Two
Alan lost track of things for a little bit after that bombshell of a statement.
It was probably only the lingering numbness from the pellet that kept him from doing something insane like tearing his way into the cockpit and finding someone to shake some answers out of. As it was he was pretty sure he'd managed to hyperventilate himself into passing out for a few seconds by the way the tunnel vision happened, then there was a block of nothing and he came back to himself to hear John's low and soothing 'anti-panic' voice murmuring in his ear. "...ird Three, Thunderbird Three, I need you to listen to me, focus on my voice, we have a plan but I need you to listen to me, Thunderbird Three. Do you copy Thunderbird Three, blink twice if you copy Thunderbird Three."
Alan clung to that voice like a drowning man to a lifeline and slowly blinked twice. He was still looking in Gordon's direction, his eyes barely opened, and the cargo compartment or whatever they were in was windowless and dark, so hopefully whatever the plan was it hadn't been messed up by his freak out.
"Okay, that's good Thunderbird Three, that's very good." John continued that calming litany. "Do you feel ready for the briefing? There's still another forty five minutes, that's four five minutes, of flight time remaining. We can delay the briefing if you need more time. Blink once for now, twice for later."
One abstracted corner of his mind mused that John could probably have a nice side gig doing podcasts or something like those ambient background noise make-you-go-to-sleep things where someone read out poetry or something, he could have a very soothing tone of voice when he wanted to. That corner of his mind was very firmly told to sit down and shut up by the rest of him, there was work to do. He blinked once, then tapped out U-S-A-F-E in Morse with his left index finger.
"Yes I'm safe. EOS, Dad and I are with Captain O'Bannon." John told him. Alan relaxed a little at that. For them to be with O'Bannon meant that they'd found a way onto Global One.
From what he could recall there'd been a major kerfuffle over Ridley endangering herself, John, EOS and Five for the sake of Global One a while ago. John and Ridley had patched things up between themselves not long after, it had been awkward for a couple of months, but she'd apologised profoundly and earned John's trust back. O'Bannon had hung onto her command by the skin of her teeth by arguing that saving the priceless mission data that Global One had been accumulating and preventing the incalculable damage that would have been done by the debris of the station wiping out everything in a wide swath of Mid Earth Orbit was worth it- her numbers had shown the cloud of debris would have been at least a kilometre across and that was without the additional debris from every satellite, station and unlucky freighter in its path. She'd even won a couple of concessions like being allowed to hand-pick her crew. That meant that his Dad, his brother and EOS were surrounded by people who's backgrounds had been examined with a microscope by Ridley. They were safe.
K-O-G-M-A-L-P-P-R-K-R-B-R-N-S-M-C-H-M-X Alan tapped out next, needing to know everyone's status so he could keep a lid on his seething panic. There was supposed to be a party today, Grandma had insisted on celebrating the anniversary of The Mechanic's 'Freedom day'- when Brains had prised The Hood's control out of his head. It kinda made sense for The Hood to plan something awful for today. To be honest they'd all expected it to come on the day that Dad had taken his unexpected trip to the Oort Cloud, The Hood had escaped the GDF only a week before that particular anniversary. But it had come and gone without anything to mark it, probably because he had this brewing.
"They're all safe." John reassured him. "We got the warning out in time and they were able to evacuate." That was something Brains had put together after The Hood had invaded their home- concealed evacuation planes, not linked into IR systems and riddled with stealth tech so people could escape undetected.
"Any other questions first?" John waited a beat, then dove straight in. "Scott's last mission was a set up. The Hood had a sniper waiting for Scott and he was shot with a dart filled with nanobots. We were lucky, he was on comms with me at the time and standing right under Thunderbird One. EOS set off the EMP generator and disabled or damaged most of them but there's still a few active in his system, enough for The Hood to communicate with Scott and force some actions. He's monitoring Scott through his suit camera and listening in on our comms network. I've been able to tap into the nanobot data stream, hear what the Hood had been saying and do enough tampering to hide what we've been up to. EOS has been interfering with the suit camera and the Island's systems to let Scott take some measures as well, like making the pills, the fake bullets you all got shot with and getting the earbuds."
John took a breath, his tone changing to his clinical 'mission control' voice. "On his way back to the Island, The Hood forced Scott to use his Commander overrides to make Five open all airlocks and vent its atmosphere to get me and Dad. My 'last act' was to shut down the Island and program the Thunderbirds to lockdown upon landing. Scott was then ordered to shoot those of us he could find and bring your bodies to The Hood. Virgil and Gordon got home shortly before you did."
H-O-W-C-T-R-L Alan tapped out next. It didn't make any sense, if they had this much leeway why didn't they just set off another EMP after Scott got back to the Island, like the more powerful one on Two, free Scott and hook him up to a blood scrubber or something? Sure, it would probably wipe everything electronic and not EMP-hardened in the villa, but they had shielded backups on Mateo for everything.
"While he can't totally control Scott like he intended, enough nanobots survived that The Hood can still inflict serious pain on Scott or stop his heart and he has a bomb under TI's New York office, he claims it's nuclear. If Scott doesn't cooperate, he's going to set it off and then kill Scott. If The Hood's signal to the bomb is interrupted, it'll blow automatically." Was John's grim explanation. "Brains, Mechanic and Max have just touched down in New York to help, but it's complicated, they need time and we're buying it for them, but we can't let the GDF know that they're there in case there's another spy. Kayo is trailing your plane to back up Scott. Lady P, Parker and Grandma are all lying low right now, but they're in touch with Colonel Casey."
C-D-D-L-P-I-L-E-S-C-T-T-A-F-T-R-B-I-G-T-I-M-E Was Alan's response to all that. The anguish, self loathing and horror that he'd seen in Biggest Bro's face had not been acting. Scott was going to need some serious dosing with family love and reassurance to chase away the dark thoughts that would be festering right now.
"Yeah, right after we ruin The Hood's day." John agreed, the pain he felt for their big brother bleeding through his control for only a moment before he got back to business. "Gordon and Virgil said pretty much the same thing. You should have a second pellet on the left side of your mouth, between your teeth and your cheek. After this, bite it. You'll need to look dead for the plan to work." John instructed. "Scott's been ordered to bring you all out so The Hood can gloat and hopefully by that time the bomb will be disabled. I'll wake you three and there's a small EMF generator in the cargo section of the plane that I'll activate at the same time. It'll mean you'll be on your own until we get there, but we've got to remove The Hood's ability to hurt Scott."
F-A-B Alan tapped out. He waited a moment for any further instructions, when none followed he found the pellet, got it between his teeth and bit down.
