Many thanks, Bow Echo, Tikatu, Creative Girl, Susan, Thunderbird Shadow, Whirl Girl and Akimakel, for your reviews. Been quite the busy week, but I found some time to write, even so. Thank you for coming along for the ride. Edited! =)
10
Manhattan, now a very much dead and forbidden zone-
On the bright side, being stuck in a trashed and half-collapsed subway, with most of a giant shark and two sick explorers beat freezing to death in an undersea ballroom. On the other hand, not by much. Pushing thoughts of 'what the h*ll' and 'how' out of his head, John stepped away from the enthusiastic Pendergasts, who were playing their camera lights over that poor, tattered megalodon. Or, you know… what was left of it.
"Crikey!" Buddy exclaimed, leaning dangerously out past the edge of their concrete ledge for a better shot. "Somethin's done f'r this wretched beastie, alright… somethin' enormous and 'ungry, from the looks of it, eh, Luv?"
"Too right, Buddy!" Ellie shot back, leaning into camera range and widening her large blue eyes, for effect. "Our sewer croc must be a salty, or she'd not 'ave been able t' drag the mighty megaldon down to 'er lair in the subway."
"Bloody oath!" Buddy agreed. "A 'uge an' powerful salty, stalkin' the lower reaches o' this dead and decaying city! Where is she now? Are there more n' one? today, I'll risk my life, t' find out!"
John opened his mouth to say something, then shut it, again. Wandered further down the ledge, instead, meaning to dry off and look around. Picked his way past rubble and bones, in the night-vision glow of the Pendergast's cameras. There had to be a way out, somewhere, he figured. After all, the air was reasonably fresh, and the water levels continued to drop.
Behind him, Buddy and Ellie were still filming, building up a wild tale of "Primal Conflict in the Radioactive Bowels of New York". Because, sure… why not? In the meantime, John set his mind to getting them out of there, before that vile, weaponised mix of radiation and pathogens killed them all.
His wrist comm was fritzing, but John thought he got a flicker of contact, at one point. Too much depth and interference to be positive, though. Needed to reach the surface. Question was, how?
There were crushed metal gates and badly bent cage turnstiles at one end of their tunnel. Only rubble, beyond. Slabs of concrete ceiling and a badly jack-knifed W train blocked the way, further down in the other direction. He felt some air circulation, though. They weren't entirely sealed in.
Buddy's footsteps made a particular sound; always fast, with one meat thump, and one sharp, metallic scrape. Now, that noise was approaching his position from down-tunnel, so John turned around.
"Oy! Found 'er slipway, yet, Bluey?" asked the grinning explorer, using his red wool cap to mop at a sweaty brow. "Figure she's gotta 'ave a way in an' out of 'er lair. Oughta look like a ruddy great slide. Smoothed like glass by 'er belly, if you take my meaning."
The astronaut could have said a lot of things, then, but he settled for,
"Still looking," and accepted the chocolate protein bar and filtered water that Buddy held out. Surprisingly, he was sort of hungry. "Thanks," John grunted, starting in on the food. Then, "How did you two end up here?" he asked, as they began making their way back across broken stone, twisted rails, and that crushed train, which resembled the letter M, or a rusted and buckled mountain range.
"Same as you, Mate… unless th' croc brung you. Flash o' light, nuthin', then BANG, back in th' thick of adventure."
…Which was okay as far as it went, but the 'why' still bugged him. If the transport device had failed, why would it take Buddy and Ellie exactly where they most wanted to be? And why send John right in there after them? Why had any of them rematerialised, at all? More than just random chance was at play here, John figured, though the rationale eluded him.
Ellie 'd been playing her light around those cracked tunnel walls, setting up an establishing shot, or something. Now, as John and Buddy rejoined her, the red-orange beam stopped moving.
"Buddy!" she sort of hiss-whispered. "Come 'ave a Captain Cook at this."
The dark-haired explorer nudged John with a quick 'I told you so' elbow, then picked up his pace. And, d*mned if it wasn't right there: a somewhat muddied, flattened ramp leading upward, maybe twelve feet broad by ten high.
John's first thought was: sh*t. His second was: Time to leave. Because, whatever had made that slipway was big, and likely to come back for a meal of nicely ripening shark and eager explorers. Buddy, on the other hand, had taken one look and then cut right back into video-hero mode.
"You guessed it, Cobbers!" he enthused. "We've stumbled onto the Elusive New York Sewer Croc's lair! Take a look at th' size o' that slipway! Must be a real beaut, eh, Luv?"
"Right you are, Buddy… and 'ungry, too! Ready t' lay 'er eggs, I'd wager. Better yet, we'll be right 'ere on top of 'er, when she comes 'ome to tea!"
The words 'No f*cking way' slid through his mind, briefly, but John only shifted out of camera range and said,
"Wouldn't it make more sense to watch from a distance, by remote cam? You've got one of those, haven't you?"
Buddy made a sudden 'cut video' gesture with one hand across his throat, causing Ellie to switch off their camera. Standing there in that red-lit, shark-stinking tunnel, the explorer said,
"That, Bluey, is what everyone else does; sends in robot probes an' remote video cams. What sets me an' th' missus apart is, we puts our blue-ribbon arses on th' line, ourselves. When I says, 'Today, I'll risk my life ta find out'… Well, that ain't just yabber. It's the dead-set truth."
Ellie had come over to place a slightly damp, feverish hand on John's arm, where the pushed-up sleeve laid it bare. Now, she said,
"You wouldn't send in no robots to rescue me an' Buddy, would you, Johnnie? Y'd come yourself. It's 'ow y'r mind works. See, I figure that transporter got itself a 'uge power load, without no instructions. Could send anyone pretty near anywhere… which is why we headed straight f'r our dream explo: New York City! You… Well, Chookie, you must've been worried f'r us, and so off you got sent. Make sense?"
As much as anything else in this crazy-ass mess. John gave her a cautious nod, knowing that one of the very first symptoms was manic, disordered thinking. Said Buddy,
"Now, we can edit you out o' th' footage, Bluey, if y'd rather not be along f'r our greatest triumph… or, you c'n face the unknown, with Buddy an' Ellie! What's y'r preference, Mate?"
Like he had a choice? John sighed. Ran a hand through his red-golden hair, too, unconsciously mirroring dad.
"Gordon would kill to be here, instead of me," he said. Then, "Okay. I'm in, but I reserve the right to say: no way in h*ll, and have you two listen and follow directions. Understood?"
Ellie lunged forward to hug him, while Buddy slapped at his still-soggy back.
"Knew y'd see it our way!" the blonde murmured, stretching upward to kiss his cheek. Her lips felt cracked and hot against John's abraded, salt-stung flesh.
Buddy rubbed both hands together, brisk and energized as though he were back on a sound-stage, somewhere, instead of a shoot-on-sight quarantine zone.
"Righto. We got our cameras, and a big chunk o' leftover catch f'r bait. All we need t' do now is lie low n' wait f'r 'erself t' come 'ome."
Well… that, and deal with some not-very-elusive giant New York subway rats.
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
The deep ocean, over a troubled and crumpling city-
They'd hit water, hard. Then, when the pod stopped sloshing around quite so much (and Chip quit shrieking 'Wooooooh!') the giant door slammed open, with a noise like a clattering landslide. It was dark, outside, with towering waves and weird, flashing lights in the water.
Moving with mechanical efficiency, Gordon Tracy ran a last-minute systems-check, sent Virgil the 'all clear', and then triggered 4's launch sequence. (Not much to it, really; two taps and a print-scan.)
"Hang on tight, Chipper," he advised. "This is the fun part."
The Water Bird's engines hummed to life; quiet, for all their immense power. Then, the pod lights dimmed, and those magnetic clamps switched off, freeing the sub to move. Next, with all the fluid grace of a diving cormorant, Thunderbird 4 slid down ramp. She plunged into her element with a rush of bubbles and steering jets, force shields breaking the water ahead of her.
In seconds, they went from star-and-floodlit night, to enveloping ocean. For Gordon, it was like a sudden embrace. See, he could feel and 'taste' the ocean, through hull sensors and contact pads in the steering assembly. That little skill had saved his life, more than once.
Now, he reached out through the currents, just hanging still a moment, to let the water bring him its messages. Not much, at first. There was the usual soup of sea-life, brine and mechanical flavours, plus… something different. Something like a plume of minerals, coming from far below. Nodding to himself, Gordon cut on the Bird's lights, and then fired a comm buoy.
"I'm in," he told Virgil. "Heading down for a look."
Said his brother,
"Right. Listen, Kiddo, there's a problem with your video feed. It's getting some kind of interference, picking up multiple images, from Base. Until we get that worked out, I'm gonna keep you on local ears-only, and I'll tune in when you click the mic. Got it?"
Gordon glanced over at Charlie, who was staring outside at swirling green water, completely fascinated. Even Scruff seemed intrigued; one plaid paw on Chip's shoulder, nose twitching alertly.
"Got it," responded the aquanaut. "Hate for people to get the wrong idea." Like, that he'd picked up a couple of under-sized stowaways. Sounding distracted, Virgil said,
"Stay safe down there, Gordon. Call in, as soon as you've got some intel. There's a pretty serious charge build-up near Pacifica City. Don't know what's going on, but I don't like it."
Gordon nodded. Signaling Chip to stay quiet, he said,
"Will do, Thunderbird 2. See you topside, in a bit."
Then, less piloting a sub than operating a smooth second skin, Gordon plunged downward. Charlie sat quietly for a bit, hugging his biodroid rabbit. At about a thousand feet, he waved his hand to ask a question.
Gordon looked over, saw that his young son had his mouth tightly clamped, with lips folded inward, in exaggerated 'not one word out of me' mode. Also, Chip was pointing from his shut mouth to Gordon, sort of urgently. So, smiling a little, the swimmer said,
"Gotta go? There's a head in the back. Remember to flush, and wash up."
Chip shook his head, causing brown hair to flop wildly.
"No, Sir… I just was thinking… how come in space we could float inside the ship, but not here? I could float in the pool an' the bathtub, right?"
Gordon smiled again, reaching across to muss Charlie's hair even further.
"The Bird floats in water because the ocean's pretty dense, not because there's no gravity, Chip. Out in space, everything floats or free-falls, because we're away from the planet, so nothing's pulling us down. There's a difference."
Charlie considered that. Still hugging the chubby plaid rabbit, he said,
"Water makes me go up, like in space… but not in here, 'cause there's no water inside."
"Yeah," his father agreed. "And I'd like to keep it that way. Water inside a submarine is bad, with a capital sh… crap. Trick is to get the job done, and save that city, without getting sunk in the process. It's an art."
Once again, Charlie took his time to consider, looking from swirling ocean to sandy-haired aquanaut. After a minute, he said,
"When I grow up, I'm gonna be just like you, Dad. I'm gonna help people, an' I won't get mad, when somebody's sorry what they did wrong."
Okay… he hadn't been ready for that one. Gordon cleared his throat.
"Well, Kiddo," he mused, "It would help a lot if you didn't take risks or break family rules… but I'm a fine one to talk. Guess I've had this coming, for all the times I scared everyone else right out of their socks."
Chip cocked his head.
"You was bad, sometimes, too, Dad?" he asked.
Sometimes? More like: the only crap he didn't get in trouble for, was the stuff they hadn't found out about, yet.
"Uh… once or twice. But I learned my lesson." Like, just now.
Charlie nodded, seeming satisfied.
"Me, too," he said, as Thunderbird 4 followed that plume of dark minerals, ever downward. "I learned my lesson, too, Dad. Nobody's more better good than me an' Scruff." After that, the boy fell to asking more 'why', 'what's that', and 'how' questions, until the city came into view.
The former research station was half-crumpled; unlit except for a few red emergency battle-lanterns. She tottered at the lip of a gaping trench, with plumes of super-hot, smoky black water rising around like a vision of hell. The perma-glass dome seemed intact, still; protected by a shimmering bubble of force.
Gordon pushed forward on the yoke, nudging further downward. They were close to the Bird's depth limit, at that point… but Brains never designed anything without redundant systems and multiple failsafes. Gordon wasn't especially concerned for himself. Chip, on the other hand, needed to suit up.
"Okay, Buddy," said his father, cutting around to circle and scan the endangered city. "There's a couple of sets of underwater survival gear in the back. Look for a locker by the head, marked in big, black letters. Open it up, find a suit that fits you, and put it on."
"Yes, Sir!" replied Charlie, squirming right out of his nylon seat straps. "What about Scruff? He needs a suit, too, right, Dad? Right, he needs one?"
"Well," Gordon temporized, while keeping his focus forward, and trying to get through to John, "I'm pretty sure that Scruff can fit in there with you, Big Guy. He'll probably feel safer, that way."
Fortunately, Charlie was experienced at suiting up. He'd spent enough time on Mars and in orbit, to learn the ropes of basic survival. Was quick to catch on, here, too. Gordon had been sending his scans up to Virgil, in Thunderbird 2. They were in contact, when that next mighty power-flare lit up the dark sea, like a storm underwater.