"I hate this job."

The first time you (over)heard those words—spoken a few years ago by Scott, the last person you would have expected—you panicked. It was less than a year since operations began, and already IR's field commander was caving under the pressure.

It was inconceivable.

You remember the way adrenaline hit your body like the eye wall of a hurricane, more intense than the g-forces created by punching through the Earth's atmosphere, remember the way it sent you reeling back into your plush leather seat on Thunderbird Five's command deck. It was a shock to your system like you'd never experienced before, not even during the most intense NASA training or shot-to-hell rescue. Not even Virgil's heart-stopping dive in a one-second-fine-the-next-major-systems-failing Thunderbird Two as it plunged toward the unforgiving surface of the ocean could compare as you fumbled blindly to hit the correct icon that would open a channel to your father.

Virgil's reply to Scott's statement was lost to the crashing waves of your heartbeat as it pummeled against the confining layers of your skin, but something—you wish you could remember what, but you're amazed you can recall what details you do from those twenty terrifying seconds—something made you hesitate. That's when you (over)heard the raw, angry sobs, the black-and-white declarations that it wasn't fair, why did they get to live when so many innocent, barely begun lives were cut ruthlessly and tragically short? For the first time, you heard your older brother pour his grief and his pain into words; you heard your next-youngest brother offer words of comfort and understanding that you (over)heard at a later date didn't register then but were the poultice that began drawing out the toxin that had built up over too many rescues-turned-disasters in a row.

That was a terrible fortnight for both International Rescue as an organization and its individual members, but you suspect only Scott and Virgil—and in secret yourself—know how close everything was to falling apart completely.

Scott and Virgil found their way out from the suffocating darkness, but you can't shake the cloying fear you aren't strong enough to copy them. You know you are—and it's not like your brothers will ever let you slip beyond their grasp, not while they have breath to fight on your behalf—but it's head knowledge, not heart knowledge, and your head is overloaded with doubt and grief and fatigue, and the path to your heart is a perilous one right now.

Scott, with his uncanny ability to understand what you need when, rests his warm hand on your knee, squeezes, and then retreats. "I know," he murmurs. Turns his gaze from the sea to you, and as you meet his eyes, you realize that, yes, he does know. He's been here where you are before. He's had the same thoughts sluice down like a mudslide over his rational mind, dragging him without his consent into the treacherous depths of self-doubt and self-hate.

You shouldn't know that he knows, but you do, and while it does nothing to ease the suffocating guilt of your recent failures, you suddenly feel like you have a shoulder to lean on. Not a fix, not a cure-all, but support, reassurance, and that's what you need.

It gives you the courage to continue from your damning statement. "I feel..." You consider. What do you feel? "Like I left the island one man and returned another." And isn't that the understatement of the year. But you aren't referring to not–John Tracy and John Tracy. This is different. The essence of who you are is different. Somehow you're now less than you were.

"It gets better," Gordon says. You turn to him. He's staring at the ocean, muscles pulled tight and creating creases all over his face that remind you of smeared-together days spent hovering around a hospital bed, but the lines smooth into a smile when he looks at you. "Honest."

You believe him. Just like that. How can you not? Gordon's a survivor: he's lived through hell on earth, clawed his way to full health despite devastating injuries and equally devastating guilt that he was responsible for killing three people under his command, and has emerged stronger than ever. He knows. It's not that you don't trust Scott. It's not that Scott hasn't been through his share of trials. He has. But Gordon knows.

She's still dead. It's still your fault. But the belief, irrational though it is, that your brothers would blame you finally releases its chokehold from around the base of your throat.

Virgil hasn't said anything, and for some reason, that's what jolts you out of standby mode. He's sitting with one arm tucked around his ribs—the price he paid for your stupidity. Your throat tightens again, relief gone. He should be down in the infirmary, not having hiked the top of one of the island's highest peaks for your sake. His eyes are shut, expression as blank as the sheer cliff face.

Your stomach cramps with sudden anxiety. Something's wrong. Virgil's your most even-tempered brother, but he's far from unreadable stoicism, even when he's angry.

Time to fix this.

"Virg—"

The frantic way Scott's hand cuts across the edges of your vision makes you hesitate. You look at him.

Wait, he says.

Any other brother and you'd ignore the order in favor of following your instincts, but this is Scott and Virgil. You know better than to get between them when they're intuiting one another.

Gordon shifts so he's sitting cross-legged. You wonder if his back is bothering him. No, you wonder how much his back is bothering him—earthquake callouts are always physically taxing on everyone involved, and you saw firsthand how far he's willing to push himself if it means rescuing just one more person. He more than deserves to be in the pool attending to his body's needs, and you open your mouth to tell him that... then close it again. The sharp set of his jaw says nothing is going to budge him from this spot until he's good and ready to move on his own.

Virgil, though. Virgil plain hasn't moved. Not unusual—like you, he can sit still longer than the rest of your adrenaline-seeking brothers—but he's unnaturally still, rigid, as though if he waits long enough he'll become synonymous with the rock he's leaning against.

This isn't right. Virgil doesn't withdraw all the way inside himself when he's angry—that's your routine. Until someone sets off your fuse, of course; then anyone and everyone is fair game. Virgil's anger is more consistent, steady, like him, and he prefers to confront the person with whom he's taken issue.

So what is this, then?

Scott bumps your leg as he wriggles forward so he has a direct line of sight to Virgil. You place your hands on the worn-smooth stone, ready to trade places so Scott can be closer to your troubled brother, but his fingers wrapping around your elbow arrest all movement.

Wait, he says again.

So, with some misgivings, you settle back, shuffle to one side so the invasive knob of rock can't bruise your spine anymore, and wait.

You're not sure what you expect Scott to do—you've never been able to actually see these cliff-top sessions before, just listen—so you're not sure whether to be surprised or disappointed when Scott doesn't do anything. He's not even watching Virgil... except, you realize after seconds that stretch into minutes, he is. Not directly, not by moving his head, but in micro shifts of his eyes that send his attention bouncing back and forth between the storm billowing away from the island and the chill silence left in its wake.

You fight off the itching need to stare at Virgil until he blurts out the first of many sentences as he processes what's bothering him. It's a technique perfected over years of manipulating younger brothers, but only effective when it's the two of you, and only when he's not deep inside his own head. You have to wait for him to surface before engaging him in discussion.

And wait you do. The swell and crash of waves on beach, blunted by distance, rolls dull and steady over you with the consistency of a heartbeat, lulling, numbing.

Defrag ticks to a stop, and your head feels empty, silent without the bustle of movement as it awaits the reboot provided by sleep necessary to complete reintegration. Memories are accessible again, but they're almost too sensitive to touch, so even though you are curious as hell to remember, not now. Not here. Alone.

So you hover in the center of your head with nothing to do. You're ready to get this over with and return to the house; the post-rescue adrenaline backwash is catching up with you, leaving every muscle aching. All you want is to collapse into bed for the next twelve hours. But Virgil's still sitting here, chest barely rising and falling, muscles visibly wound tighter than his piano's strings, and you have no intention of abandoning him.

It takes some effort on your part, but you catch Scott's eye. What are you supposed to do? Is there another step you're supposed to take that you've forgotten about (but shouldn't know)? What are you missing?

Scott's eyes flicker over Virgil, reading signs invisible to anyone but him. It's not that you can't read Virgil for yourself. You can. Usually. Right now you're not certain—judgment is still sketchy at best—but what Scott sees and what you see, while both correct, stem from different roots. So you watch Scott's face, awaiting his diagnosis, and it's the way the tension drains from his shoulders that signals you can release the carbon dioxide you've been holding captive.

He offers you a wry almost-smile and uses a series of hand gestures you only half-catch but understand to mean you need to get closer to Virgil.

All right, sure, but why?

Scott's hand drops onto your knee again, and this time the smile he offers you is.

You're supposed to trust him. Well, this isn't the first time, it won't be the last time, and he's rarely wrong about Virgil.

So you convince your aching body it's a good idea to go to the monumental effort of repositioning yourself closer to the brother whose current acceptance of your presence you're least certain of. Your boot knocks into Virgil's, and you're surprised when he flinches, as you half expected him not to move at all. At least you know he hasn't fallen catatonic.

You sneak another look at Scott, feeling all of seven years old and looking to big brother for guidance. It's not in your nature to doubt Scott, but you aren't convinced this is a good idea; Virgil hasn't exactly been friendly toward you since—

Cool—cool?—fingers, calloused and normally so precise, collide with yours, drag heavy across the back of your hand, and, in a clumsy gesture that lacks any of their usual tonal grace or hued dexterity, encircle your wrist in a chilly, almost-too-tight grip.

Wait. Since when are your hands warmer than Virgil's?

Answer: never.

Virgil's eyes remain closed; he's still not letting you in. You glance down at your taken-hostage hand and consider the benefits of pulling free—your family knows you don't appreciate having restrictive physical contact forced upon you—but then his hold alters, fingertips seeking the underside of your wrist.

And you understand.

While Gordon was still in a coma, your family took turns sitting beside his bedside, waiting, praying, begging for a response, any sign that your easygoing, mischief-inclined brother was beginning to emerge from his inert shell of a body. The prank was over. No one was laughing. It was time to wake up, move on, return to normal.

Instead, the coma endured, like a fault in the code that is there but the programmer can't see. You're not sure who started the pattern—you always assumed Grandma; now you're not certain—but after an incident where Gordon's weakened and battered body came terrifyingly close to giving up, it was decided that someone would always measure his pulse: a silent promise that they would never give up on him as long as he did the same.

In the years that have passed since those interminable hours spent with your brother's limp wrist clasped between your fingers, the gesture has evolved into a silent request for comfort, reassurance, a grounding point when the world is, for all intents and purposes, falling apart. The work you and your brothers do is dangerous, and precautionary measures don't guarantee rescuer or rescuee safety.

Virgil isn't the only one who's measured your pulse since IR went live. You've sought the steady tha-thump of a heart beating as it should—as it almost wasn't—from every one of your brothers at least once, even though you've sometimes had to endure hellish weeks of waiting for your rotation in space to end before you're able to stand face-to-face with the brother in question.

Only then do the devastating nightmares ease off.

It's with no small measure of guilt that you reposition your arm so Virgil doesn't have to torque his body in order to maintain contact with the anchor you didn't realize he needs.

You've failed him.

That realization more than anything provides the jolt needed for you to begin fighting to reach beyond the torpid drone of your too-weary mind, a blank gray noise that's always so easy for you to lose yourself in. You've been so caught up in your own grief and the division within your fundamental self that you've neglected the needs of your younger brother.

And that's unacceptable.

As the silence shrouding the precipice endures, you struggle to resist the temptation of piecing together the exact order of events Virgil witnessed that has driven him to close himself off tighter than Five's sealed-against-vacuum hull. Scott likely knows what's bothering him, but his head's tipped back against the stone, eyes closed, looking... not relaxed, not at peace with his world, not exactly. The deep furrow between his brows means he's listening to and aware of every sound in your vicinity; two days of coordinating rescue efforts in an ever-changing, treacherous environment engenders a vigilant awareness that won't dissipate merely because Thunderbirds One and Two have returned to their hangers.

You'll have to live with an overprotective Scott for the next few days, which would bother you more if you didn't plan to sleep at least half the time it will take him to unwind.

Virgil, at least, no longer looks like he'll shatter if you rest more than a moment's attention upon him; his eyes are open, watching the waves, not you, and if they're limned with red, it's due to exhaustion, nothing more. He gives your wrist a final, firm squeeze and then lets go; his other hand is still tucked firm against his ribs, and you resolve to give him a hand wrapping them before dropping into your own bed.

Mm, bed. Sounds heavenly. Rock doesn't lend itself to restful sleep or properly aligned necks and backs and hips, but if you're up here much longer, you'll take your chances. Gordon looks like he's seriously considering using Virgil's leg for a pillow, freckles dark against the ghastly pallor of a person pushed to their every limit.

You're almost successful in swallowing a yawn. Owning and operating the most advanced rescue machinery in the world doesn't make you or your brothers superhuman, and adrenaline and Brains's natural but effective stimulants can only stave off the effects of fatigue for so long. There is no substitute for real sleep.

"We should head down," Virgil murmurs, reaching out in a cautious movement to poke Gordon's leg, "before this one falls asleep and forces us to drag his lazy butt to bed."

" 'm not gonna fall asleep." Gordon leans forward, rolling visibly stiff shoulders. "My back would never forgive me."

Not without hours of therapy.

Gordon will moan night and day about trivial inconveniences and irritants—it's one of his hobbies, ranking close behind swimming and driving everyone on the island to their wits' end with a constant barrage of pranks—but you've never once heard him complain about his back, not even when he's doubled over and can barely breathe through the pain.

You admire Gordon—you admire all your brothers, truth told, more than you can put into words. Every day they inspire you, encourage you, push you, reassure you that everything you do is worthwhile. Meaningful.

Even though she's dead.

We can't save everyone. A topic discussed numerous times while IR came together piece by piece, machine by machine, but failing to save lives, even one, is a scenario that all the discussion in the world cannot prepare a person for. Humans die. It's a sad reality of life, one you learned when you were young—perhaps too young.

And yet, as you sit flanked by three brothers and no doubt the fourth in spirit, you realize that the guilt pressing hard into your trachea and staining every breath bitter is a good thing. You're still human. You still feel, still care—sometimes too much, sometimes more than you can endure.

But the solid, very much alive presences around you are pillars of strength, always ready to lend their unwavering support when your resolve fails. You don't have to bear this alone. You don't have to bear anything alone, and with that understanding comes a warm rush of gratitude that pushes back the draining miasma of grief and failure long enough for you to say what needs to be said.

"Thanks, guys."

"Any time, bro," Gordon chirps with a flippant wave of his hand, but the weight in his gaze makes it a promise, and you return his smile with a tiny one of your own.

Scott gives your shoulder a quick squeeze before standing. Doesn't say anything; doesn't need to. The hand he offers you is enough, and you take it, allow him to pull you upright until your forehead's pressing against his.

"Mistakes were made, people died, and now others are left to suffer," he murmurs, "but I want you to know that despite it all, you did good out there."

You allow yourself a moment to acknowledge the warmth climbing up the back of your neck. It's not that Scott withholds praise—he's as supportive a brother and friend as you could wish for. But he's also constantly pushing you to better yourself, and he always, always means what he says, so you tuck the words in a specifically shielded corner of your brain , a jealously guarded cache of a lifetime's worth of assurances.

Scott's eyes glint. He knows exactly what his words mean to you. And then, for your ears alone: "Welcome back, John."

He leaves you gaping at his back—he knows. Of course he knows, he's Scott—as he steps over Virgil to assist Gordon, whose grimace as he's pulled to his feet is a clear indication of how his back's treating him.

Which leaves Virgil your responsibility. Well played, Scott.

It's your turn to extend a hand and aid a brother. Although you try to be mindful of Virgil's ribs, his jaw is locked, sweat clustering thick on his temples by the time he's upright.

"Just bruised," he informs you between tight, too-controlled breaths before you have a chance to speak.

"We'll let the X-rays determine that," Scott says as he nudges Gordon down the first steps of the not-a-trail. He gives you and Virgil a pointed look that your fluency in the language of Scott Tracy Expressions translates to mean talk it out followed by infirmary, asap before he and Gordon vanish into the foliage.

"If by some miracle we make it to our seventies, Scott will still mother us," you grumble under your breath, an instinctive thought that passes your lips without heat. Scott is Scott.

The expected agreement doesn't come, and you turn in time to watch the color drain from Virgil's cheeks, washing his normal tan down to a sickly gray.

"Virgil?" You reach for him, brace yourself for an imminent collapse, thoughts of total exhaustion, of internal injuries, of splinters of bone stabbing vulnerable flesh and lungs and organs flashing like error codes in your brain. "Virgil, what's wrong?"

His arms jerk under your hands—an attempt to break away? Perhaps that's how it starts; instead, the movement is aborted as he lets out a half-strangled gasp, but before the building cry of Scott, hurry! can burst from your chest, the tension leaks from Virgil's frame and he slumps into you, forehead pressed tight to your shoulder, hands clutching the front of your shirt.

No thought is necessary: instinct locks your arms around his waist, the most secure anchoring point you can give him. "Virgil?"

A shiver is your only answer.

You rest your cheek on his hair, normally so soft, now prickly with the remains of dried mud. Yell at me, blame me, condemn me, kick me off the team—I don't care. Just talk to me, brother. Please.

He doesn't. And with his head buried against you, there's no way to stare at him until he talks.

So you take a fortifying breath, aware you're probably about to light his fuse but willing to take the risk. "Are you still angry?"

"Yes." His flat voice is muffled by your shirt. "Furious."

You wince. Monotone from Virgil is never a good sign. "I know I should have waited for orders, but I could hear her screaming when no one else seemed to and—"

"How do you do it?"

"I—what? How did I hear her? I'm not sure I can explain, it's just someth—"

"You go cold."

"Huh?" You lift your head to frown at the top of his. "What are you talking about?"

He shudders as he inhales, but you don't stop him from pulling away; like you, he prefers to exist in the freedom of his own space. He uses the distance between you and him to conduct an intense systematic search of your entire face, eyes quartz sharp as they score over the grid he uses when mapping a person's features in order to transpose them onto a canvas or a sheet of paper.

You stare back, unsure why the need to defend yourself is surging through your blood. "What?"

He finishes his examination of your face. Sighs, long and weary. "You're back," he murmurs, blinking honeyed eyes gone liquid once more. "Where do you go when we're out on rescues?"

"Oh." Oh. The fight drains from you, leaving you feeling inexplicably small. "You noticed, huh?"

"I am your brother," he says, as though that explains everything. You suppose it does. "It's rather hard not to notice when the man I've known my entire life abruptly changes into another person."

"Is it that obvious?" And then you snort. Stupid question. The point is to create as much distance between the International Rescue operative and John Tracy as possible. "What I mean is, if it's so obvious, why have none of you commented on it before?"

Virgil lifts one shoulder in a cautious shrug, winces. "You'll have to ask the others—I can't answer for them."

It is the right, if frustrating, answer. You wait for him to offer his own thought... and are left waiting when he continues to stare at you without saying anything more. Your stomach gives an unpleasant lurch—should you be checking him over for concussion symptoms? Because this is not like him at all. "Virgil?" You reach for his shoulder, only to sigh as he pulls back so you grasp nothing but empty air. "Come on, talk to me."

"What, like you do?"

"I—what?"

"We're supposed to be a team, but you broke all protocol. Ignored Scott's orders. Left me in an insecure position—"

"Virg, I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking—"

"You didn't confirm with me that you could walk away. We handle dangerous equipment in unpredictable conditions, John, we aren't—we can't afford to just drop everything and run whenever we want, even when there are lives at stake. That kind of carelessness—uncommunicativeness—only adds to the casualty count."

And, yeah, that hurts, almost as much as the memories biting their way to the surface. You left Virgil alone, vulnerable, the way John Tracy never would, and oh. Of course.

"I don't... didn't mean to. I don't care for you any less. I just didn't... think."

He huffs a faint breath, like anything more strenuous hurts. It probably does. "No kidding. Probably want to next time."

A spark of something approaching hope lights up the dark cavern of your brain, a node that hasn't turned on in hours, days, who even knows. Maybe that's why it's almost blinding in its brilliance. "Next time?"

It takes a moment too long for Virgil to answer. "You think we'll, what. Ground you?"

Your gaze flickers down to his ribs, apparently bruised and maybe worse. Also your fault.

"John." Broad hands clasp your biceps, material pulling tight with the force of his grip. "You can't think we'd do that without consulting you."

Wouldn't they? You almost got one of them killed, abandoned a brother to chase down someone already damned—they'd be well within their right to cut you off, force you to get your head on straight, stop dividing yourself into is and is-not.

"Idiot." It's offered up as a borderline term of affection, and Virgil gives your arms a shake that would probably be more vigorous under normal operating parameters. "We all make mistakes. Yes, even ones this bad. And worse." He grimaces, but it's the dark, slow-moving current beneath his words that reminds you of furtive times spent listening to conversations you aren't supposed to know exist.

The shadow doesn't quite lift from his features when he releases you in favor of looking at the ocean, still dark and choppy, the churned depths of a tropical storm. One arm returns to its task of bracing his ribs, a seemingly thoughtless gesture, and you're opening your mouth to suggest heading down when he sighs, a long, slow exhale. "I hate this job too."

It's a confession reserved for this particular cliff top, but what makes your stomach cramp is the way he sounds fragile.

Virgil is not fragile. He's solid, present, an existence grounded deep in the real world like few people are. Virgil is the weight of an arm draped across your shoulders; he is heavy bass pulses and gentle strands of treble harmonizing firm and tangible and as willing to listen in bars of full rests as he is to fill the air with a lively melody of brisk sixteenth notes. He is deliberate movements that sculpt and refine the material and people he shares space with, a soft polish to temper Scott's sharp, cutting edges. Scott is the cornerstone, the quintessential big brother that pushes them to new heights, but Virgil is bedrock, absolute zero, the unshakable foundation upon which everything is built.

So to realize that you're not the only person whose set-in-granite belief that what you do is good, is worthwhile, has shaken loose, crumbled into the sucking, greedy quicksand of doubt by the events of the last unknown-number-of-hours—that it's Virgil who's struggling...

The ground beneath your feet doesn't quite seem solid, gravity not quite playing by the right rules, like you've somehow slid sideways into free fall without noticing the when or the how. This time it's his turn to wrap an arm around you, grunting with effort as you blink yourself back to an equilibrium cohesive enough to enable you to stand straight again. "John?"

"Fine. Just. Uh. Yeah."

"Right." He nudges you back toward the not-a-trail. "Let's go."

The shadow has lifted from his face, brief show of despair replaced by a familiar, felt weariness, and though concern niggles, the thoughts of home and bed and sleep are like hooks in your breastbone, reeling you down the trail before you can find the right series of protocols to say no.

It turns out that not all conversation happens at the summit. "I don't know how you heard her."

"Me neither." You don't. Maybe it was a fluke. More likely it wasn't. "Sixth sense, I guess."

Virgil nods but doesn't speak for several dozen carefully chosen steps, navigating around roots and rocks and all manner of storm-strewn detritus. The island never looks more like an untamed jungle rather than a paradise getaway than after a tropical storm. "I'm not actually mad at you, you know."

You almost miss a step, take a moment to regain your footing before you can slide down loose dirt. "But I—"

"Made mistakes. Were human. Tried to save a life. I can't fault you for that, even though next time you are going to tell me first."

You cringe but accept the chastisement as fair. "I really am sorry."

"I know. If you weren't, we'd be having a different discussion." One involving professionals of a different variety, he doesn't say, but it isn't difficult to intuit.

"That's fair. Expected, even."

Virgil hums a flat note. "For us as well."

Slowly, the correct series of nodes light up, synapses linking conscious thought and observation with intuition and established knowledge. Your stomach makes a solid attempt at sinking down into the shale-spiked ground beneath your soles. "Is... that a discussion we should be having right now?"

Under different circumstances, Virgil's short pause before speaking might precede falsehood, but right now it's a thoughtful sort, due consideration of a weighty concept. "I don't think so. If I still hate the job tomorrow... maybe."

A reassuringly acceptable answer, well within the parameters of normal. "Tomorrow sounds like a reasonable deadline. But grief is a weird thing to work through—if you need to take more time off, do."

You catch a glimpse of a crooked smile. "Aren't I supposed to be saying that to you?"

"Hmm, probably. Call it older-brother superiority."

Virgil snorts. "Yeah, you're definitely back to normal."

Not normal, not exactly. Grief can alter a brain's chemistry, so you aren't the same person you were yesterday or the day before that, but—possibly this isn't a bad thing. Today you are John Tracy: brother, son, grandson, scientist, writer, ostensible playboy—and definitely not a core member of International Rescue. Not to anyone who doesn't live on this island, anyway. Tonight you will have nightmares as your brain resynchs and reformats. Tomorrow you will have to help clean the storm-wrecked island between continuing grieving the loss of a child you never knew and were too late to save.

Right now you are within a stone's throw of the villa and still have holes in your memory that will be compiled back into a (mostly) cohesive whole by the time you next wake. Whether that will lead to grief counseling, general therapy sessions, thorny conversations with one family member or another, or a calculated break from IR, you won't dare predict, but just going up to the cliff with your brothers, sitting with them, existing in a shared state of "this is our life and we know it's hard but we're sticking together regardless" has helped more than you dared imagine possible. Tomorrow and its challenges—both as John Tracy and as not—don't look quite so daunting anymore, and from the way Virgil nudges your shoulder with his as you step around a snapped-into-thirds tree, you suspect he's in unspoken agreement.

"Still." Virgil nudges your shoulder with his as you step around a snapped-into-thirds tree. "For the record, I like you better as yourself, not... whoever your IR persona is."

"Me too." And though the words are quiet, edges worn down into softness with exhaustion, they feel like truth. For all the struggles and pain embedded into a life spent working for International Rescue, it's good to be John Tracy.