Tikatu, thanks for the suggestion; it has been incorporated. Opal Girl, your thoughtful analysis and insight into the characters' motives are very welcome; as you say, the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree. Barb, I am glad that the interaction between Virgil and Gordon seems to be working out, and that you and Darkhelmet haveso many times provided feedback. I'll shut up, now.
30
Thunderbird 3, of all the rescue craft, probably most resembled her mythic namesake; colorful, high-flying, fast and dangerous. She was a beautiful craft, and Alan couldn't resist showing off, despite his (maybe) future sister-in-law's obvious, green-faced discomfort. Besides simulator flight time, Alan had cut his teeth on video games, and piloting Thunderbird 3 wasn't that much harder than, say, mastering 'BloodBath X-Treme' (At which he constantly took Gordon to school.Heh!).
This was better, though.
Alan couldn't help wondering, as blue gave way to cold, pitiless black, and the horizon below grew misty and curved, if this was what John felt, what kept him out here; the sheer bigness of it all. The pure beauty.
Scowling at the instruments (he really wished he had Gordon there, to help him out with the readings), Alan worked out their ETA.
"Spain in... like... ten minutes, or something," he told Cindy, who looked like she was trapped on the amusement park ride from hell. Then, "Hey, Babe, if you gotta hurl, don't, like, do it on me, 'cause then I'll start, and something 'll probably short out, and we'll crash, and that would totally suck. Okay?"
Cindy succeeded in raising her head enough to skewer the boy with a homicidal glare.
"I... hate teenage drivers," she grated. "When we get off this thing, Alan, I'm going to kiss the ground..., then break something heavy over your skull!"
"Yeah, right. You'll never catch me!" He boasted, tweaking the bilious reporter by putting 3 into a rapid barrel roll.
He paid for it, too, because she really did throw up, and the stench had him longing for warp speed. Alan breathed through his mouth the rest of the way, and did everything he could to hurry faster.
The slopes of the Pico de Aneto, Spain-
Scott, alerted by a sudden, loud roar and his brother's hasty call-in, looked up in time to see the sagging smoke clouds go dull red, then orange. A blast of flame from three huge engines punched holes in the billowing smog, announcing the rumbling descent of Thunderbird 3.
Scott had been monitoring Gordon and Virgil both, as well as Penny, Parker, and the topside Civil Defense effort. Updating Island Base and organizing the rescue effort left him little time to gawk, but even so...
"Alan," he snapped over the comm, "Kill some of that momentum! You're coming in too fast."
His youngest brother's oddly strangled voice came back,
"Dude, yell later. Collect chick now."
Far more recklessly than he would have done, Alan brought 3 in for a full-burn landing on a barren slope, about a half-mile distant. Only by keeping her force shield and impellers on could the young pilot bring her down on such a dizzily tilted surface. The reason she didn't simply topple over was that the gyro-stabilized Bird wasn't really resting on the mountainside; she was instead maintaining a low-power hover. Impressive to look at, but rather wasteful.
"Officer Estevez," Scott said to the uniformed Spaniard (with whom, they'd discovered, he shared the twin distinctions of Eagle Scout and Order of the Arrow), "Can you have some of your men provide escort for a teammate of mine, and VIP passenger?"
"Claro que si, Compadre," Estevez replied with a nod, signaling to a nearby police pilot. "Is done as soon as said."
A few minutes later, Alan and Cindy had joined him at Mobile Command, neither looking well.
Endurance, concentrated within wiring and equipment around a certain cryo-pod-
Changes had indeed occurred; many and subtle ones. The situation was unanticipated, and without established protocols. Though she scanned many billion lines of code for several full seconds, Five could locate no relevant program or flow chart to guide her.
John Tracy had input a suggestion, and she'd run it. As advised, Five had linked across the parallel universes, and in so doing, had caused the very changes she'd noted earlier. Her action appeared to have brought several dimensions (or branes) close enough together for the events from the world lines of corresponding entities to cross over.
4.0 (prone to glitches and faulty reasoning, but possessing useful applications) had developed a contusion of the skin above his left eye, for instance. Though Gordon Tracy did not realize it, the bruise was not part of his history. It had occurred because his counterpart in the nearest parallel universe (along the 1t+4i+6j+21k axis) had been struck by falling rock while cutting an egress portal, and lay trapped now, in need rescue herself. (In that universe, the Tracy versions were opposite gendered.)
The 4.0 of this universe was free and unharmed but for the injury, with new, vague memories of a blow that hadn't happened... here.
There were other examples, not limited to the Tracy versions. Time distortions and missing events were spreading like ripples from the nexus point of her action. Damage was occurring, a virus-like degradation of histories, and Five required consultation.
Though he now had read-only access to Five, John Tracy remained her companion and original programer. His resources were considerable. Through effort and ingenuity, he had gained root access to most of the world's business and scientific servers. Contacted and queried, he would provide input and guidance; this was basic, hard-drive understanding. Thus, Five consulted back and forth among the bits of her consciousness scattered amid Earth, the Moon Station and Endurance, then made the decision to access John Tracy's memory banks.
World Unity Complex, Corridor 5H-
With Penny to show him the way, Virgil soon reached the collapsed passage behind which her people were trapped. Readying his plasma cutter, he asked Lady Penelope to call her secretary, and have everyone stand well clear of the barrier, for...
"...this thing generates a lot of heat, and I don't want to burn anybody. You say your office is number 137?"
Penny paused in her hurried phone conversation to nod. As she returned to her instructions, Virgil did some figuring. No time to employ the 'snake', not with the tunnel system this unstable, but maybe he didn't need to. The tag over the half-buried double door to his right read '131', and the office numbers alternated, left to right, growing larger down-corridor. Each office on this level looked to cover about a hundred square feet... So, reckon... three-hundred-ten feet of rubble to get through, give or take? Close enough to start with. He'd have to hurry, though.
Before donning goggles, and taking another quick dose of the inhaler, Virgil said to Penelope,
"You might want to step out of sight, Penny. No sense having anyone you know make the wrong connections."
She nodded.
"Of course, Virgil. How terribly silly of me. I'll just nip back to the rotunda... but first," she removed a sealed plastic bag from one of her cat-suit pockets. Inside were a number of flat, American-style soda crackers. "Please give this to Concepcion, when you find her. She's only just got married (last month it was), and she's having rather a trial of things, what with morning sickness, and all that."
Virgil took the packet of crackers, and put it safely away in his equipment belt.
"I'll make sure she gets it," he promised. "Round up anyone you meet on the way, and get 'em headed for the escape tunnels. This place isn't gonna hold much longer."
"Thank you. I will."
One more swift glance at the mass of crumbled rock and ruin that separated her from those she'd sworn to assist, and then Lady Penelope forced herself back up the hall and away.
Thinking to himself...,
'Now, that's a nice lady. Not sure I'd want her for a step-mom, but she has her moments.'
...Virgil got to work.
Corridor 7C-
Turning another corner, Gordon encountered a knot of twelve or so confused, frightened diplomats. The dark borders on their photo hang tags marked them out as low level civil servants, Junior Sub-Directors of eco-tourism, and the like. The woman he'd glimpsed earlier didn't seem to be among them, though. He'd need to look further, once these folks had been guided to safety.
The dog's ears lifted, and his head cocked to one side, but his reaction (a soft, questioning yip) was reassuring. Not that Gordon expected trouble, per se; it was simply that scared folk sometimes reacted badly to the sight of an armed stranger. But, judging by Scout's reactions, this lot had themselves under control. The dog was nervous, only not about them.
Lifting a hand, he said in his calmest tones,
"Folks, I'm with International Rescue, and I'm here t' help get you out of this place. If you'll follow me, I'll bring you t' an escape tunnel."
Their sudden expression changes..., worried/ relieved to spot-lighted deer..., warned him to turn around.
"Hello, Pet," she whispered.