys started walking. It would likely be dark before they got home, but at least they were free, and out of trouble...
They'd made it a whole twenty meters, almost, before Scott, Virgil and Brains closed in, mounted on hover sleds and looking extremely serious.
"Crap," Alan commented, succinctly.
