Out Of Place

AN – Another early chapter! now we're in the final stretch the typing is coming thick and fast, and I thought you might all enjoy the benefits of it.

Disclaimer – I don't own Thunderbirds

Chapter Twenty Eight – The Hood

"Well now, isn't this all very cosy."

Without even realising he was doing it, John stepped sideways in front of Angel with his arms outspread protectively as he glared at the figure in front of them.

"The Hood!"

"What a coincidence, Mr Frakes. Or should I say Mr Tracy?" The Hood sneered at him. "Fancy meeting you here. You shouldn't have bothered." The Hood looked over John's shoulder at Angel, who was assessing him quietly from the back of the lift. "And Mrs Tracy too. Isn't this a pleasant surprise. Do come in."

He narrowed his eyes when they didn't move. "I really must insist. And there is no use trying to operate the lift again, I control it from here." He gestured to a console behind him. Reluctantly, John left the lift and heard Angel doing the same behind him. As they walked into the room she came up alongside.

The top room of the office block was obviously the security room for the site. There were several computer terminals and many monitors that seemed to provide visuals all around the compound. The Hood was stood in the centre of it, facing them but obviously aware of what was going on around him.

"I'm rather impressed you managed to follow me here." The Hood said, speaking to John. "I knew that I recognised you in that casino, but I couldn't place you. But then I began to think that maybe the impossible was simply the improbable, and that perhaps you did somehow manage to follow me here. I see I'm proved right." The Hood gestured at John's International Rescue outfit. Meanwhile, John was still reeling from the concept that the Hood hadn't intentionally sent him, Brains and Alan here.

"You on the other hand…" the Hood now turned to Angel. "You intrigue me. You actually married into the Tracy family. Did you know that they ran International Rescue before you got married? Or was it a nasty shock?"

Angel simply stared at him impassively.

The Hood sighed. "This would be so much more interesting if we could have a civilised conversation. Fine, have it your way. I must say though, that the two of you have kept me vastly entertained on your journey up here." He turned around and gestured to one of the monitors. John moved closer and his eyes widened – it was a photo taken just after he'd caught Angel on the stairway. He was lying on the floor, gazing up at her while she mirrored his expression. Her hair pooling down around her shoulders hid the fact that she was just trying to catch her breath. "Very interesting given that technically you are brother and sister in law." The Hood smirked. "I would hate for your husband to have to see this, hm?"

Angel raised an eyebrow at that. "Are you threatening me?"

"More ensuring your compliance. I have-" he cut off abruptly, tilting his head as though he was listening to something. "I'm afraid I am going to have to leave you for now. Don't try to get out of here, I won't be activating the lift. We still have so much to discuss."

As he finished speaking, his body flickered and disappeared.

"A hologram!" John exclaimed, running forwards and grabbing a small ball from the centre of the floor where the Hood had been standing a moment before. "A very good one. He was never here at all."

"He must be on the site somewhere." Angel narrowed her eyes. "He's been tracking us the whole time, which means that he must have cameras across the whole compound."

"Well let's see what we can do about that." John slid into one of the chairs by a computer terminal, his fingers flying across the keys. Angel perched on the desk next to him, eyes wide at the speed in which John worked. He noticed her gaze and smiled self depreciatingly. "This is pretty basic compared to what I'm used to, but I'm sure it will be ok."

"It's all complex to me, I'm practically a technophobe."

John was so surprised he actually paused, his fingers hovering over the keys. "Really?"

"I grew up in a monastery in the middle of the Himalayas." Angel defended herself, crossing her arms over her chest. "It's not like they had anything remotely like computers there."

"There's a story there that I definitely want to hear, but now probably isn't a good time." John resumed typing, even though his breath hitched at her next words.

"I doubt there will be another time." He couldn't be imagining the sadness in her voice, could he?

John exhaled slowly. "Angel…"

"You type, I'll talk." She said, deliberately staring straight ahead to avoid looking him in the eyes. John turned his attention back to his task, but listened to her as he did so. She told him about her early life, living with her parents in the UK. Then her father's abandonment and her mother's flight to the East. About being dropped off in the monastery while her mother went to investigate the large scale poisoning of local villages. Of her mother returning ill after an absence of a couple of years, only to die a few weeks later and leave Angel in the hands of the monks. Of their training, or lack of in some areas. John got the impression there were things that she was omitting, but even so her history was tragic. The fact that she resembled a normal person after all that she had been through was testimony to the strength of her character and he told her as such when she finished her tale.

In response she snorted. "It's sweet of you to refer to me as normal. Most wouldn't."

John looked up at her, still rigidly perching on the desk next to the terminal he was working at. "I retract my statement. You aren't normal, you're extraordinary. Scott is very lucky to have you."

Angel finally met his gaze, full of words unsaid that hung thickly in the air between them. "Thank you."

John looked back at his terminal "I've managed to hack into his controls. I've shut down all the cameras and hologram balls – when we find him now we'll know he is the real one. This isn't the main room, there is a manufacturing facility further into the compound that actually houses the control system for this site. Luckily, I've managed to get this far without being detected." John leant closer, frowning at the screen. "There is some disturbance going on in one of the other warehouses, a big storage building on the other side of the site. That must be what drew him away."

"Could it be Gordon and Penelope?"

"Maybe." John tried to dig further but couldn't find anything. "I can't see what's caused it."

"Anything else you need to do here?"

"No." He leant back in his chair. "I can't find that photograph, it must be behind another firewall. I'm worried that if I crack it, the Hood will notice. He'd then notice everything else I've done."

"I don't care about the photo," Angel said dismissively. "It's hardly like it's incriminating, what is the Hood going to do with it other than use it to unsettle us? But won't he notice the cameras anyway if they all shut down?"

"I've used still images," John explained. "They show a particular moment in time instead of a live feed. If he's not looking too carefully he won't realise they aren't videos anymore."

"Well ok." Angel stood up from her perch. "In that case, lets find a way out of here."

"You mean the elevator might not be the only way down?"

"This is an old building, older than it looks. At some point the modern office block has been built around a much older structure. It wouldn't surprise me if it was built in a time when stairs alongside the lift was mandatory – before the advanced suppressants meant that it no longer became a basic requirement."

John stood up, stretching his neck as sitting in front of a terminal like that was something he didn't do very often. "Wouldn't they have taken out the stairs when they reconfigured?"

"Maybe." Angel began to look around the room. "But that would be a big job, so they might just have left them in situ and boarded them up."

"How would we know?"

"We look for something… unusual." She stood in the middle of the space and looked around. "Anything that seems out of place."

John took a look at the room. The elevator they came up in was in the centre, the only structure in the whole floor. The rest was an old fashioned open office floor plate, old desks and terminals arranged in rows. At the far end was another partition that looked as though it held restrooms, with a small kitchenette to one side.

"There isn't much here to look out of place." John commented, walking a circle around the cube that contained the elevator shaft. There was nothing out of the ordinary, nowhere that a staircase could hide. Except…

"This seems like a pretty big structure for a small elevator."

Angel considered it for a moment. "You're right. No meeting rooms on the far side or anything?"

"Not that I could see."

Angel tapped her index finger against her lips in thought. Then she started to tap the sides of the elevator shaft, listening carefully. John cottoned on immediately copied her on the other side, starting next to the lift and moving around clockwise. He had nearly reached the centre of the back when he suddenly hit something hollow.

"Here!"

Within seconds Angel was there and they were feeling for the edge of the doorway. It was clearly there, underneath some board and the tired wallpaper.

"Stand back," John instructed. He stood back and levelled a kick at the wall. His foot went straight through the plasterboard, and as he drew it back most of the board came with it revealing a dark hole.

"Nice work," Angel looked at him appraisingly. "Not just a pretty face, then."

"Thanks, I think." John replied sarcastically as he pulled more of the plasterboard back to enlarge the opening. A moment later it was wide enough for them to fit through. John peered into the darkness.

A flash of light illuminated the space as Angel pulled a torch out of her small rucksack. The rucksack was the kind that long distance runners use, slim and flat against her back and the same colour black as her outfit. John had forgotten she was wearing one at all. The torch wasn't powerful but it was enough to see the stairs dropping away.

"Well, here goes thirteen floors." Angel stepped into the gap, John following after. She counted quietly as they wound down the lift shaft. It was narrow and had low ceilings, both of them had to stoop.

"I can see why they didn't want to use these." John said dryly.

"Even in an emergency they would be useless." Angel agreed. "Here we are, this must be the ground floor." She shone her torch at a boarded up doorway. "Fancy giving your high kicks an airing again?"

"Very funny." John told her, before planting a boot in the middle of the boards. This time he didn't quite go through it, but the plasterwork did shift under the force. He kicked again and again, the third time pushing enough of the board out for him to put his shoulder to it. Dust flew around them as they tripped out of the stairwell to find themselves in the same lobby they had been in before.

Angel raised an eyebrow at John's dishevelled appearance. "Red, you are looking far less red!" John caught his reflection in one of the internal windows behind the reception desk and winced. His normally immaculate swept hair style was completely obliterated, with dust and dirt turning his hair from vibrant orange to a grey mess. He turned back to Angel to see that her hair, whilst still tied back in the tight ponytail very reminiscent of Kayo's usual style, was also now covered in dirt. Even as he was about to comment on it she leant forwards and brushed the worst of the dirt off. He did likewise but there was no rescuing the quiff.

Angel came up to him and, licking a finger, swept it underneath his right eye across his cheekbone. "That's better." She told him with a smirk. "You looked like you had war paint on you." John just nodded, he didn't trust himself to speak. The feel of her hands, rougher than he expected but so warm, sent a jolt through him similar to an electric shock.

While John caught his breath, Angel had crossed to the main door and peered out of it. "I think we're safe, it's still quiet out there." She stated. "Let's head over to the other manufacturing facility and see what is happening."

They slipped out of the office block, running up to the building that John had identified as the one with the main control system in it. The doors weren't locked inside the compound, which meant that they were able to slip in through the main doors and make their way down the corridor safe in the knowledge that they had disabled all the cameras.

The facility was arranged with a large manufacturing workshop on one side and small offices tucked to the other. John's digging had shown him that the main office actually jutted out above the workshop floor, accessed from a corridor behind it or an open stairwell directly from the workshop. The second was too risky as they had nowhere to hide, but the corridors were quiet.

Or at least, that's what John thought. Just as they were approaching a pair of firedoors in the middle of the ground floor corridor, the doors slid open. John and Angel didn't have a chance to hide before a strange robot was upon them. John froze while it turned its red visor to them, scanning. A gun came out of the bottom of the hovering robot but before it could do anything Angel had grabbed hold of the gun and twisted. While John had frozen Angel moved forwards, so that she was within range of the robot before it could process what it had detected. With one hand firmly gripping the gun she swung around, a shining long bladed knife sliding into a gap in the robot's casing with a crunch. The robot's red visor flickered and died, it dropped to the floor like a stone. With a wrench Angel freed the knife, while John could only stand there gaping.

Tucking the blade back away – although John didn't see where on earth she'd hidden it – Angel waved her hand in front of his face. "Anyone in there? We need to keep going." She continued striding down the corridor while John shook himself and jogged after her.

"Sure. I mean, yes. Where did you learn to do that?"

"The monastery."

"I thought you said they didn't have technology there? How did they teach you to get your knife into a gap like that between the armour plates?"

Angel stopped, scuffing one toe on the ground. "They had rib cages and vertebrae."

John frowned. "But what…? Oh." Realisation dawned. "They taught you how to use a knife against people."

"Among other things."

Angel continued walking, her tone suggesting the conversation was over. John wanted to ask her more about it but wisely kept quiet as they found stairs up to the top level.

As soon as they entered the corridor that offered a view of the workshop floor, they could hear the Hood talking. A significant glance to Angel told John that they were both aware that, without any holograms left functioning, this was the real Hood. Angel slunk forwards, making no noise as she did so. John winced as every one of his footsteps seemed to echo heavily but there was no indication they had been heard.

They managed to creep to the edge of the doors into the main office, which were open. From here they could see the back of the Hood's head, but that wasn't what caused John to gasp quietly – earning himself a sharp elbow in the ribs from Angel.

Stood facing the Hood, but as yet unaware of Angel and John's presence, were Gordon and Lady Penelope.