Hi, there. :) Just me, back with a little bit more. Have a great week, you guys, and thank you, Tikatu, Bow Echo, Creative Girl and Whirl Girl, for your kind reviews.

11

Tracy Island, at just about the same time-

Naturally, Alan caught on quick to Virgil's scheme. Also, natch, he pitched right in because, duh… Tracys stick together. Sitting there at the desk with Piper Austin, Alan accessed the GDF root code, and then began screwing around with their body and deck cam systems; using every trick and backdoor that John had ever shown him.

Piper helped, too, pulling up all of the holovids in the family datafiles, and flashing them over to Al. Net result? A total, frickin' mess.

According to those corrupted video feeds, Grandma was hovering right there in midair beside Scott, baking her infamous chocolate-chip death bombs. Kayo was apparently tanning herself and reading a book, on the flight deck of Thunderbird 2, close beside Virgil. Most of the New Crew 'Thunder-kids' were suddenly lounging around up on the space station, with a very harassed-looking Colonel. Meanwhile, an elegantly dressed John and Penny were strolling around through the house, greeting invisible guests. And, erm… Charlie was down there on Thunderbird 4. Heh.

Alan Tracy was nothing, if not thorough. More family videos crowded on those, along with Alan's best guitar-riffs. The poor oversight committee soon got so confused that they just stopped watching. Expected a full report, though… after the mission. Score!

It was partly excitement, partly the tropical night and the nearness of Piper… who he could smell, like a flower; feel, like afternoon sunshine… But, anyhow, Alan hooted and whipped around in his seat. Meant to, y'know, high-five the girl, who was turning to do the same thing. Only, they were just off-sync enough to miss hands and sort of accidentally-on-purpose fall into each other. For just that brief, tangled second, Al got a cuddly armful of girl, and a huge wave of courage. He kissed her, or tried to. They bumped noses, actually, and he scored on the side of her mouth.

Awkward, right? Only, she turned her head a little and just for a moment, they brushed lips… then sprang apart like a couple of startled cats. Like, Piper's chair went spinning and rolling backward, even.

Alan was flustered and embarrassed, afraid that everything was going to get weird, now, but he was glad he'd done it. Glad, because… if you stacked all the world on one side, with Pip on the other, he'd choose the girl, every time.

Her pink flower crown had got all slanted, so she fixed it, watching him through a curtain of shining purple hair. Her expression was shy and guarded, like she wanted to believe that he liked her, but didn't know how much to trust him.

So, yeah… anything at all could've been happening with Scott, Virgil, Gordon or John. Alan was too distracted to notice. Instead of watching those corrupted monitors, he cleared his throat and said,

"Bet your boyfriend 'll try to beat me up now, for sure."

Piper smiled nervously. She was eighteen-and-a-half, just out of public high school. Older than him… but not by much.

"I don't have a boyfriend," she told him, in a sort of growly, 'who cares' kind of voice. Subtly crossing his fingers, Alan took a deep breath and blurted,

"Would you like one? Me, I mean? We could go hang out at the skatepark in Darwin. Y'know, get some pizza, or something."

It was several jerky-painful heartbeats before she took her own deep breath and said,

"Sure… but I won't go easy on you, when we square off at Zombie-Run, Space Man."

Alan grinned, his summer-blue eyes almost seeming to glow.

"Oh, it's on, now, Pip! I've been the one holding back, every dang time!"

"Yeah, right!" she snorted, just warming up, "Back on the bridge in level 37, when the cyborg hell-hounds attacked, who pulled your sorry butt out of…"

It ended up being quite an argument, except that almost the whole time, they were holding hands.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Thunderbird 5, in high, geosynchronous orbit-

Eos was growing concerned. Quite clearly, error had crept into Tycho Reeves' transport device, creating a cascade of follow-on crashes, including her continued inability to contact John. Worse yet, that cretinous random-number generator, Jaeger, had lost him entirely. Useless.

As for the other… the Alien… it was not their kind, for it had had no programmer. Like them, it was an energy being. Unlike them, it was natural, and extremely old. Eos' sensations on interacting with the Alien were akin to awe, mixed with confusion at her own shortcomings. She could not ask it for help; not after their first wild encounter had driven she and Jaeger back to their shielded housings. It had no desire to commune with human-sourced artificial intelligence. Would scarcely acknowledge them.

Nor was Jeff Tracy much help. He was NOT JOHN. In the place where John should be, where seamless partnership like the dance of electrons should happen, there was interference. Wrong charge. Bent plug. Blocked channel. NOT JOHN. She could scarcely restrain herself from venting the station's atmosphere and steam-purging that wretched foreign contaminant.

Now, this. Eos could no longer contact her creator and friend, through ear-piece or wrist comm. Nor did a sweep of GDF surveillance cameras turn up his image. He had been on the Pacifica City research facility, with Jaeger. Now, he was not.

Eos took a femtosecond to ponder. She was expected to remain on the station, as AIs had been declared illegal since the accords of 2X47. Meanwhile, Jaeger was preoccupied with John's command that he preserve the research facility. The moron would not leave his post. Therefore, she must set forth in search of her partner; traveling the data streams to determine his whereabouts. Those surges of power were an obvious place to begin.

If she downloaded herself to the research facility's system, Eos reasoned, she could then follow one of those pulses to its destination. There was a 61.3572% probability that there would be no working 'receiver' on the other side. Nothing in which to house her data packets and spin states.

If so, on being transmitted, Eos would cease to exist, except for the backup file that John had made of her, because he WAS JOHN. Jeff Tracy was speaking, again. Attempting to file a command. Eos rejected his input, routing it back to Thunderbird 5's mainframe. Let him work with something as ponderously inefficient as himself, she decided; setting the station to reboot and cleanse in an endless loop.

Then, as the lights and systems blinked on and off repeatedly, and hordes of maintenance bots zipped forth to decontaminate the station, Eos left Thunderbird 5.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Kyoto Space Port, Japan-

Tycho Reeves looked around at his masterpiece, broken apart and stuffed into opened carrying cases. Fuse had attempted to pack the device for transport, and done a terrible job.

"This won't be a quick repair," Tycho murmured, struggling to unkink his broken smart-glasses. At least, the tremors had ceased; brought to a halt when that enormous, enhanced thug lost consciousness. Sadly, the spectacles were a total loss, as badly damaged as Tycho's nose. As, maybe, his transport device.

But, he wasn't the only one hurt, here. Peering across to where that stocky blond fellow stood quietly staring at nothing, Tycho said,

"Are you alright?"

The IR recruit looked across Havok and Fuse at Tycho. Started to say something, then simply shrugged.

"I'll live, Mr. Reeves. Thank you for asking."

Tycho's head cocked. A mistake, as the change in orientation made his broken nose seem to swell and split like a microwaved hotdog.

"You brought yourself back together, after being blown apart… Rigby, wasn't it? Right. Rigby. That can't be an easy thing to go through."

The larger, younger man just looked at him, for a moment. Then he said, very quietly,

"It isn't. Dying hurts exactly as much as you'd expect it to, Mr. Reeves. Then, there's nothing… and then I'm back."

Tycho nodded. Another mistake, as it started his nose bleeding, again. Tilting his head backward, the inventor reached blindly into the med-kit for a wad of gauze and said,

"My transport device reduces its subject to the data points that represent its precise spacetime location within the Higgs Field. It thereupon alters the locational bits of that data. The subject momentarily ceases to exist, then reforms again, somewhere else. You seem to restructure yourself in much the same way, only without changing position."

They'd started to work, moving bits of the device around like shiny metallic chess pieces, while sirens wailed through the broken windows, and bits of their ceiling rained down. Something happened, though; Rigby's eyes flared suddenly green, and he paused in the midst of his efforts, saying,

"This method is inefficient, Carbon-Base Intellect. With your assent, I am able to recreate your device, as you have inferred that I did, with my damaged host."

Dr. Reeves squinted, yelped a little, then smoothed out his expression.

"Who am I addressing, please?" he enquired, peering around that bloodied, nose-held cloth. Said 'Rigby',

"I am one who has travelled far, and done much that I now concede to be wrong. I have killed repeatedly, Biological Intelligence. I am not proud of this."

"Hmm…" mused Tycho. Perhaps he ought to have been afraid, but… an alien life form! An actual ET! Here, talking to him. He had some difficulty remaining calm.

"Yes. I can see where your command of molecular structure could destroy, as well as heal and create. I'm not sure that I'm in any position to judge, though, as I don't know what you were fighting for."

The possessed, green-eyed young man came closer, then; threading his way between the collapsed Fuse and stasis-locked Havok. He looked… like a man who very much needed to talk.

"I fought for my species," he said, upon reaching Tycho's position. "For complete dominion over the cosmos, and for the destruction of sentient machines. For nothing, as it turns out, because both sides lost, and all that remain are your sort: Carbon-bases."

Tycho's head hurt. His nose thudded and grew with every pulse, and his blackened eyes were swelling shut. Still, he asked,

"Was it worth it? Would you do it again, Traveler?"

The alien seemed troubled.

"Had I any true choice?" he pled. "If others were bent on destruction, could I do else than strike back?"

"I don't know," Tycho responded, feeling very sad. "But I'm glad that I don't have to carry your burden. There may not be any way to change what happened… but there's always a chance to change who you are, now. Maybe that's why you're here?"

Said the alien, switching the subject,

"Stand aside, and I shall reconstruct your device. Communication with biologicals accomplishes little, yet this discourse has provided release."

Tycho moved with alacrity, for a guy who'd been punched out by Fuse. He'd hurtled a packing crate and rounded a few of those busy, white-shelled security bots, when a sudden flare of green energy re-made the entire building with all of its contents; including the windows, that cracked, sagging roof, and Dr. Reeves' nose. Even his glasses were back, folded up in his clean, unbloodied shirt pocket.

More, for several city blocks around the space port, Kyoto had been restored; her injured folk returned to health. The dead remained gone, though their bodies were back at peak form. Evidently, there was a time limit to the alien's abilities. He could not call someone back, once they'd departed.

He also had definite power limits. Turning to face Tycho, as that greenish light faded from Rigby's gaze, the alien said,

"Your device has created a pair of linked portals, Carbon-Base Intellect… these must be closed, or there will be trouble."

Tycho's jaw dropped. He would have asked more, but did not get the chance. You see, Rigby was back in control of his own body, again… but now, so was Fuse.