It was around 2 hours later when Thunderbird 2 finally arrived back to Tracy Island, by then Scott had already picked up the Mechanic and was waiting for them in the lounge.
"Hey Scott" Virgil greeted his older brother as he entered the lounge with Gordon and Alan following
"Hey guys, what took you so long?" Scott asked smirking
"that's still not funny" Virgil groaned and rolled his eyes
"go wash up, debrief in 10 minutes" Scott ordered and the brothers rushed off to their respective rooms to clean up after their rescue. 10 minutes later they gathered in the lounge and waited for Jeff to join them.
"so, where's dad?" Alan asked Scott after they waited for 5 minutes
"he's with Brains and the Mechanic who are trying to find out how we were hacked" Scott explained
"well, he could be a while and we missed lunch" Gordon moaned leaning back
"Did someone say lunch?" they all jumped at Grandma's voice who was holding a pan of burnt lasagne in her hands "who's hungry?"
"I'm not. But Gordon is" Alan said quickly, Scott and Virgil nodded in agreement
"Nonsense. You boys must be hungry after that tough rescue" Grandma insisted as she brought the lasagne to the table "come on!"
"really Grandma, it's fine" Scott insisted smiling, but his brothers could see the fear in his eyes at having to eat Grandma's lasagne
"Alright. Who are you people and what have you done to my kind and generous grandsons?" Grandma asked, losing her patience and giving them the 'death glare'
"ahh-uhh...we...*sigh* we're right here Grandma," Virgil said and walked over to the table with the others following
"that's better" Grandma smiled as she watched them scoop the food onto their plates and eat, trying their best not to cringe. She knew she wasn't the best cook but she always got a kick at everyone trying to be polite to her and pretend to enjoy the food. Even the Mechanic did it! "Kayo was invited to Penelope's house for lunch so she won't be able to join you."
"Lucky her" Alan mumbled and he choked down a mouthful of food
After 5 agonising hours (well, more like 20 minutes) of digesting the lasagne, they were finally finished and were finally able to start debrief as Jeff arrived.
"Hey dad, have Brains and the Mechanic figured how we were hacked?" Virgil asked him
"not yet son. They say they have no clue how they got in without setting off any alarms"Jeff replied
"we'll let Brains and the Mechanic focus on that, we should start debrief," Scott said.
Debrief was over relatively quickly and the brothers wandered off to do their own things, Scott went to the gym, Virgil went to his piano, Gordon went to the pool and Alan decided to play chess with his dad while grandma went off somewhere.
Meanwhile, in Brain's lab, Brains and the Mechanic were still trying to find out how they were hacked
"I-I still don't understand h-h-how they got past your d-d-defences" Brains said
"Neither do I. I built those to make them unhackable. It doesn't make any sense" the Mechanic agreed, suddenly a monitor beeped and displaced a holographic image of the octagram
"w-what should we do?"
"I say we tap it" the Mechanic reached over and tapped the octagram and it immediately disappeared and displayed Mike who was in his outfit.
"aww, it appears that the great scientist behind International rescue needed help from a former villain" Mike mocked him, smirking as brains frowned
"I was being controlled. That does not make me a villain" the Mechanic growled
"Whatever you say!" Mike said smirking and raised his hands in surrender
"what d-d-do you w-w-want?" Brains demanded trying to hide the fear in his voice
"that's cute. The engineer trying to be brave, how adorable. As to your question for what I want, what I want is to give you a riddle of where we're going to strike next" Mike answered
"why?" the Mechanic asked suspiciously
"well, it wouldn't be a fun game if International rescue didn't take part now would it? Now listen carefully... you have 24 hrs to solve the riddle, once you do all you have to do is figure out what we want from there. If you do; we'll give you a clue on where the hood is hiding. Good luck" with that the transmission cut off leaving Brains and the Mechanic staring at the empty holoprojector.
ok, so the riddle will be revealed in the next chapter because I need to figure out what they're going to steal and from where. if you have any suggestions please write them in the comments