Well, to begin with, I owe Tikatu, Varda's Servant and Agent Five a big thank you for the reviews, and the guesses, some of which may be close to the mark. And, good luck with the national novels (Varda's S- I'll have to go check out your work. It's always cool to find out that someone writes).

3

Tracy Island, at the desk-

With Thunderbird 2 still plucking pilots and mariners from a weirdly restive sea, and Scott in guarded condition, a pair of local operatives had had to be dispatched to Washington to rescue the trapped blackmailer. Banks and Conroy; both Army Reserve, and damn good men. Jeff would have trusted either of them to deliver the company payroll, or his wi… ex-wife's… next baby.

As he monitored Virgil's progress and sifted through hundreds of distress calls (how in Heaven's name did John manage?) Jeff kept half an ear tuned to Conroy's coded transmissions.

"Don't know how he can claim to be trapped, Boss," the operative remarked at one point, "the doors down here are wide open, all through the tunnel system. And there aren't any guards, either. Place is deserted."

Then, while a loud thunderclap shook the house, Banks said something that didn't carry over properly. Conroy replied, sounding pensive,

"Yeah. You got a point, there. Boss, the doors aren't just open… it almost looks like they were blasted, or something. Only… there's no burns or shrapnel. Just twisted hatches and broken locks."

Before Jeff could answer, another call came through, this one from Sea Base Alpha. Major structural damage… hundreds trapped… situation critical… Yet more trouble. Commander Carlin was requesting immediate assistance from all available vessels.

Raking a hand through his iron-grey hair, painfully twisting his cracked ribs in the process, Jeff responded. He tried to sound reassuring as he promised Alpha's commander that help was on its way. It would have to be quick, though. The central dome was flooding.

"Virgil!" Jeff snapped out, hitting a certain comm switch. But he hadn't a chance to give any orders, for Banks and Conroy called in again.

"Boss…" the older man whispered, face very close to the screen of his comm unit. "I think we're too late, Sir."

And he turned the comm unit, panning its small camera to display the inside of a trashed, darkened survival bunker piled high with junk, in the midst of which slumped the emptied ruin of a man. Surrounded by stained food cartons and dry soda bottles, the dark-haired young fellow (27 years old? Maybe 30?) hummed and giggled to himself, fitting shattered computer parts together with bits of gnawed crust and greasy cardboard.

All at once, he turned his head to regard the comm screen, as though looking straight through the lens at Jeff Tracy. Spectacles broken, face twisted and gloating, the hacker whispered,

"He's coming for you."

Hackenbacker's medical office-

He'd wrenched the drawer open and fumbled out his phone, answering just in time to catch the caller. It was his son, Kurt (code-named 'Fermat' since their arrival on the island). Just like the time that his son called to report the release of a viral program, the boy looked deeply worried.

"D- Dad," Fermat began, "We… were only trying t- to… help. W- we wanted to… s- seize and… rep- program the… computer."

Just behind his blue-eyed son, Hackenbacker could make out the pale, concerned faces of his young school friends, Daniel Solomon and Samuel Nakamura. The engineer acknowledged the other boys with a swift nod, but his attention arrowed back to Fermat immediately thereafter.

"I t-take it you, ah… you h- have some i- idea of, ah… of what's h- happened, Son?"

Standing by the office window, as he was, Brains could keep an eye on Scott's med scanners and the injured women. The dog, at the moment, barely registered. Too much else on his mind. But Fermat was nodding agreement. Behind him, one of the other boys whispered,

"It was just a script! It wasn't supposed to actually happen…"

Fermat shushed his friend, then squared thin little shoulders, and began to explain.

"Wh- when Five… d- dropped out of sight… I thought sh- she… might have… have b- been damaged by… your virus."

The boy paused, evidently thinking through what he ought to say next.

"I thought… she m- might be hiding, so… so I t- told Daniel and S- Sam about… the c- computer, and we… we planned a w- way to… 'catch' and reprogram her. We made up… a s- scenario, like a g- game, to lure Five into… into a containment unit, where sh- she… could then be d- debugged. Only, Daniel did… th- the figures, and it g- got sent… accidentally, Dad, and… then th- there was this h- huge power… surge to r- run it, and…"

Brains had already made the connection.

"What, exactly," he asked, dry-mouthed and slow, "w- was, ah… was in th- that scenario?" Then, cutting off the reply, "Not over th- the phone. I'll n- need a c- copy, Son; secure channel, b- best, ah… best speed."

Fusi, American Samoa, early evening-

Mrs. Thorpe, the former Sami Manumaleuga, sat cross-legged in her home, surrounded by friends and family. She was a large woman, dark-skinned and colorfully dressed, with waist-length grey hair braided and coiled atop her head.

There were several small children on her ample lap, Roger's cousins and siblings (in Samoa, children belonged to everybody, and relationships were both deep, and very relaxed). Two entire pandanus screen walls had been rolled up, permitting the air and neighbors to circulate at will. Atop a carved wooden chest, a television flickered, displaying frantic images from halfway around the world. Thunder grumbled in the west. Lightning forked and branched and spread, outlining the underside of a growing storm in serpent tongues of flaring light.

As the wind picked up, sending long, rolling breakers to their deaths on the beach below, Cousin Nano moved to untie and lower the west wall. And then, between one lightning flash and the next, something changed; someone was added.

Sami Manumaleuga-Thorpe rose from the wooden floor, scattering children like front-yard chickens. She moved forward through the suddenly quiet house, and stopped short about a foot and a half away from the new arrival, who seemed to be in profound shock. The rest of the family stepped back, superstitiously silent.

Sami reached up and took her son's face in her hands, tilting the tall Marine's head so that she could look him in the eyes. He whispered, very quietly,

"Momma, am I dead?"

She moved a hand to pat his broad shoulder, feeling rigid tension beneath the red-and-gold Marine Corps tee shirt.

"No, Boy… you're here, with us. Thank God," she was crying, now. "I don't know how. I don't care how. But, he's home. My boy's come home!"

And then the rest of the family closed round, embracing the weeping mother and her numbed son. What kin weren't already present were quickly summoned, racing up foot paths and across log bridges in the rainy, dangerous darkness to welcome their boy.

Pats and hugs and kisses he got, and soft murmurs in many languages, but a certain face was missing; a certain woman.

Delayed reaction, raw and desperate and burning-hot, tore through Roger Thorpe. Shoving people aside, he demanded,

"Where's everyone else? Where's Kim?"