Small edit.
59: Sentry
Endurance, on free return trajectory, Mars to Moon corridor-
It was a bad bargain, maybe, but better than nothing, and at least they'd been given a chance. The sonically impressed drugs turned off a critical enzyme in the bodies of John Tracy and Pete McCord, causing new stem cells to form.
Damaged tissues regenerated and strength returned, tugging health along in its wake. John figured he'd turned a corner the day he was able to eat something (just a graham cracker, but still pretty impressive) and not have to reach for a sickness bag. Even better, the morning he and Pete were allowed to exit the cargo bay, hauling themselves forth to back-slaps and long embraces. Except for the fact that he'd now have to discover cold fusion or raise a new island chain to catch up with Hackenbacker, John felt pretty good.
He had to be medically cleared for duty, though, by the ship's doctor. And, if he thought he had a guaranteed 'in' because Linda Bennett was his wife, John Tracy was very much mistaken.
"Well, Pete's got a clean bill of health," she'd announced, ushering John into the battered med-lab, "but there's a dark spot on his lung scan I'll be keeping an eye on."
Cancer was very much on everyone's mind, as was the condition of Endurance's hull.
John drifted into the small circle of scanning mechanisms, and fastened his feet to a set of Velcro traction pads, very much aware that there was a female in the cabin. Tough to miss, because she'd put on a little makeup, or something.
There was a warmer shade to her skin tone, now, and a very slight roundness to her belly. She touched him a lot; more than strictly necessary for a physical exam, and more gently. Not that he minded. The contact felt good, even if it was mostly in the service of duty.
As for Linda, she was having some trouble keeping her head in place.
Temperature and blood pressure… eyes, throat, ears… listen to heart function and breathing… palpate lymph glands and abdomen… hand squeeze right and left… and then the interview:
"Okay, Sunshine. How are you feeling?"
"Eighty percent," he decided, after a moment's thought, "and climbing. You?"
She set her data-board aside in mid-air, where it continued obediently to hover. One nice thing about microgravity, you could put things 'up' or 'next' as well as down. Of course, they did have a tendency to drift off. Much like Linda's professional concentration.
She reached out to push at his pale blond hair, then fastened herself to the Velcro deck pad and rubbed his shoulders.
"Better, now," his wife admitted, a little huskily.
He looked up, then away again, smiling at one of the scanners. A sudden warm rush of memory occurred, and he put an arm around the doctor's waist, to pull her closer.
"Hey, remember that night at the beach house, just before launch, when you said you wanted to show me the…"
John trailed off, confused, for Linda was shaking her head.
"No, John. I don't. Prior to launch, I stayed in my room, trying to call Spencer. You, Pete and Roger were up late, playing poker. Is there something…?"
She'd pushed away from him again, hands tight upon his shoulders, mind once more in frigid doctor-mode.
"Have you been having hallucinations, John? Hearing voices? Have you experienced suicidal thoughts?"
Voices? He thought about Five, the AI he'd discovered on Mars, who'd claimed to be his creation… Then thought of the crash-dive he kept glimpsing… the laughing blonde toddler he was certain he already knew… and the wife who barely seemed to know him
Moment shattered, nascent feelings sifted away like sand.
"Um… no." John shook his head, not looking at her. "I'm good."
She wouldn't drop it, though.
"Sunshine, look at me. I'm not just the stand-in flight surgeon, here; I'm also your wife, and there are some things I need to know before I can clear you for duty."
John glanced at her, wishing he understood what was going on… hell, anywhere. With Penelope, his brothers, Drew… and especially, with Linda.
"Doctor, I've had a rough few weeks. It's possible that my recollection of past events got a little scrambled in all the chaos. I had some rocks bounce off my helmet, recently, and a hard core cosmic-ray tanning session, none of which leads to A-1 cognition. With all that in mind… what is it you want to know?"
His tone, icy and impatient, took Linda utterly aback. He waited there on the mid-scanner traction pad, arms folded and head down; seemingly as inaccessible as though standing behind glass.
Part of her wanted to be more woman than physician; to whisper…
"Never mind, I'm sorry,"
…and kiss the handsome, aloof young pilot. But she forced herself to remain professional, for the mission's sake, and their unborn child's.
"All right, then: International Rescue. How deeply involved are you? There are some pretty big gaps in your flight record, John, that everyone back in Houston seems happy to overlook. I asked about it, once, a few months before launch, and was politely told to shut up and mind my own business." Her hand went down to the soft, curving swell of her belly as she added, "What am I getting us into, here?"
Fair enough.
"I'm… um… what's sometimes known as a prime operative; a core team-member. Some of the brass are aware of this, others may have guessed. Good deal all around and no questions asked, though, because along with the IT and piloting skills, Houston gets new technology and an added level of mission support. Like what happened during the launch."
"Okay," she'd begun to relax, a little. "So… how dangerous is this 'prime operative' status? What exactly does your job expose you to in the way of risk?"
John Tracy was by nature suspicious and bleak; admissions came hard for him, but he didn't want to lose his family. Not again.
"I guess you could say I'm a… sentry. First line of defense, or something. I process incoming emergency calls, keep the other operatives under cover and remote trouble-shoot the missions. Spent most of my time in orbit, until about two years ago, when my station was…"
And then they struck again, those hallucinatory memories; of a fiery world, a caged probe and the cindered remains of his home. He looked at her, this female who wasn't quite the wife he remembered… the one he hadn't been there to defend. And something inside knotted itself like barbed-wire.
"Know what? The hell with it. Enough with the third degree, Linda. Am I cleared for flight, or not?"
Bennett put a hand out, meaning to soothe him. Obviously, something was deeply wrong, and not just because of a few rocks.
"John, wait. I wasn't trying to get you yanked from the roster. Believe it or not, I love you."
She didn't bring up the journal, but did say, while rubbing the back of his neck,
"I slept in your bunk while you were sick. I did a lot of thinking, and it all comes down to this: you're an unusual guy, with not just one, but two hazardous jobs… and you're the man I've fallen in love with. I figure we can work through all the rest, given time… if that's what you still want."
Eventually, he nodded, but Linda couldn't dodge the feeling that something was still troubling her husband. Good luck getting him to admit it, though. Astronauts tended to cover up any and all mental or medical issues, wanting first of all to fly, then to be trusted with command or a spacewalk. But John Tracy was pitched at a still higher level of 'better dead than look bad'. In her experience, he told nobody anything personal. Ever.
Hoping for the best, Linda gave him a quick hug, and then pulled free of her traction pad to start the med-scanner.
"So," Linda began, once the machinery was humming along. "Any thoughts on a name, yet?"
"Name…? For the baby?"
John hesitated, for something had turned up immediately. The little girl he'd assembled a tricycle for… the one who routinely got more peanut butter on her than in her, and had attended every launch… had been named 'Kara Jane-Ellen'. But they'd usually called her 'Junior'. More crazed hallucination?
"I'm not good with names," he finally replied, adding, "I had a cat, once…"
Linda's head peeped around the edge of her control panel.
"A cat? Aren't you allergic?"
He nodded, still dazed and distant.
"Strictly a business relationship. I kept him fed, and he kept me sick. Missed a lot of school, that semester. Not a pet, or anything, but he still needed a name. I thought about 'Schrodinger', except it seemed unlucky. Went with 'Stupid Cat' for awhile, then ended up calling him 'Bendix'. Like the computer company."
A deep, bone-rattling hum cut him off; the scanner, taking a multitude of high-resolution images. Not at all painful, though the internal vibrations felt weird.
"So, what happened?" Linda prodded, after the med-scan concluded.
(Definite shadows on both lungs and sagitally: ribs 1-4… fibula as well, where previously fractured.)
"…To Bendix, I mean?"
"My grandmother found out, and gave him away to a neighbor. But I did visit, once or twice." Then, a question of his own:
"What about 'Spencer'? Is he going to be a problem?"
"Huh…? Spencer? No… no problems with him. I could probably be dead for six months before he realized that the dishes were piling up. We have different work schedules. Had."
It was a decidedly worried Linda who floated back onto the scanning platform. All she said (thrusting her data-board and stylus at him) was,
"Cleared for flight. Sign here, here… annnd here. Good. I'm putting you back on Tamoxifen; we'll schedule weekly follow-ups and, John…?"
"Yeah?" He handed back the document, still with that deathly-pale 'inward' look.
"If anything comes up… you feel, see, hear, think anything out of the ordinary… tell me. I'll keep it between the two of us, Sunshine, but if you don't tell me what's going on, I can't help you. Make sense?"
Her tone was anxious, almost pleading, and her brown eyes very wide. John nodded, and then pulled her close again, all the while feeling strangely detached. Those memories… If real, then he'd already failed her once; horribly. If imagined, then he was insane. Grim choice, either way.
That evening, (Mission Elapsed Time: six months, three weeks, twenty-one days, ten hours) John stood his first watch since leaving the cargo bay. He rather impatiently saw everyone else to their sleeping compartments, then prepared to research a few key facts.
Back on the quietly humming flight deck, John ran a vessel and system scan and double-checked Endurance's course. So far, so good, though some of the hull shots looked iffy…
He needed more information, and didn't feel like waking anyone up, so John did what came naturally; he found out on his own. It was no trouble at all to link his laptop with the ship's comm and operating system, nor to crack Dr. Kim's password (like that was hard: Roger). Once into the exobiologist's account, all he had to do was access her copious notes.
The medical stuff he skipped over, needing instead her findings on their deteriorating hull. Paged down 3, 4, 5… skimming… there.
The results were good and bad together. Yes, as she'd told Pete, Ferrospirilum had been contained, but the repair job was incomplete. With what amounted to a large, first-layer hull breach, there was no way that Endurance could re-enter Earth atmosphere… and no way at all to mount another repair attempt without sacrificing a crewman; something Dr. Kim had probably told the mission commander in private.
Damn. Even a lunar landing would be problematic, now.
John was just about to move to his next line of inquiry when a message got through from Thunderbird 1, arriving with a quiet beep and flashing icon. He had a window open to one side of the screen for incoming mail, not that he'd really expected any.
Yet, defying distance and time-distortion, there it was… addressed to himself, from Scott. Almost as startling as Penny's message, or Drew's.
John stroked a forefinger across the laptop's touch pad, then clicked on the blinking icon for a very short note.
'Hey, little brother. Got a minute?'
Okay. He was twenty-six years old, and hardly 'little' anymore. Had been taller than Scott since the 7th grade… and yet his brother insisted on giving him the equivalent of a pet name. Irritating, maybe, but it was still good to hear from family, outdated nickname, or not. Might bring the matter up at their next 'conference', though…
John enabled transmission, typing out (in English, rather than 1337):
'I find myself with a little free time, yeah. What seems to be the major malfunction?'
But, Scott did not reply. Damn time differential, again. Might be weeks before he got a response, at this rate.
Well, it wasn't like he didn't have work to do, starting with Drew's telnet messages. He hadn't meant to ignore her, or Penny, either, but the calls had arrived at a bad time, been set aside for other matters (survival, mostly) and only now picked up again.
Her first message had been shorter than Scott's:
36: 911: A
Meaning that she was in trouble, and needed his help. The next letter had been a repeat of the first, the third a more detailed description of her danger.
It seemed that someone had emailed 'Anarchick' and begun launching criminal exploits under that long-buried alias. At this point, it became hard to think; too much emotional static, which he didn't have time for.
John had to ruthlessly shove it all… Drew, Penny, Scott and Linda… entirely under the surface to get anything done at all. Back home, without his protection, people were in danger. He could finish his cage match with insanity, later.
Right. Rebooted the system to its encrypted attack mode, accessing telnet through InterplaNet and a compromised FBI mainframe. (Highly useful things, back doors.)
Someone fairly sophisticated had launched those counterfeit exploits against WorldGov… but cover their tracks as best they might, they'd used a computer with a traceable IP address. One he meant to track down and question, no matter how long it took.
(Three watches, actually, with the laptop surreptitiously linked the whole time. The hold-up wasn't on his end; it was in the Earth computers' responses, which oozed in like cooling magma, viscously slow.)
John set to work as opportunity presented itself, employing a packet sniffing program, traceroute and the FBI's Carnivore to find the source computer, one cautious ping at a time. Didn't want to tip anyone off. Not yet.
The end of the line turned out to be a lone, sexily-amped attack box, linked to just one trusted server. Up in his bunk after watch, John ran a port scan, looking for open sockets.
"Hel-lo," he murmured. "What's a pretty thing like you doing home alone on a Friday night?"
For, though left on, she wasn't getting any traffic. No more than maintenance and upgrade activity in weeks… and port 25 was wide open.
"You can trust me, Sweetie," John said, leaning forward just a little as he typed a few swift lines of code. "I'm a nice guy. There you go… accept the packet. Now, how about giving me access?"
Two more key strokes and he was a system administrator, with full root privileges. His next move (several hours later, while the others prepared breakfast and updated the mission log) was to check out the environment, courtesy of her remotely accessed webcam.
(Had to be careful, there; an operating system might handle the speed of his incoming messages, but mere machinery could not. Too many commands in rapid succession might fry the camera's moving parts, denying him a prime sneak opportunity.)
"Wake up, Baby. Open your eyes and look around, for me. Who's in the… Oh. Shit."
A corpse; white, male, and pretty far gone. Cashed out some time ago, from the look of things, with what appeared to be a bullet wound to the head… now sprawled amid pizza boxes on the floor of a small, concrete room. No wonder the attack computer had been idle. Immediately, John upgraded Drew's problem from script-kiddy prank, to major threat.
So, what did he have here?
Point one: Drew, after turning her backseven years ago, had suddenly called to ask for his help.
Point two: Someone had used her old hacker alias to write a few emails and torment WorldGov… intending to draw her out of hiding, maybe?
Point three: That person was now dead, shot to death at his grubby work station.
Point four: Drew, Anarchick, was no longer answering his messages, on any system at all, and Penny had mentioned experiencing 'difficulty', as well.
Was a pattern forming, there?
Deeming it wiser to keep International Rescue clear, John chose not to inform his father, or Scott. The events and people of his past were still a sore subject with Jeff Tracy, and probably always would be. If at all possible, John wanted to handle this himself, finding Drew and helping Penelope on his own. But, whatever he did, it was going to have to be quick.
Judging from the advanced condition of 'J. Random Hacker', over there, his unknown assailant was totally ruthless; an icy bastard who double-crossed his employees and had some sort of interest in John's past acquaintances. Well, he'd chosen to sniff around in the wrong back yard.
Unfortunately for the murderer (John visualized him as a powerful corporate-raider type) his activity had been discovered, and would soon be dealt with. Because John Tracy had lied to the victim computer; sometimes, he was very much not a nice guy.