Out of Place

AN – Thanks to all my reviewers and those who have been enjoying the story so far. To Harlow – as I can't reply I'll leave a quick note here. I'm glad you enjoy it! Yes it is a bit complex – I dreamt it up midway through Unforgotten so I've had a lot of time to try to iron out the kinks so I hope it eventually makes sense, please let me know if there are bits that don't!

Disclaimer – I don't own Thunderbirds

Chapter Six – Reaching through

"So I'll just pick up Gordon and head back," Virgil was telling Scott when Sally walked back into the room, his blue form hovering over the coffee table. Jeff was sat behind his desk again having declined Sally's offer of helping with lunch. The other Scott and Alan were huddled together, watching the proceedings while Kayo was stood off to the side. Sally suspected she wanted to keep an eye on the new arrivals.

"Sure thing Thunderbird 2, see you soon," Scott was telling his younger brother before the hologram disappeared.

Alan was looking at the hologram curiously. "Why do you use holograms?"

Scott looked up. "Why wouldn't we? Don't you?"

"No," Alan shook his head. "That kind of tech doesn't exist. But… I'm not sure why it's any better than a video?"

Scott frowned at him. "Because it's three dimensional?"

"But why do you need that when you're just talking to someone?"

"It makes it easier when you are trying to look at problems in three dimensions, Alan." Tintin was coming back in, Eos in her hand and Max following her. "Max was showing me the circuitry inside this communication device and when you display as a hologram you can really see how it's connected together." She paused and looked up at the room. "Though I'm not sure there are any particular advantages when talking to a person, unless you like them tinted blue."

Scott spluttered while his counterpart just looked amused. Alan was nodding thoughtfully to what Tintin was saying. "How have you got on with the communicator?" Jeff asked her.

"We've made good progress, Max has been a great help." She beamed at the robot who spun happily at the praise. "Eos also was incredible with the calculations, I've never known anyone to work that quickly. But we are going to need a large amount of power to do it, we will have to run the both Island generators to their maximum and we'll only get a few minutes when the sun is at it's zenith. That will provide the maximum boost via the solar generators. We think that we'll have to make two calls, one to Brains and one to John as they are probably in separate locations." Tintin looked over at where the strange Scott and Alan were stood together. "Also to reassure Angel." Alan frowned but his brother nodded gratefully. "We will be able to repeat the calls when the sun is strong enough on other days as well, if we need to."

"That gives us a couple of hours to work out what we want to say to Brains, Alan and John." Scott stated, consulting his watch. He was interrupted from talking further by the signal of an incoming call. Scott frowned up at the display, he wasn't expecting anyone to call.

Jeff leant forwards at his desk. "Come in Colonel Casey, how can we help."

Val Casey's familiar figure materialised over the coffee table. Scott leaned forwards in his seat while Kayo climbed the stairs from the kitchen to sit across from him.

"Hello Jeff, International Rescue. I regret that I need to inform you that the Hood has escaped our custody."

"What?" "How?" Kayo and Scott were demanding of the hologram. Jeff held out his hand for quiet.

"Go on, Val."

"Our guards were doing their usual morning rounds when they found that he had managed to switch places with another man entirely. This man, who we do not have on our records, was in his cell and there was no sign of the Hood anywhere."

Scott gasped. "Like the others!"

"You have seen this phenomenon before?" Colonel Casey's gaze was piercing.

"We have heard of something similar," Jeff informed her. "We will look into it and see what we can find. Do you have an image of the man that you did find in the cells this morning?"

"Of course Jeff, I'll send it over. We're going to have to release him, we don't have any criminal record for him and all signs indicate that he's just an innocent man who's been dragged into some form of new game by the Hood."

"Thank you for letting us know, though if you want my opinion I think you'd be wise to keep him for as long as you can. He may not be the innocent you think he is."

"I'll do my best Jeff. I have to go, keep me appraised of anything you find?"

"Will do Val." The hologram disappeared.

"Why didn't you tell her about John, Alan and Brains?" Scott asked his father.

"Because I didn't want the GDF to get too involved in this." On seeing Scott's expression, Jeff sighed. "Val is a good friend, but she's not the only person in the GDF. What if someone wants to scrutinise our guests more? Test them, perhaps? I think we need to keep this under wraps until everyone is back where they are supposed to be." He looked down at his desk. "Ah, she's sent the image through. Tell me," he now addressed the other Scott and Alan. "Do you recognise this man at all?"

They both moved over to the desk, Tintin following too. The girl looked shaken Sally thought, but then if the Hood was her uncle in their world too it was understandable.

"It could be the Hood," Alan squinted at the picture. "Very similar facial features, but he didn't have the beard."

"No, it can't be him." The other Scott stated decisively. "But he does look similar. Do you recognise him Tintin?"

"No, not at all." The brunette shook her head emphatically.

"So it looked like the Hood has ended up in our dimension while our Hood or someone else who looks similar came here with us," Alan mused. "We need to tell the others when we call later."

"I'm not sure what they would be able to do," Tintin said, looking back down at the tablet in her hand. "But maybe Penelope will be able to find out something."

"We need to give them that image," the other Scott indicated the man on the screen. "If they can work out who he is, they'll find the Hood from here."

"Is…is he Kayo's uncle here too?" Tintin asked hesitantly.

"Yes," Scott confirmed, standing from the sofa. "You are familiar with him?"

"He kidnapped Scott, Virgil and Mr Tracy once. Plus he controlled my father for years." Tintin shuddered. "We must make sure he can't hurt father again, Scott." She was looking pleadingly at her Scott, who put his hand reassuringly on her shoulder.

"You know we will, Tintin."

At that moment, Virgil and Gordon returned from their rescue. The room they walked into was solemn and serious.

"Wow, what did we miss?"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

A couple of hours later, after Virgil and Gordon had been brought up to speed with the morning's events, there was a tense group sitting around watching Tintin and Max work at the centre of the coffee table.

"So you really think you can contact Brains and John with this thing?" Scott was saying, watching the brunette work.

"I hope so," Tintin replied. "It should work – and if I tell them what I'm doing, next time it will be easier as they can also do the same thing on their side and meet in the middle." She did a final tweak to the comms box and patted Max on the head. "Ready, Max?"

The robot trilled a series of beeps and Tintin nodded solemnly. "I hope so too, Max. Well, here goes nothing."

Sally moved forwards to the edge of the circle of chairs as Max whirred. He was plugged into something that Tintin said would boost his power supply, but it was obvious how much strain was being put into the effort by the robot. He was shaking as he tried to bring up a flickering image in front of him.

After a few excruciating seconds, it solidified into a blue hologram of Brains.

"Max!" The inventor called excitedly. "How did you manage this? It's incredible! Talking of incredible, there is someone I have to introduce you to." The hologram Brains waved behind him and then, joining him in the air above their coffee table, was…another Brains. "This is Brains too! Isn't it crazy?" Brains then seemed to realise that Max wasn't alone as he looked around the room. "Oh, hello everyone."

The second Brains reached forward out of the hologram. "Tintin?"

"I'm here," Tintin stated quietly, moving closer herself.

The other Brains let out a rush of breath. "I…we were, er, very w-worried about you."

"I'm sure Brains," she replied with a soft smile. Sally's eyebrows rose as she watched the girl interact with the engineer and a lot of things fell into place. She wasn't the only one who noticed if the gaping expression on Virgil's face was anything to go by. Scott and Gordon seemed oblivious while Kayo looked serene. Sally suspected the girls had spoken earlier – after all, she would want to find out as much about her counterpart's life as possible whatever Jeff said about it.

"Well, er, Mr Tracy is busy," the other Brains was stammering. Having the two of them sat right next to each other was very confusing. "He is i-in the simulator with A-Alan, teaching him h-how to pilot Thunderbird 3."

Their Brains nodded. "The controls are v-very different, you see, and they need to bring John down from Thunderbird 5. T-there is no space elevator."

"And the three main astronauts are here," the other Scott nodded, deep in thought. "But why do they want John back so badly? He's only halfway through his stint."

"B-because John is t-the only one w-who can, ah, pilot Thunderbird 1," the other Brains said, directing his gaze to his Scott, who sighed.

"And dad doesn't trust leaving it over at Angel's. I guess I should have predicted that. So the second John is still with her?" A nod confirmed it. "Well I need to speak to her anyway, so I guess that's not a bad thing. Are any of the others around?"

"I-I think Gordon is in the p-pool, but, er, Virgil is around somewhere." The other Brains disappeared from the screen, which caused Sally to lean forward slightly. She was interested in seeing Virgil's counterpart too.

"Well, I-I'm very curious as to how you m-managed to contact us, Max," Brians beamed at his robot friend. But Max didn't answer him, Tintin did.

"Oh, Eos helped me to calculate the dimensional transmutation which needed to be applied to the frequency in order to modulate it, causing resonance within the schism that was left by the transferral of atomic structures. Max then helped to rebuild the Gauffian array in order to transmit through the vibrational nodes of the proton shift. I couldn't have done it without their help."

Brains was gaping at her, though a quiet "That's m-my girl," came from his counterpart, who had returned with another face.

Virgil looked so different and yet somehow the same. It was difficult to tell through the hologram, but his hair looked lighter and his features were more rounded. There was a similar gentleness though and Sally could tell that their personalities would be very similar.

"Virgil!" Tintin cried happily, beaming at him. "How are you?"

"Hi Tin, Scott, Al," the hologram waved. "I'm ok Tintin, bit worried about you all. Penny's been going spare since she found out you went missing, I've had to spend half the morning trying to stop her dropping everything to come out here."

"Tell her we're ok Virg?" His older brother asked. "Also, we might want her to find out if anyone in her circles knows who this man is." He gestured towards the image that Colonel Casey had sent through, then frowned. "Can we send it to them Tintin?"

"Oh yes," she replied. "But we're going to have to be quick if you want to contact John too."

"OK, so I think we should arrange to meet tomorrow at this exact time, we can't talk for long as it's taking all the power Tintin can get to maintain the connection."

"O-Ok Scott, I'll…er, we'll see what w-we can do about b-boosting the signal from here so w-we can, ah, speak for longer."

"Thanks Brains. The last thing you need to know is that this world's Hood has seemed to transfer to our dimension just as the other's did."

The hologram Virgil let out a deep sigh. "Did he swap with the Hood from here?"

"That's not possible, Virgil."

"Well, if you say so Scott. We can talk more tomorrow. I'll pass your message on, Tintin. Dad will be pleased we managed to contact you."

"How is Alan?" Their Scott now spoke up, having watched their exchange. The hologram Virgil looked at him and let out a low whistle, for the first time looking at the rest of the room.

"That's uncanny."

Their Brains ignored the comment. "Alan is f-fine, he seems to have adapted well."

"Well good. OK, we'll talk to you tomorrow."

"R.A.D. Scott."

With that, the hologram flickered and disappeared. Tintin crouched down next to Max. "Are you ok? Can you do that again for John?" The robot was dropping and looked tired, but beeped to confirm anyway.

"R.A.D?" Alan asked. "Gosh, that's weird."

"It's a thing Brains came up with," Gordon told him, walking closer to the other blond. "The rest of us just use F.A.B like we always have, but Brians wanted something different."

"We're ready to go," Tintin announced. "I've just realigned the matrix to hunt for John's communicator. Should I start?"

"Go ahead dear," Sally told her, impatient to see her other grandson now that she'd had reassurances that Brains and Alan were ok.

"OK Max," Tintin told him, and again Max strained until a hologram appeared shakily above the coffee table.

"Hey, how did you manage this? I thought Brains was here with us?" John was looking quizzically down at them from where he was in a seated position, something held to his temple.

"John, thank goodness you're ok!" Scott said, not noticing his counterpart's small sigh of relief from behind him. "Kayo's counterpart from the other place came through in place of Brains and she worked with Max and Eos to do it…somehow."

"Eos?"

"Hello John. I am pleased to see that you are unharmed." Sally jumped, she hadn't seen that Tintin had placed the disk containing the AI on the coffee table.

John winced. "Unharmed might be pushing it." He removed his hand from his temple and there was a collective gasp as they saw the lump forming. He flicked his eyes up at something that they couldn't see before rolling his eyes. "Apparently it's a minor bump."

"It doesn't look minor." Scott's eyes were narrowed. "How did it happen? Who is there with you?"

A second figure came into the view, hologram folding into a seated position next to John. She was a striking woman, wavy hair tied back into a loose ponytail and figure hugging outfit reminding Sally a bit of Kayo. "It is minor," the woman told them without preamble. "I didn't hit him that hard."

"Angel," the exasperated sigh came from the second Scott, causing their Scott to swing around.

The woman, Angel, narrowed her eyes. "I was woken up by a strange man in my bed. I think a bruised ego and a minor bump is actually the best scenario you could have hoped for."

Sally frowned, she had a point but what would the other scenarios be? The other Scott sighed, but there was a half smile on his face. "I guess that's true. Angel, we're going to work on a way to get us back, but you need to know that this dimension's version of the Hood seemed to switch places with someone too. This is the man that took his place here."

Again Scott held up the image for the holograms to see, but this time there was an intake of breath from Angel when she saw it. "I know of him Scott, he's known as the 'Black Phantom'. A very influential, dangerous man. Stay as far away from him as you can."

"If he ended up here, then who orchestrated it? Him or the Hood?"

The woman frowned. "Maybe together? It's almost impossible to conceive of any one person managing to achieve this."

"What would be in it for him? We know the Hood was in jail here, so if he switches place he can be free. But what does this phantom person want?" Scott demanded, fed up of the volleying conversation between his counterpart and this woman.

"I'd assume the technology," she shrugged. "But I can't find out from here."

"Can you find the Hood?" The other Scott asked her. The woman paused, thoughtfully.

"Probably, but I can't do it alone." She turned to John. "How good are you with computers?"

John flicked startled eyes between her and the rest of his family. "I'm… pretty good."

There was a pause while Angel assessed him. "I'm going to assume you're as good as your counterpart is, at least. If we can work together we'll find him." She informed the rest of them confidently.

"He might be going by the name 'Agent Seventy-Nine'," Kayo informed her. Angel nodded in reply.

"Thank you. Scott," she directed her comments now directly to the other Scott, for the first time her face became fractionally more open. "Be very careful, especially if the Black Phantom is involved. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

He moved closer to the hologram, starting to reach out a hand before clenching his fist and dropping it down by his side with a rueful shake of his head. "That doesn't rule out much. But in return Angel, do whatever it takes to find him and end this."

Her eyebrows quirked and a smile played on her mouth. "Noted."

"We don't have long left," Tintin told them from where she was monitoring Max.

"John, we'll try to call at this time each day," Scott told him. "You should try to join Brains and Alan on Tracy Island. You'll be stronger together."

"We'll look after Thunderbird 5 and Eos for you," Virgil added with a smile. Gordon and Kayo just waved. John nodded back to them.

"Stay safe son," Jeff added, giving his middle son a warm smile.

"Thank you. But don't worry, I'll be back before you know it."

There was a crackle and the image disappeared.

The group sat in a deflated silence. Which didn't last long, as a whistle broke through it.

"I hate to be the one to ask, but how on earth did you score a girlfriend like that?" Gordon was facing the other Scott, cheeky grin on his face.

A shake of his head. "It's far too long a story to get into now."

The feed from Thunderbird 5 flashed.

"What is it, Eos?" Jeff asked.

"My sensors have indicated a large explosion in the United Kingdom," the AI informed him crisply. There were gasps of horror around the room, Jeff held up his hand for silence.

"Go on Eos, where was it? Are there any casualties?"

"I believe so, though I don't think it is a task for International Rescue. The GDF will respond quickly."

"How can you be sure?" Scott asked her sceptically, distrust evident in his voice.

"Because the explosion occurred at Parkmoor Scrubs prison. My sensors indicate that it was in the high security wing."

There was a momentary silence. The other Scott was the one to break it. "I think we can assume that the Black Phantom is now probably at large."

Jeff sighed. "Let's just hope that he isn't at all interested in International Rescue."