Recently switched operating systems, so everything's messed up, but managing, anyhow... )
55
In the long, silent hours of the Martian night, when folk on Earth had nothing to cling to but prayer and static images, Fermat Hackenbacker called home, Jeff Tracy came to a decision, and Gordon was abruptly released. He did not recover immediately, though, having for many days afterward the mental equivalent of a head cold. Numbed and compliant, he followed his scheduled round of swim meets and training, showing very little reaction when Endurance once again made contact, and her crew proved to be safe.
If anything, he seemed slightly depressed, despite setting a new record in the men's 100-meter free style at the Paris finals.
On the bus ride home, the rest of the team (who'd dominated the competition) jokingly accused him of bribing officials, but Gordon didn't laugh. The true reason for his stunning performance, that he'd temporarily been 'under new management', went completely unguessed, even by him. All Gordon knew was that he felt rather abandoned, and couldn't really account for the last few weeks. (Hoped he hadn't done anything stupid...)
Back in Madrid that afternoon, he begged off the post-meet victory party to return to the pool. For once, he had the water nearly to himself, and was in the mood for about a thousand ferocious laps. Royce Fellows tried to remain, as well, meaning to have a serious private talk with his red-haired younger friend, but their coach interrupted.
On the bright-hot pool deck, hands in his pockets and craggy face grim, Kevin McMahon jerked his head at the locker room door.
"Get on with you, Fellows. I'll 'andle this."
Royce hesitated, glancing at Gordon, who'd shifted on the near turn from butterfly to backstroke.
Bloody hell, but he'd got fast; not a wasted nor false move anywhere. Like a damn machine! The tall young man shifted his gaze again, looking down at their stout, grizzled coach. Royce didn't like to say it, but he had to question McMahon's priorities. This newer, faster, more obedient Gordon Tracy was tearing up the competition, and making the coach look awfully good. To hell with the reasons, eh?
"Sir, if I might just..."
"I said, I'll 'andle it. Move along."
A light breeze whispered past them, equal parts exhaust fumes, chlorine and orange blossoms. Royce shifted his stance a bit. Like many athletes, he was hard-wired in the 'yes, Sir' position, and open rebellion came very, very hard. The earrings, tattoos and gold teeth were a way of setting himself apart, not against.
Dark eyes narrowed slightly in the wind and sun, Royce tried again; respectfully.
"Sir, 'ee's not been 'imself, of late, and if I might..."
He got cut off, again.
"Side effects," McMahon announced forcefully, as though he'd settled matters. Then, all but propelling Royce back to the building, "Pain meds, an' all that rubbish. It's all in 'and, I assure you. Now, off y' go.. an' mind th' curfew. 8:00 tonight; no spirits, no fightin', and no females. Right, then. 'Ave fun. There's a good lad."
His broad hand pushed Royce, still protesting, through the doors and into the locker rooms. Then, with Fellows disposed of, the coach turned his attention back to his most successful, and perplexing, swimmer. Under a gem-like, clear blue sky, Kevin McMahon stumped back over to the outdoor pool.
Gordon had at last paused to rest, hanging at the lane end with his arms folded upon the pool wall, chin resting on his rapidly drying forearms. He wore a black, 'shark skin' fast suit and a pair of tinted goggles, which he pushed off his face at McMahon's approach.
"Tracy," the coach began, squatting down between starting blocks to talk with the boy (not without difficulty- the old bones weren't all they'd used to be).
"...been meanin' t' talk with you, lad."
Gordon looked up, his hazel eyes strangely... If McMahon hadn't known better, he'd have said the young swimmer appeared rather lost, as though he'd been deposited by the side of the road with two quid and a change of underwear. Into that haunted emptiness, the coach said,
"Y've been workin' mighty 'ard, these last few weeks, there's no denyin' it... an' it seems t' me that y'r wantin' a bit of a rest. Y'll not get me t' repeat this publicly, Tracy, but there is a such thing as over-trainin' , even with all them extra blood cells." (Another 'gift' from modern medical science.)
When Gordon did not immediately respond, his coach blundered on.
"What I'm sayin'... orderin' , rather, is this: take th' rest of th' week off. Mind curfew, but, f'r th' rest of it... take some time t' re-center. Y'll come back a better swimmer f'r it, trust me."
One didn't go far in coaching without being something of a psychologist, as well. McMahon had decided that the problem was stress, for which he prescribed a nice, relaxing holiday. Tracy seemed less than enthused, but nodded his red head.
"Yes, sir... thank you." Quiet and subdued, perhaps, but more himself than he'd been in weeks.
McMahon risked a smile, clapping a gnarled hand to the boy's muscular, sun-burnt shoulder.
"Right. Out of th' pool with you, then. Find y'rself a senorita and a round of pints. I'll be waitin' up, with th' headache pills."
Gordon returned the smile, a little lop-lopsidedly, then accepted a hand up, wondering how and when aliens had possessed his coach.
New York State-
There was an intricate network of steam tunnels beneath the dorms and school buildings of Wharton Private Academy for Young Men, relic of a time before modern central heating. Generations of daring students had explored these forgotten byways, establishing the odd clubhouse or treasure hoard in its various branches and nooks.
The walls and cracked floors were composed of musty concrete, the low ceilings nearly invisible behind insulated steam pipes and old wiring. Terribly eerie and exciting, clearly the sort of place where boys of a certain age might gather in small numbers to shine flashlights below their chins and speak together in hollow voices.
Fermat, Sam and Daniel had picked the rusted locks, pushed through a metal door marked 'keep out', choosing a dog-legged tunnel between cafeteria and library for their hideout. Dusty and cramped, it was, but as Daniel put it, in his deepest and most timbre-y voice: a dark place, for dark business. Or, at least for the free hour before lights out.
"So..." Sam Nakamura was saying, as he finished a packet of peanut butter crackers, "There's been some sort of computer malfunction? Aboard the Mars Lander?"
Like Fermat and Daniel Solomon, Sam was extremely intelligent, with a no-nonsense, cut-to-the-bone attitude that made most adults deeply uncomfortable. He was slighter, even, than Fermat, but confident, and prone to acerbic bossiness.
"I th... think so, yes." Fermat told his two friends. The other boy, a pudgy, dishwater blond with mischievous brown eyes, cut in at once. Leaning forward, Daniel crumpled his chocolate milk carton.
"Don't they have a boot disk?" he demanded, now juggling the carton from hand to hand. "What's the operating system? And didn't you say Tracy's a programmer? What's his damage? Can't he handle a few bugs? 'Cause I..."
Fermat held both hands up to stem the flood of words.
"D- Daniel... wait. It's... not... not that... simple."
"How do you mean?" Sam snapped, drawing Euler's beta function on the floor at their feet with a bit of red ocher, caveman-fashion. Mere conversation wasn't quite enough to keep him busy.
"I mean... that... that it's n- not... that sort of c- computer. It's a ... a 'her', for one thing. J- John designed her... a l- long time... ago; wrote the programming language, a- and... and everything."
"Which version?" (Daniel, again) "Perl? Python? Lisp? Black Cat? D? Ruby-2? Still shouldn't be overly difficult. Not if you know what you're doing. I can code in Ruby, Lisp and D, myself. Plus Fortran. Kid stuff."
Fermat raked a hand through his straight brown hair, blinking in frustration. Sometimes, getting a word in edgewise, or any other kind of way, was darn near impossible.
"No."
"Zip it, Daniel," Sam ordered, shaking his head. "Let the man talk."
Fermat shot his small friend a deeply grateful look, then soldiered on.
"The... language is... unique. Only John, m- my dad, me... a- and... a girl s- somewhere... know how to... to c- code it. It's called 'Steel'. At... at any r- rate, the l- language is powerful, and s- so... so is the computer. V- very abstract, fast and... and f- fully orthogonal."
And, until a few hours ago, very approachable. Five appeared not to be listening, though, nor allowing Fermat to input queries. The folks back home were reacting like she'd gone 'bad', but Fermat had a really weird feeling that something else had happened. That, wounded and confused by his actions (and worst of all, John's), she'd gone into hiding.
Sam frowned.
"Fermat, I've hacked NASA and downloaded the lander's technical specs, and I don't recall seeing anything like that, in there. The on board system's kind of pathetic, actually."
Fermat took a deep breath. Next to Alan, these were his very best friends. Some day soon, they intended to establish a software design company together, and take over the world. FSD... or DFS...SDF, maybe (they still hadn't settled on a name). Point being, if he couldn't trust Sam and Daniel on a technical problem... one that he'd partly caused... who could he trust?
"O- okay, it's like... like this, guys: she isn't s- supposed... to even b- be... there. When John... c- called me, I uploaded a... a monster, and..."
Scurrying back to the dorm as late as they did, the trio nearly got caught. But, they made it in just under curfew, slipping past Mr. Fenworthy, with plans already formed.
In London, England, meanwhile, a certain fashion model- cum- operative-spy- aristocrat pulled out her cell phone between photo shoots. For something to do, and because she was lonely, and under-dressed, Penelope hit a button and began paging through the pictures stored on her phone. One after another, they flashed by. Old school chums, her parents (before they'd had to part with the yacht), and then, close to the end, a beautiful young man. Her most frequent paramour.
Penelope paused, suddenly alone amid hot lights, twittering makeup artists, a group of bemused peacocks, and Francois. Chaos, conversation, people; all of it faded as Penny regarded the image. Like all the others, it was a video clip, actually, and playable.
On the island, they'd been, by the lower pool. He'd glanced over at her soft call, unsmiling and calm. Tossing aside a blue towel, he'd pushed the damp blond hair from his face with one hand, then started forward, wearing black swim trunks and a slight frown.
The noon-day sun had struck glints from the fine gold hairs on his slim body, making him seem almost to shine. There the video clip ended, though she knew the rest of the story. Penny gazed at the picture, not thinking so much as feeling. Perhaps they'd both been a trifle hasty?
For a long, aching instant, she hovered between actions, deeply torn. Choices must be made, however, and in this universe, the young noblewoman chose not to delete John Tracy's image. Instead, she called his number, and left a message.
"Hello, John. Er... terribly sorry to have missed the 'family call', but that perfect scoundrel of an accountant forgot to pay the cell phone chit, and... Well, it's all been a dreadful misunderstanding. Do forgive me, darling. I..." she hesitated, smiled tremulously, then added, "I miss you, love. Return the call, please, when you're able."
And then, Penny ended the message, perfectly oblivious to the fact that Francois had been shrilling at her for the last five minutes. Shouldering the frantic little designer aside, Penelope tucked the phone away and headed for Parker. On the way, she wondered vaguely whether John would like her skimpy, clashing outfit, and if it might remind him of better days.
Tracy Island-
After John made contact, when the family 'conference call' ended, Gordon signed off and the others began drifting away in pairs and threes. Jeff Tracy signaled his middle son, Virgil, to stay behind.
The dark-haired young man, as hard-muscled and solid as though he still played football, came over to stand by his father's big desk. When the last footfall and voice faded down corridor, Virgil folded his arms defensively. He had a pretty fair notion what all this was about. Quietly, he said,
"You wanted to talk to me, Sir?"
Jeff nodded. He and Virgil were almost exactly the same height. They saw eye-to-eye... physically, anyhow.
"I did, yes." The elder Tracy responded briskly. "It's been pretty chaotic around here, with the situations in Spain, and Mars, and the last few rescue missions... and we haven't had much chance to talk, you and I."
Keeping his gaze locked to his son's, Jeff went on,
"But, the thing is, Virgil... when the World Unity Complex was attacked, and I gave the directive to stand down, you disobeyed me."
"No, sir," Virgil interrupted. Quiet still, but firm as a granite mountain side. "I didn't. You told Scott to stay put. You never noticed me, or Gordon, either. So we went, and we got the job done."
Jeff paused, startled by Virgil's unexpected stubbornness. Usually, the middle Tracy was the most compliant and easy-going of his offspring.
"Be that as it may..."
But Virgil held up a silencing hand, something unusually hard in his brown eyes. Most of his life, he 'went along, to get along', battering himself nearly to pieces playing a game he didn't even like. But times had changed, and so had Virgil.
"I'm sorry if you don't agree, Father, but we saved lives by launching when we did. And if it happened again... I'd do the same thing. And, I bet, so would Gordon."
'Middle kid'... eager to please... the peacemaker and diplomat, almost lost in the shadow of his fighter pilot, astronaut, and Olympic gold medalist brothers. Jeff saw it all fall away that day, watched Virgil literally 'grow up'. The older man's mouth hardened to a thin line, but he nodded, stiff and reluctant as a wooden puppet.
"I see your point, son," he replied. "But International Rescue is an organization, with rules and a chain of command. From here on out, I'd appreciate it if you'd express your opinions instead of sneaking off, and follow orders, real or implied."
Hands in his pockets, Virgil appeared to ponder the matter. Finally, he returned his father's nod.
"Yes, sir. I think I can do that... as long as the orders don't delay help, or mean I've gotta leave one of my brothers in a fix."
"Deal." They had an understanding, at least, and shook on it, man to man.