More stress for the boyos!

In the silence of the room, a crackle was heard.

Rolling over on his side, Alan's first instinct was to grab his watch, thinking it was John trying to contact him about something important. As the sleep left him, he suddenly remembered Gordon's plight, and the fact that Scott and Virgil, to his knowledge, were still out on the Greek rescue. Alan pulled his watch in close to his light-strained eyes and found himself observing the same static from before rolling across the watch face.

As he was about to put the watch back down in defeat, his watch crackled again, making an eerie sounding noise that sent shivers up Alan's spine.

"-ad -e?"

Alan sat up in bed, his heart beginning to race. He held the watch close to his ear and listened for around ten minutes to the static relaying from his watch, hoping there would be another noise break.

"-n -ad -e?" came after he waited a while.

"Brains…" Alan murmured to himself, heart pounding with wide eyes. "Brains!"

Alan leapt out of his bed and grabbed his dressing gown from the back of his door, holding his watch tightly in his hand. He ran down the corridor and knocked on the genius' bedroom door, only to find it empty. Shaking his head, he darted out of the bedroom corridor and ran through the moon drenched lobby, skidding to a halt in the lounge when he saw his father sitting at his desk, talking to Brains who was sitting on a chair the wrong way around, arms wrapped around the top of it. Two steaming cups of coffee were sitting on the table.

Jeff was surprised to see his youngest son looking so frantic. "Alan? Are you alright?"

"Dad." Alan panted, holding his hand on his hip as he tried to steady himself. "I think Gordon's tried to contact me. He must be alive!"

An estatic look ran over the patriarch's eyes and he stood up, Brains following him. "How do you know?"

Alan thrust his watch out towards Brains. "I kept my watch active just in case he tried to call me. A strange noise woke me up. I listened to the static and there seemed to be some sort of message being relayed over the frequency. I couldn't make it out but it sounded a bit like somebody speaking!"

"N-Now Alan, are you s-sure it wasn't just the static you were hearing? S-Sometimes the mind makes y-you hear what you want to b-believe to be true." Brains inputted, secretly hoping Alan had heard what he thought he had.

"I heard a voice, I tell you!" Alan frowned, "Can't you analyse the watch and play the recording back? Maybe translate it properly? If it was Gordon then he might need our help!"

Jeff steadied his son's shoulders. "Now calm down, Alan. If what you say is true, it'll take Brains a little bit of time to retrieve the audio feed. It could have just been a glitch that you heard so we must remain level-headed about this. I'll stay up with him and we'll see what we can do. Meanwhile, I want you to go back to bed."

"But father!"

"No buts, Alan. I'm staying up in case Scott or Virgil contact me so I may as well put my services to good use. You should try and get some rest."

Alan tried again, "Dad, please! I really need to know Gordon's alright. Just let me do something, anything to help out!"

"Alan." Jeff replied firmly. "Bed."

Sighing in defeat, Alan pulled away from his father. "Fine. If you find out anything-"

"You'll be the first to know."

Alan gave him a sad smile and retreated to his bedroom.

Virgil paced up and down Thunderbird 2's cockpit, stretching his legs. He leant over to touch his blue boots, then stood up straight before leaning backwards. He groaned as he felt the lower part of his back tense up and he rubbed it hard, trying to force the strain out of it. As he stood up again, he felt something click, jolting his body.

"Well this is just perfect." he moaned, clutching the back of his pilot seat with one hand as he rubbed his back with the other. "Brains should really make these seats more comfortable."

The cockpit radio bleeped and Virgil wobbled over the control column to answer the call. "Hello?"

"Hey Virg, it's just me. How are you doing?"

"Oh I'm feeling FANTASTIC." he grumbled. "I'm stressed because I can't be with you out in the field, I'm stressed because I'm stuck up here like a lemon when Gordon might be needing my help, and worst of all, my ass has gone numb!"

Scott laughed tiredly from the other end of the radio. "So everything's going well huh? How's the storm your end?"

Virgil observed the clouds through the arched cockpit window. "Oddly, seems to be a bit quiet now. I can still see lightning flashing every so often, but the wind seems to have dropped. It feels more like a tropical storm, and I do mean a light tropical storm. I can hardly feel it now."

"That's really weird. I'm in the basement of one of the evacuation centres and it feels like the whole building's going to be blown off. I think the eye is travelling over us."

Virgil peered over at the weather radar on his monitor. "Really? According to the satellite footage, it's actually over me at the moment. Why is it that I can't feel anything and you can?" he frowned.

"Maybe there's more to this than meets the… storm's eye."

Virgil had to laugh. "Really? At a time like this?"

"Honestly I think I'm getting cabin fever. I've had to move into a separate room because a few of the evacuees tried to mob me for autographs. The police are calming them down now so I'm just waiting for the signal to go back in there." Scott explained. "Gotta entertain myself somehow."

"Switch to Tracy FM. I'm sure Johnny's still awake."

"Is it that late already?"

Virgil checked his watch. "Yeah. It is… half one in the morning Tracy time."

Scott groaned. "Man, I'm so tired. I just- oh wait, Virg? I have to go. Captain Papadaki's calling me. Keep in touch."

"Bye Scott."

Virgil switched off his radio and found himself staring at the brewing black clouds. It would have been the perfect opportunity to paint them if he wasn't on a mission, but unfortunately he was, and he was in no mood to paint, regardless.

All he wanted was to know was if Gordon was okay.