Dislcaimer: Thunderbirds is the property of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, as well as Carlton and Universal. No profit is intended to be made from this story; it is for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended, and none should be inferred. All original characters are the property of the author. This story should not be used or copied without the expressed written consent of the author.
AN: Due to size restraints, this chapter has been split into two pieces, Reaction I and Reaction II. Also, remember to check my author page for extended author notes and review responses!
Blood is Thicker Than Water: Part 2a
Reaction I
May 2019
There were certain noises that, no matter how deeply he slept, Scott Tracy always awakened to. Most of them were variations of a siren or alert, from his days with the Air Force, but there was one noise very different from those that instilled a dread in him like nothing else. He had never served actively in any specific war zone, had instead spent his flying time patrolling the home land, but he had once been privileged to seeing and hearing another aircraft miss a landing and crash into the runway.
That same noise, one of burning gasoline and re-pressurization, sent him flying upright in bed, a startled expression on his face. "What the hell?" Not bothering to even grab a shirt, Scott jumped from the mattress – causing Jeff to groan with the annoyance of being awakened in the middle of the night – and ran to the window dressed only in his boxer shorts.
A column of smoke was rising in the waters just off the marina, accompanied by a fading white glow that seemed to have come from some sort of explosion. It hadn't been a fire, for sure, not that far out of the water. No, the noise had been mechanical in nature.
"Dad!"
The shout was unnecessary, for Jeff was already standing behind Scott, his face serious as he surveyed the scene. "This looks bad."
Then a thought struck Scott, so profound in nature that it simply grew stronger and stronger until he felt sick to his stomach. "Gordon." He locked eyes with his father for a long moment, until the other man's face reflected his own feelings of dread. "We've got to get out there."
Neither tried to explain how they knew, for there was no time to discuss. They simply threw on the nearest items of clothing that were lying around and ran out the door. Somehow, they knew that Gordon was involved in the explosion – and it was the uncertainty of not knowing how that was the most frightening.
A sizeable crowd had already gathered at the marina by the time that Jeff and Scott drove up in their rented car. Not even taking the time to park properly, Jeff simply stopped the car on the sidewalk, jumped out, and hurried as fast as he could towards the building. Trees and sidewalk flew by him as he ran, and soon he was standing at the edge of the crowd, unable to see past to the water beyond.
Unable to push his way through, Jeff felt a growing sense of unease and horror form in his chest. He knew that he had to get through, knew that he had to be at the dock, but the other people in the crowd all wanted to see just as badly.
"Let me through!" Jeff demanded, drawing several odd looks from the people at the back. "Please let me through!"
"My brother's out there!"
It was Scott's loud and passionate plea that finally parted the crowd. There was no doubting, from the young man's expression and the emotion in his voice, that he was telling the truth, and no one in the crowd seemed in any hurry to get in a fight with him.
As the people thinned before him, Jeff found himself walking faster and faster, until – finally moving at a frantic pace – he stood at the very edge of the docks, amongst a smaller group of police officers and medical personnel. It was from that point that Jeff finally saw the remains of what had happened on the water.
Just visible in the darkness was a still smouldering patch of wreckage, small pieces of metal and plastic that floated up and down on the wake and reflected in the dull light of the moon. A thin film of gasoline covered the water, still burning in some spots, and the twisted back fin of what appeared to be a hydrofoil floated up and down, its shadowy form standing out starkly against the moonlit sky. The entire scene was bathed in a crimson light that was cast from an innocent looking buoy that floated amidst the wreckage, spared from the wrath of whatever had fallen upon the other craft.
The scene, so completely dismal and mentally devastating in its entirety, nearly sent Jeff Tracy to his knees. It was the desire to know what happened that kept him upright, turned him around where he stood, and forced him to ask, "Where is my son?"
When no one responded, Jeff shook his head, panic rising in him even as he tried to quell it, and repeated, "Where is my son?"
He had not intended for the words to be spoken so loud, but the harsh and grating quality of them silenced nearly all the conversation around the marina in less than a second. Various men and women stared at him from the crowd, some pointing, others whispering amongst themselves. Finally, one of the police officers stepped forward and reached his hand to take Jeff by the shoulder.
"Sir, I'm afraid that you can't be here."
But Jeff Tracy was not in a mood to discuss. He had every intention of staying right where he was, on the dock, until someone answered his question.
"Sir," repeated the officer, a bit more forcefully, "I must ask you to leave."
"No!" Pushing away the man's hand, Jeff turned to the crowd and returned the stares of the onlookers. He could see Scott approaching from the corner of his eye, his face showing hints of distress and concern. "Someone must know. Where is my son?" The words were a plea, nothing more, and even as he spoke them Jeff felt his strength flow out of him.
As Jeff's knees buckled, as he fell towards the deck, as he saw Scott rush up to catch him, a young man finally walked forward out of the crowd.
His face was a mixture of emotions, and he looked at ground as he began to speak. "Is your son Gordon Tracy?"
Feeling vaguely stupid at forgetting to mention such a thing, Jeff nodded. He shrugged off Scott's help, choosing instead to stay close to the ground where he felt more secure and less at risk of falling. Quietly, almost to the point of sounding indifferent, Jeff asked one last time, "Where is he?"
The other boy's face became very pale, and he glanced briefly towards the water. "Sir, Gordon and Simon were racing the hydrofoils. I saw them, they were about to make the turn . . ." he trailed off, then continued when he found some form of composure. "I don't know what happened! There was an explosion, and then . . ." Unable to continue, the boy gestured out at the water.
The hard reality of the situation hit Jeff head on at that moment. Though he was able to hold back the scream that wanted to escape his lips, he could not stop his body from nearly doubling over with the pain and the shock of the situation.
"There are divers out there right now." The police officer that had tried to restrain him earlier had once again stepped forward. "There may be some survivors. We have reason to believe that the boys were wearing oxygen masks, and if they survived the initial crash then they may be alive. We're not sure how much air they would have, but there might be time to cut them out before the oxygen runs out completely."
Jeff barely heard the words as the man spoke them. His own mind was beginning to feel submerged, as though the entire scene was underwater. The lights blurred, the voices began to merge together, and all that he could see was the flashing red beacon out on the water. The entire situation seemed horribly familiar.
"There were four in the craft; we've confirmed that much. Simon Towers and Gordon Tracy were the two pilots, though we are unsure of the identity of the co-pilots."
But, unlike that moment nine and a half years ago, when Jeff Tracy had been forced to watch, helpless, as his wife had died, another voice surfaced in his mind and spoke to him. It was the neutral and cold voice of the commander that made it his job to deal with situations like that. It was the voice of reason, the logical and reasoning part of his mind that had not fully shut down amidst the shock of the night's events.
You have the gear with you. You have Scott's laser pistol. You could make sure that the survivors would be rescued. You could use it to cut them from the craft. It doesn't matter if everyone see us, you have to do everything possible to save Gordon. Everything possible . . .
A combination of hysteria and adrenaline coursed through his veins, and Jeff reached a hand and pulled Scott down close to his face. "Scott, the laser gun . . ."
The young man's face clouded for a moment, confusion written plainly across it. "Laser gun . . ." Then as suddenly as it had appeared the confusion disappeared – to be replaced with a helpless panic that was rarely – if ever – seen on Scott Tracy's face. "I left it at the hotel . . ."
With that one statement, the logical part of Jeff's brain shut down, and the part of him that was quickly becoming emotionally unstable took over. A surge of pure anger rose in him, and without thinking he threw Scott's hands from his shoulders and pushed the young man aside. "But he's my son!" The words were screamed in pure and utter anguish, tearing at Jeff's throat as he said them.
He knew what it looked like to the crowd. He knew that they were staring at him, wondering what to do about the man who was having an emotional breakdown in front of them. But he didn't care. There was no possible way that they could understand what he was feeling – they had probably never lost anyone in their family, let alone someone close to them. Jeff had not only lost one who was dear to him, but . . .
That thought, of losing one more in his family, drained every last bit of energy from his body. He was dimly aware of being caught by Scott, of being directed gently to the ground, of looking up into the face of his son who stared at him with unlimited concern. "Scott . . ."
The young man simply nodded, and pulled his father towards him into a tight hug.
Beyond caring about his pride, Jeff accepted his son's arms and pulled the boy close to his chest. The effort allowed him to return to a sitting position, and gave him a clear view of the rippling waters beyond the docks. "Scott, I can't lose him. I just can't."
"Just wait," his son replied, for a moment becoming the officer who always told those he helped that things would be all right. Even so, under the mask Jeff could see – could feel – his son shaking in his arms, as Scott tried to hold everything inside and failed. "We don't know for sure . . ."
As if in answer to Scott's words, the water near the docks rippled, then splashed, and from the depths rose a pair of divers. They walked forward out of the water, their movement restricted by the flippers on their feet, and by the torn and broken body that the front man carried protectively in his arms.
At first, Jeff saw no way that the body could be that of his son. The black jump-suit hid most of the body's features, and its smooth surface was torn and ripped in many places. Lines of blood ran up and down the cloth, dripping onto the dock as the diver reached land, and the entire body was so battered and burned that it was hard to tell where the suit ended and human flesh began.
But then Jeff saw the hair, turned nearly black from the smoke of the explosion. Amongst the ashes and the drying blood there were red locks – red locks that were not red from fresh blood, but from a genetic trait that had inexplicably appeared in the Tracy bloodline nearly eighteen years earlier. From that, other features – the sharp cheekbones, the body built so like his brothers, the eyes that normally spoke of trouble – became hauntingly prominent.
Everything went back to being fog. Every step that the diver took echoed in Jeff's mind. Every breath, every word that he spoke, hung in the air like mist over the ocean.
"Only one?" The police officer seemed so professional, so cold.
"Two were dead on impact. The girl was still alive, but we couldn't break through the wreckage before her air supply ran out. We cut the other one out."
Somehow, with a strength that he couldn't understand, Jeff stumbled to his feet towards the diver. As he came closer, he could see the man's arm band which identified him as belonging to WASP, the sea patrol unit that was protecting the Florida coast during the time of the competition. No one in the crowd spoke as the two men passed.
The man did not slow as he approached Jeff, but instead continued on at a steady pace until he reached the emergency vehicle that was now parked beside the marina. No one pointed; no one even dared to breathe loudly. The air was now thick with exhaust and smoke from the crash site, and Jeff felt as though he might suffocate with every breath that he took.
The diver carefully set the body on the stretcher, nodded briefly in Jeff's direction, then turned back towards the water.
"Are you going with him?"
Jeff nodded at the medic who addressed him - and accepted the man's help to climb into the back of the vehicle. What else could he do? He felt helpless, completely and utterly helpless. He knew so little about medicine as to be no help at all, while his son lay bleeding in front of him, his life hanging precariously in the hands of the emergency personnel around him.
As one doctor set an intravenous tube, another secured the back hatch of the ambulance. Soon the craft pulled away from the marina, though through the darkened windows of the vehicle Jeff could not make out where they were headed. If there was at least a hospital nearby, then perhaps Gordon might have . . .
A fighting chance. Shaking his head, Jeff took his son's battered hand in his. The skin was cold to the touch - and covered in a thin layer of what appeared to be oil. The boy's eyes were closed, and for all he could tell Gordon may as well have been fast asleep, not unconscious and near death. He had seen it all before; Lucy had looked the same when he had lain with her, buried in the wreckage of the monorail, waiting for someone to come and find them. But Lucy had never really woken up. She had gained conciseness briefly right before she had died and that had been it. There had never been – as painful as it was for Jeff to admit – any hope for her survival.
Gordon looked no better than she had; the burns and lacerations and breaks in bones were too many for Jeff to count, and the more that he looked over his son, the more that he wanted to break down and cry again. Had the body not been that of his son, had he been an onlooker, he would have told the worried parent hanging over the boy that he needed to be strong, because there would be no morning, no wake-up, for the child.
How could he do that, though? As illogical as it seemed to him, he could not give into the truth that his son would likely never look him in the eyes again.
But . . .
Maybe Gordon did have a fighting chance. Of any of the boys he had the most spirit, the most energy, the most life in him. For all of the times that Jeff had yelled at his son for fighting, all of the times that he had disciplined him for never knowing when to quit – now Jeff would have given anything to tell the ginger-haired boy to keep doing just that. What he would have given to look Gordon in the eyes and say, keep going, son! I know you can make it.
For how many times since he had been born had the boy pulled himself through tough times? He hadn't survived because of his brothers' help, had not become the person that he was due to a dependence on another. No, he was his own person, and there was no end to the stamina that he could display when he had something to fight for.
At that moment, barrelling down the freeway in an ambulance with sirens blaring, Jeff Tracy hoped with all of his soul that his son truly wanted to stay with his family.
"Stay with me, Gordon," Jeff whispered, squeezing tight the ever-cooling hand in his grip. "Stay with me."
Scott was halfway into the rental car when a strong hand grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. Startled, Scott found himself looking into the concerned face of the police officer that his father had spoken to mere moments ago.
"Are you sure you can drive?" the man asked carefully, pointing at Scott's hands.
Looking down, Scott discovered that the question was a legitimate one, for his hands were shaking so badly that he could barely hold them still even if he tried. If his nerves were that upset, then driving would be absolutely out of the question at the moment.
"But I have to get to the hospital!" Even if he couldn't get there himself, there had to be a way.
Thankfully, there was. "I'll give you a ride," the officer offered, in the voice that Scott himself had tried to put on over and over again as the night progressed. It was the calm voice of an official trying to deal with a bunch of shock stricken victims. "If you want."
Nodding, Scott didn't even argue as the man wrapped Scott's arm about his shoulder and helped him over to the nearest police cruiser. The more that he considered it, the more the younger man realised that he was hardly fit to walk, let alone drive a vehicle. There were limits to every person's stamina, and he had crossed the line of his own a long time ago.
As the car pulled away from the marina, Scott remembered suddenly that no one else in the family knew what had happened. Trusting the officer to find the hospital, Scott pulled out his phone and began to dial what was a very long and complicated phone number. He would have to tell the rest of the family as soon as possible, and John would have to know first so he could continue to monitor the organisation while everyone else tried to get to the hospital.
"John, are you sitting down?"
Shaking his head at the strangeness of the question, John took a long breath and replied somewhat tentatively, "Sure." He glanced briefly around at the Thunderbird Five command centre, his eyes eventually falling to the chair that he sat in. "Normally I am when I'm talking to you." When Scott didn't respond immediately, John leaned closer to the console as if in an attempt to be closer to his brother. "Scott?"
At first there was only the subtle sound of road noise, audible only at a closer range to the speaker. The longer he went without an answer, the more that John began to feel that something was deeply wrong. He couldn't place it specifically, yet he had had the feeling since Scott had first contacted him.
His brother's voice was too professional sounding, for one thing. It was almost as if he were on a mission, trying to keep his calm, trying to play the part of the commander and leader of the rescue team . . .
"Scott?" The feeling intensified. "Scott?"
"There's been an accident," Scott finally broke out, his voice hoarse and emotional.
"Where?" Immediately brining up the alert displays, John scanned over the readouts and saw no sign of a rescue call from anywhere in the southern United States. "Not where you are . . . there's nothing on the screen." Then why was Scott so upset? It was far from normal for his brother to show any emotion, let alone the tangible amounts of grief that were seeping into his tone after only a few words.
"At the marina."
"Scott, there is no . . ." The astronomer's eyes widened in horror as he came across an action news broadcast from the Tampa Beach network. "What the hell? Why didn't this flag an alert?"
"There was no time," Scott replied vaguely. "It happened too quick; they did what they could."
As picture after picture of news footage flashed by on the screen, the unidentifiable emotion in John's stomach transformed abruptly into sheer dread. There was no need to ask his brother who had been hurt. There was no need to clarify where the one survivor was going. But there was one burning question at the back of his mind that needed, more than anything else, that begged to be answered.
"Why?" The words fell thickly into the air, barely leaving John's mouth before he shut it and shook his head. "What the hell was he doing?"
"I don't know." Scott's voice was pained, and John knew how much his brother hated to be helpless and uninformed at work, let alone during a personal emergency. "Damn it, John, I don't know. I just know that Dad's with him, and they're both on the way to some bloody hospital around here."
Trying to maintain a sense of calm, and failing, John replied, "All right Scott, try and calm down. Listen, as soon as you get there give me another call and tell me where it is. If you want I can call Virgil and tell him."
"John, I-"
"Don't try to be mister tough guy, Scott. You're practically falling apart at the seams." The next words hurt John a great deal to say but to a certain extent they were true. "Listen, I'm used to dealing with people when stuff like this happens. I can keep calm, make sure everyone knows what's going on." That made it sound so cold, John thought, so completely cold and impersonal when in fact it was the most personal situation that he might ever deal with in his life. "You just get there. I'll make sure that everyone else arrives."
Scott sighed - and finally agreed somewhat reluctantly. "All right."
"Please." There was one other reason that John Tracy needed to call his brothers. Of any of his family, he was the only one that couldn't possibly help out on the ground, and the last thing that he wanted was to sit helpless while his younger brother was being sewn up. If he couldn't be there, if he couldn't offer his support to his father's face directly, then he would do the one thing that he did best. "Scott, I can't do anything else. Just tell me that you'll go there and try and keep Dad in one piece."
"All right," the other man repeated, his voice slowly calming down but displaying no less emotion. Instead of panic, however, it radiated grim purpose and determination, the same feelings that Scott always managed to flood a rescue area with. "I'll call you as soon as I find anything else out."
"Right." Not even pausing to say good-bye, John closed the channel and immediately opened the link to Tracy Island. He didn't have the luxury of having time for pleasantries. He didn't even have the luxury of being able to become upset about the incident. What mattered more than anything was that he relay the message to Virgil in enough time that the other boy could swing around and pick up Alan from school. It hurt that there wasn't even time for the horror of the situation to truly sink in. What kept John going was the knowledge that he could perhaps be a point of light in the storm if he managed to keep his cool.
As he waited for the alert call to be returned, however, he couldn't stop his mind from troubling over his brother's predicament. They were on the way to the hospital in an ambulance. That alone suggested Gordon was in danger – but Gordon had been in danger before, and had come through all right. He had to be all right this time. He had to be, because up there in space, there was absolutely nothing that John could do to help him. He couldn't sit by his side. He couldn't hold his hand.
He couldn't even see his brother for himself, but instead had to rely on the reports of others. It was as it always was, only this time John didn't want to be isolated from what he was dealing with. This was his brother that was in trouble, and it was very, very real to him - no matter how far away from the Earth he was at the moment.
"Why the hell did you do it?" John whispered, looking briefly out the window towards the planet below. "Damn it, Gordon, you're smarter than that. Cheating death . . ."
Cheating death wasn't always possible.
While the feelings of sadness and frustration mounted inside of him, John searched for something – anything – that he could hold onto that could give him hope. Of all of the memories that he had of Gordon – times when he had been disciplined, times when he had pulled a prank, times when he had taken one step too many and annoyed his family – he settled on a memory that was very fresh in his mind. In it, his brother was frozen in time, his face red with triumph and sweat, as he raised a gold medal above his head towards the clouds.
That determination, that raw strength and endurance that Gordon possessed that allowed him to do great things and caused him to be prone to great anger, might well be the thing that would save him in the end. John hoped, if he knew his brother as well as he thought he did, that Gordon, out of shear stubbornness, would manage to pull through.
Then there was no time to think, for the alert to Tracy Island had been received and Virgil was on the line demanding to know what was wrong.
"Hurry up, Fermat," Alan snapped impatiently, waiting as his friend signed the form that would allow them – with teacher permission – to leave the school. "Virgil's gonna be here and we're all gonna be waiting for you."
"I s-s-s-still can't remember how to spell Hackenbacker." The bespectacled boy bit his tongue in concentration, then continued with the signature. "Your last name is easy. Mine u-u-u-used to be."
It had been the decision of Fermat's father, James, to legally change their last name from Wilson to the odd and uncommon surname of Hackenbacker in order to make it harder for people to link the family to Tracy Industries. The older man was always at a seminar or presentation somewhere, and it was very plausible that someone would eventually place him as working for the company. If that information ever was linked to the man who created the ships for International Rescue, then the entire secrecy of the operation was in jeopardy.
Finished, Fermat slammed the pen down on the secretary's desk and gave her a broad smile. "There, finished."
The woman looked over the paper for a long moment, tsked and shook her head, then regarded Fermat carefully. "Didn't you learn to spell your name in kindergarten?"
Turning a violent shade of pink, Fermat shook his head and humbly admitted, "Y-y-y-yeah. I did. But I still can't spell it."
Seemingly satisfied, the woman snatched up Alan's paper as well and filed them away in a drawer underneath her desk. "Very well. If you will have your father notify the school as soon as he can, then we can complete the paperwork and verify your leave."
"Right," Alan muttered, already leaving the office at a near run. "Well the principle can kiss my ass for all I care."
Following closely behind, Fermat shook his head at his friend's antics. "What did happen? You never told me."
"My stupid brother's in the hospital." Alan's tone suggested a deep and growing anger. "Probably broke his leg or something. And I was actually ready for that test, too!"
The last comment was rather appropriate, Fermat thought sadly, considering that Alan had spent the entire previous night with his head buried in a math book. He had even been reasonably excited about the test the next morning, thinking that he would finally be prepared enough to do better on it than normal.
"M-m-m-maybe it's not his fault," the younger boy finally suggested carefully. "After all, I don't think he would have intentionally tried to make you miss it."
"Gordon?" The other boy snorted harshly. "You'd be surprised what he'd do."
Fermat nodded, but still felt that Alan wasn't cutting his brother nearly enough slack. After all, if Virgil was coming to pick them up then it must be something serious. He didn't want to worry his friend, but the logic was there and the conclusion was inevitable. "Alan, I think something is actually wrong."
"No way." The tone of Alan's voice revealed a great deal. The way that he dismissed Fermat's claims suggested that he didn't want to think about it, and the more Fermat thought about it, the more he decided that Alan had also come to the same conclusion and just didn't want to think about it. "No way, Fermat. He was just out swimming. I mean, what could he have done to himself in a pool?"
Finally at the front doors of the school, the pair sat down on the front steps of the academy and prepared for what appeared to be a very long wait. "Did Virgil say anything else?"
"I dunno." Alan shook his head. "I didn't talk to him. The secretary took the call. She just told me that someone was sick, and that Virgil would be coming to get us."
"It could take him a while."
"I know." Looking about the street, Alan finally sighed and let his head fall between his legs. "Great. This is just how I like to spend my day. I can't believe I actually would rather be inside writing a stupid math test!"
"A-a-a-at least it's warm out."
That comment was true, and Alan couldn't argue it. The warm winds of summer had finally stepped in to take over from the colder and wetter winds of spring, leaving the California countryside to be dry and vibrant until the time came for the next bout of cold. Fermat didn't know specifically, but he was pretty sure that it never snowed at the new school that he and Alan had moved to the previous month. What the residents of the area considered cool was mild compared to what Fermat and Alan had experienced in North Dakota and Oregon.
"At least this place feels a little more like home," Alan commented absently, his eyes trained upward on the sky and clouds. "Hope the Headmaster isn't too mad about last week. I kind of like this place."
I think he is, Fermat thought silently to himself. I wouldn't be surprised if he calls home at the end of the week to have us transferred again.
The quiet atmosphere was interrupted as a car abruptly turned a nearby corner and hurtled towards the school. The vehicle skidded to a halt on the asphalt, leaving skid marks on the road and the faintest hint of burned rubber in the air. It was a newer craft, some sort of non-brand car that Fermat had never seen before; everything about it spoke of aerodynamics and power, and it seemed to Fermat that it carried the telltale design quirks of his father.
Fermat and Alan were already on their way to the vehicle by the time that the door opened and Virgil poked his head out. The older boy looked tired and weary – which was understandable, given how far he had just flown with the family jet – and his eyes lacked the normal brightness that they contained whenever Fermat saw him.
"Get in," Virgil gasped, out of breath, jumping right back into the vehicle before Alan or Fermat could respond.
Once inside, the two boys strapped themselves in and gave Virgil the okay to drive. He wasted no time in accelerating the car, quickly bringing it up to highway speed in the direction of the city limits.
"Virgil, you're going the wrong way!"
"No time to explain," Virgil responded quickly to his brother's demands. "Just hold on and get ready to take a deep breath when I tell you to." Scenery flashed by on either side of the vehicle at an ever-increasing rate. Fermat worried briefly that a police cruiser would spot them, but the deserted quality of the street that Virgil had chosen suggested that the older boy had already planned the incident out carefully.
Several minutes passed by in silence, until the car finally turned onto a deserted road in a run down area of town. Glancing out both windows, Virgil shook his head, smiled grimly, and depressed several buttons on the head dash that the other two boys had not noticed upon initially entering the vehicle.
Fermat was startled to see the entire dash fold in upon itself, rearranging so that the wheel quickly became the controls for a plane and the radio transformed itself into an elaborate and complicated looking communications port.
"What the hell is this?" Alan spit out, looking about the car in panic as if he were concerned that the seat he was sitting on would change as well. "Virgil?"
Turning to look at his brother, Virgil replied, "Something Brains has been working on for a while." He reached into the glove compartment and withdrew from it a thin but sturdy looking radio headset, set it around his ears, and flicked another switch on the dash. "John, can you hear me?"
The speakers in the car crackled. After only a few moments, the crisp voice of John Tracy replied, "I can now. How was the landing?"
"All right. It's a little jerkier than the take-off, but we can work on that later."
"Take-off?" Alan and Fermat looked at each other in alarm.
"Take-off," Virgil confirmed, his attention mostly on the read-out screens that had popped out of the upper dash. "John, how's the radar on your end?"
"You're clear, Virg. Put it up now and nobody will see you."
The two younger boys glanced at each other again and tightened their hold on their seat belts. "Virgil?"
"Hold on!" Though his face was once again turned towards the front, the seriousness in his voice was enough to convince Fermat that they would be in for a bumpy ride. "I'm taking her up!"
Fermat had just enough time to turn around, and see a large rocket booster unfold from the suspiciously large trunk of the vehicle - before the engines fired and he was slammed back in his seat. The car – rocket-car, he corrected himself – left the ground after only a few meters, spiralling straight upward towards the cloud line where it could fly hidden from sensors.
As the car gained altitude the strain of the acceleration slowly lessened, until Virgil brought the craft into a gentle arc that set it between two alternating layers of clouds in the stratosphere. The ground sprawled thousands of feet below, mixed belts of green trees and golden sand in the distance that gradually gave way to the dull grey colours of inner California's cities.
"Crap! There's the school!" Alan pointed out the window at a small building that quickly disappeared behind a puffy cumulous cloud. He turned towards Fermat, his face a mixture of incredulity and excitement. "This is so cool!"
Up front, Virgil made a few minor adjustments to what appeared to be a sensor screen, input some data into a small keyboard set just beside controls, then leaned back in his chair with a sigh of relief. "We're good to go."
"Is the radar baffle still holding?" John asked.
"Seems to be. Looks like the new coating that Brains worked out is bouncing the scans pretty much flawlessly. We're completely invisible to the Defence Network."
"Good, that means less work for me. All right, Virgil, if the autopilot is working then you can probably settle in. I'll monitor the craft and alert you if it starts to deviate."
"Right." Virgil paused for a moment, his face clouding over. "Any news from Dad or Scott?"
"They're at the hospital right now. Apparently they took Gordon into surgery about half an hour ago. No sign of how long he'll be in there."
"Thanks." Sighing, Virgil rubbed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. "I'll call you when we're approaching Tampa Beach."
"Try and relax, Virgil, if that's possible. I'll be watching. John out."
The communication fading out, Virgil let his head fall back onto the headrest. Lines of tension and worry were plainly visible across his face, and the feeling that had come over the two other boys after hearing John's words deepened as they watched the older one try to maintain his self control.
"What happened?" The words felt thick on Alan's tongue, as if he had to force them out of his mouth with the force of his entire body. "Virgil?"
"Gordon's in the hospital." His brother's voice remained controlled, but there was a dull and lifeless quality to it that worried Alan. Virgil was always so optimistic about things, even when he was angry. For that spark to disappear . . .
"We know that!" Alan found himself snapping back, both frustrated at not knowing what was going on and angry with his redheaded brother for a reason that he could not quite place. "We have ears, Virgil! We could hear John. What the hell happened?"
Alan immediately regretted speaking the words, for Virgil turned his head to the side away from his brother and refused to say anymore. That alone spoke volumes for Alan. "Virgil. Virgil, what happened to Gordon?"
When Virgil again refused to answer, Alan turned to Fermat and threw his hands up in the air in desperation. Gordon was his brother too, and once again he was being kept out of the circle! Of course, a part of him argued, that was because Virgil quite plainly didn't have the stamina to tell him the truth, but why did Alan have to be left out because everyone else in his family already knew?
"Virgil! Is he gonna be all right?"
"I don't know!" The other boy finally shouted, his voice reflecting the anger in Alan's own voice tenfold. "I don't know, all right? I don't know anything except what John told me." He banged his fist against the dash in frustration. "He was driving a hydrofoil or something and it crashed. Security Patrol pulled him from the wreck and he's at the hospital now. End of story!"
Stung by his brother's uncharacteristic frustration, Alan closed his mouth and let the words slowly sink in. Gordon was at the hospital. Virgil was very upset, which was understandable given how much time he spent with Gordon when they were together. John was co-ordinating everything from the space station, something that he never did except in the most serious of –
Emergencies.
Shaking his head, Alan was finally able to place the reason for his anger. As much as he didn't like Gordon, as much as he joked about pushing his brother off a cliff by accident, he was still his brother. The horrid truth of the matter was that Gordon was in trouble somewhere in Florida, and Alan was more than a thousand miles away and unable to do anything but wait.
At that moment, it didn't matter to Alan how many times Gordon had pushed him into the pool or dumped water on his head with a bucket. It didn't matter how many times the redhead was on his case about getting kicked out of school. It didn't matter how unfair it was that Gordon could do what he wanted while Alan was stuck at school alone.
"How long until we get there?" The words echoed hollowly from Alan's mouth. "Virgil?"
The sound of his brother trying to hold back a quiet sob dug deep into Alan's mind. "A few hours at least," he finally answered quietly, keeping his head turned away from his brother all the while. "Hopefully soon enough."
"Is it that bad?"
Alan needed only hear one word to fully understand how dire the situation really was.
"Yes."
TBC in Reaction II