Thanks forall thekind words about that last bit. In a weird way, it did kind of belong. Anyhow, back to the main story. Oops! Yet another-nother edit, predicated on the notion that clarity is always a good thing.

24: Blue Screen

Tracy Island, the underground lab complex, a shadow-haunted passage-

Braman wasn't quite an AI. Not yet, anyway. Brains knew that some of the system's cleverer algorithms came close to the thinking power of a human, but only with massive energy boosts and outside prompting. John Tracy had suggested a few refinements… but for some reason Hackenbacker had found himself rejecting each and every one. On his own?

Perhaps not. In light of what Fermat had told him (with cleaning mechs, wall panels and cameras tracking him down the hallway, and the notion of alien parasites drifting uncomfortably through his thoughts) Brains had to wonder. Suppose Fermat was correct, the Engineer mused, beginning to sweat a little. Suppose that even now, as he pressed forward through a darkened passage full of metallic skitterings and moiré patterned comm static, he was acting in accordance with this parasite's will. Did the ant, forced to climb to the top of a grass blade and cling there, waiting to be eaten… did the ant believe itself to be acting normally? Or did it fight its possessor?

Something was just about directly over him, now. If it chose to drop, it would strike him to the floor, and finish him. Brains knew better than anyone else how strong were the island's security mechs, and how well armed. A mere human wouldn't stand a chance. Without consciously deciding to, Hackenbacker acted.

The tracking ability of a computer could be compromised, if you knew what to do. He flung himself suddenly backward and dropped to a half crouch, at once altering speed, position, direction and posture.

Ripping off his lab coat, the perspiring engineer billowed it out and swung it around like a newly cleaned bed sheet, or a net. His overhead stalker did drop, and Brains caught it, trapping the spidery mech in circuit-laden smart cloth. He then swung the struggling robot like a track-and-field hammer, hurling it back down the passage, away from the door.

Now he dropped, ears ringing, heart racing, trying not to breathe. His lab coat sailed off in a wobbling arc, sleeves and coat tails flapping. Praying that Braman had been tracking color blocks and motion, he remained perfectly still.

As he'd hoped, the other mechs and cameras became confused. For just a few moments, their attention turned elsewhere. Quickly, Hackenbacker fumbled forth one thing he hadn't thrown along with the coat; his PDA.

Laboring like a demon about to make quota, Brains flipped the little computer open, rebooted under the other, 'public' operating system, and broadcast a powerful scrambling signal.

All over the laboratory and hangar complex, screens wavered and blanked. Maintenance bots froze at their tasks. Guidance computers went down, including those of all six Birds. Behind him, motionless cleaning mechs clung to the ceiling and walls like empty cicada shells to the trunk of an old pine.

Thirty seconds, if that. He'd designed Braman to debug and reboot itself in the event of attack or power failure. Caught in the act, his infected 'offspring' wouldn't stay down for long.

Hackenbacker surged wildly to his feet, lanky and shock-haired as Ichabod Crane. His glasses flew off and crunched underfoot, but there wasn't time to worry about trifles. Brains, alias Mr. Hackenbacker, was no ant.

He crossed the remaining few feet in two jerky bounds, reaching out to try the door handle. Locked, but not irreparably, for the lab door possessed a hatch-side manual override system; a small red button behind smoked glass.

Why, Brains wondered, had he never considered the need to gain access in a hurry? Tap glass… press thumb… then button… Within the portal's mechanism, something slid upward, then clicked.

Working in a sort of taut, squinting frenzy, he pried the lab door open and lurched on through. It sealed again with a faint grinding sound, dragged shut by his own sinew and underused muscles.

The giant, 3-D print machines had fallen silent. Before him, the cavernous lab wasilluminated by pale emergency lights, high overhead. Grease and metal dust and the residual throb of heavy machinery hung dense as smoke in the air. And there, at the far end, twisting bright and cold as a tornado of whirling light, was his time machine. Only a portion of the device existed within his lab, though.

Below floor level, it vanished into the past. To the year 2048, to be exact; January 23rd. Above the ceiling it opened into trackless forever, splitting and braiding along with the myriad probabilities. Pulsing, sinister and arc-weld brilliant, the thing was as powerful as it was erratic… source of trouble and hope, together. Brains started cautiously forward.

The computers at various work stations blinked on again, going from dark to blue-screen. Robots and overhead cranes began to stir, their servos and motors whining to life. Cameras turned on their mounts, seeking him slow and unerringly as vipers after body heat. If only his lab weren't so damnably huge!

Brains broke into a wheezing jog, eyes fixed upon the tall, bathroom-drain vortex before him. PDA in hand, he pressed keys, dodged consoles and muttered imprecations. Then, something happened.

Before he could initiate the command code, his time machine activated, emitting a brief, staticky hiss… and a transmission. Startled, the engineer stopped short, throwing off the swooping grab of an overhead crane arm. It missed, gouging great,booming chunks from a print machine, instead. Brains blinked, ready to swear he'd seen a flickering stream of data dart from time machine to main computer console. His head jerked around to follow a second transmission, while another crane arm and a pack of darting maintenance bots took aim.

Lines of swift code appeared on the newly booted computer. Omega/ null… but backward… and with many hundreds of seemingly random insertions. Ugly, and effective, and far more than Braman could process. The insertions (complex, meaningless tasks that devoured memory and could never be completed) abruptly reduced Braman to so much fubar'd junk.

The lab fell once again dark and silent. Only a lucent time machine flickered and spat amid the shadows. That, and one other thing.

Printed backward, in characters of varying fonts and sizes, the main computer console displayed a short, blinking message:

/nruTeR/

Brains nodded. Breathing heavily, he opened his PDA and began coding, adding every insertion he could recall and inventing a few on the fly. Somewhere, Hackenbacker had the terribly strong feeling, someone desperately needed the favor returned, and a monster of their own shut down.

He coded most of the junk insertions at the start of his transmission, thinking of all the buffer-overflow attacks John had described. A few, though… nasty, unsolvable, memory-chewing calculations… he hid within, like alphanumeric pipe bombs. Then, reactivating his time machine from the PDA's little keyboard, Brains hit the send button.

"Good luck," he said aloud, after clearing his dry throat, "and thank you."

There was a third transmission; a set of memories. Unseen, a series of time-stretching ripples shot forth. At the speed of light they propagated; tiny here, but far greater once they reached orbit, the Moon Station, and Mars. In effect, the island base and Endurance were no longer in synch, and hadn't been (now) for quite some time.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Thunderbird 3, the forward hold, a little earlier-

"Gordon, man, we got to go back! You know I'm right!"

Alan's face was doughy-pale, but his gaze terribly serious as he faced his red-haired older brother. Gordon's arms were folded, his expression as closed as his stance.

"We can't, Alan. There's no way t' get there, even if I were minded t' try, or Matt wanted our interference, which he rather clearly does not."

"Who's Matt?" Said Virgil, startling the hell out of both of them. Neither brother had marked his silent approach.

"I've heard you guys mention him twice now. He the one that sent for help?"

Alan glanced over at Gordon, TinTin and Fermat before nodding with evident, jerky reluctance.

"Yeah, he did, Virgil. But he's not, like… he's not just "Matt Q. Victim", or something, okay? He's…"

"He is John," TinTin cut in suddenly, not quite looking at Virgil, "as he might have been, had Mr. Tracy, rather than votre mere, perished accidentally."

There might have been other factors, as well, but Captain Tracy's loss and Virgil's near presence troubled the girl's thinking too greatly to seek them.

"So…" Virgil (bear-like in strength, unswerving in loyalty) was not a slow thinker. Just a deliberate one.

"…it was one of us, from another universe, who called you for help?"

Nods, all around, but no smiles. No light comments, or exhausted satisfaction. All at once, he understood. Virgil had lost a few, too, in his time. Probably would, again.

"He didn't make it?"

Unexpectedly, tears began slipping from Alan's blue eyes, although his posture remained rigid, and his face didn't change.

What had happened was like having a locked grip on a friend's hand, trying to pull them to safety, then feeling your fingers tire, your grip loosen; feeling them inch by inch slip through, and fall. It wasn't fair. He'd promised.

"Well," Virgil told them quietly, placing a hand on Alan's stiff shoulder, "The picture isn't finished till you set down your brush, and none of us have ever been real good at quitting. Kinda stupid that way, sometimes."

And there in the rumbling hold, just before the lights went out and the comm screens fell dark, three brothers and two good friends reached an unspoken accord.