Hi, there... And thanks, Tikatu, Bow Echo, Susan and Whirl Girl, for reviewing. Hope it's as much fun to read, as it has been to write. =)

18

Also in transit, and seeking a lair-

There were rumours flashing through the criminal underworld, that he had bargained with the Chaos Crew, taken their tech, and then killed the double-crossing brats, just to avoid paying up. Loose talk. Completely false and irritating (though it toughened his reputation still further).

The Mechanic had no quarrel at all with being thought murderous. In fact, he encouraged terror and dread in those huddled beneath him. But being accused of cheating at business was another matter, entirely. One he took very seriously. Whoever had robbed those enhanced, out-of-control pests had attempted to shift the blame onto Kane. That made him… or her, the Mechanic wasn't squeamish… a walking corpse. Only question was who, and how soon.

Well, data followed paths, and if it was sent, that packet would have been picked up, somewhere. Kane could easily trace the recipient of those stolen plans, and then, he'd go hunting. Have fun putting a full, bloody stop to an effing idiot.

Had to build himself a stronghold first, though; a place from which to launch his bid for power. At the moment, Kane was on the move. He stood in the cockpit of another stolen cargo jet; legs braced wide on the deck, jacked into the plane's systems, deep as a knife in a wound. The children… Ilya, Katrin… were playing in the back, rummaging through crates and luggage for whatever took their fancy. Kane left them to it, having locked up the flight crew, and needing time to think.

The ocean was a given. He required access to its mineral resources, as well as cover for some of his larger projects. Relative isolation was a must, as well. Neighbors tended to end up dead, and that drew needless attention. Also had to have wide-open skies, with little satellite coverage, because what the GDF didn't know, would help them sleep at night… until he decided to kill them all.

Too, there was the issue of prior claim. Antarctica 'belonged' to the sneaking Kyranos. South America, to the De la Vegas, Japan to the shape-shifting Hiros, and England to the Beeches, while Canada was held by the Harris family. Scotland, of course, belonged to the Mother of Cyborgs. Nobody counted the Tracys and their pitiful island. As for the few remaining time-benders, their bolt-holes weren't deep enough to hide them from Kane… Except, of course, for the one being sheltered by Dumbass. He was off limits. For now.

At any rate, the Mechanic never pondered for very long. He was a creature of action. Always had been. New Zealand, he decided, with typical suddenness. Close enough to the Kyranos and Tracys to make them nervous, but not near enough to encourage trespass. Pancake Rocks, because the name appealed to his sense of humor.

"South," the cyborg grunted, making a slight, left-handed gesture. The plane's engine noise changed as it banked obediently, already grown half aware. Half alive. Good core for a Hive Ship, maybe. After all, a man had to start somewhere, and he could always gift that terrified flight crew to the Tracys. They'd probably jump at the chance to welcome another influx of Goddam…

?

Squinting, the Mechanic filtered out most of those incoming signals, striving to isolate a single, particular thread in the torrent of data. 'Hunh', he thought, after teasing it out.

Just traffic noise, maybe, but one of the Tracys' vehicles looked to be in distress. D*mn close to crashing. Thunderbird 2, it was; the green one relating to Virgil. Kane hesitated, poised between thought and conclusion, impulse and act.

This was a critical moment for Evan Kane, because a decision had got to be made; whether to butt in, or let the 'friend' fight his own d*mn battle. Stand or fall, without crippling aid. It was not a simple decision for one who'd fought his way to dominance. More, the choice would colour everything else that happened, thereafter.

XXXXXXXXXX

Thunderbird 3, heading north, away from Tracy Island-

Track the power surge, find the Pendergasts. Easy, right? Except that, no, it totally wasn't. Alan could pick up that burst of data from Kyoto, Japan. It was a HUGE packet, because complete info on two people… down to the lint in their pockets and thoughts in their heads… took up a crap-ton of bandwidth. Like following the track of a six-ton boulder, rolling downhill. Out through the aether that signal had flashed, moving at the speed of light. Then, after a sudden power outage and violent surge, it had just disappeared; not received any place that Alan R. Tracy could find.

"Dang it!" he snapped, slamming the rocket's instrument panel. "Where did they go?"

Pip had been watching him work, craning around in the copilot's seat to stare at that unhelpful holograph map. Only, he was coming up with a whole lot of nothing, because those explorers were nowhere at all. Then,

"A-T…" Piper mused, squinting her deep-blue eyes.

"Yeah?" grumped the youngest Tracy, pretty close to his wit's end.

"What're all those blank places on the map? Up there, in the Territories, and out there in Scotland and India? Why are they fuzzy, like that?" See, she'd paid close attention in history class, and geography, too… Had heard not a word about 'dark zones'.

"Um…" Alan hedged, sort of accidentally-on-purpose cutting off his stupid body cam. "They're no-fly, no-go quarantine sites. Scars, sort of, left over from the old conflicts. Nobody crosses that border, Pip, trust me. If they do, they sure as heck don't come back. There's, like, no way at all they would've gone there."

The girl cocked her head like a cute, puzzled kitten.

"Are you sure, A-T? I mean, what if the transport signal got bounced to a blank spot, only nobody's found it, 'cause nobody's thought to just frickin' look."

Alan started to say something smart and experienced, then fell silent; thinking. After a second or two, he switched to comm and said,

"Hey, Dad…? I mean: Thunderbird 5, from Thunderbird 3."

The comm crackled, briefly, as ocean rolled by underneath them, and the sky lightened to water-color pink in the east. Sunrise with Piper.

"Go ahead, 3," came the Colonel's deep voice, making the girl go all wide-eyed and quiet.

"Yessir. Got a request for you. Could you, um… shoot me some satellite feeds of the quarantine zones? Specifically, looking for any sudden power-flares or physical manifestations?"

Piper fairly bounced in her seat, happy to have come up with maybe part of the answer. Meanwhile, his father said,

"I'm checking, Son. Most of this data is tightly encrypted, though. Tough to hack."

John could have done it in seconds, but nobody said so, being far too wise. Then,

"Bingo! It's a lot of territory, covered by seeker-drones and high-altitude pollution sweepers, but… I see a couple of possibles. One over Manhattan, New York, not too long ago… one in Antarctica, by Ross Island… and, uh… tough to be sure, but a very faint ripple below ground, in New York, again. You think that our missing explorers turned up there?" asked the Colonel, in a voice that crackled with unconcealed stress. He was, needless to say, on the coded family network.

"Yes, Sir. I… we think it's possible their signal got bounced to a quarantine zone, and that's how come nobody's found them, yet," Alan suggested, glancing across at Pip. She gave him a wink, causing Alan to snort back a laugh. Dad wasn't finding things funny, though. Not at all.

Jeff Tracy cursed, with a depth of feeling generally reserved for plane wrecks and government drop-ins.

"Okay… right. Let me think this through, Alan. Fly a holding pattern at forty-thousand feet, while I work on getting you clearance. Do not… repeat, NOT, under any circumstances, attempt to violate one of those borders. Am I understood, Son?"

The young astronaut scowled but managed a grudging nod. The fact that he and Piper had both reflexively crossed their fingers while doing so stayed completely unnoticed, because the conversation was vox-only.

"Understood, Sir," Alan responded, with a wild and unwilling heart. "We'll wait for clearance." Or, a call for help. Whichever came first.

XXXXXXXXXX

Tracy Island, down in the sprawling lab complex-

Vanessa Moffat-Hackenbacker was sick. Again. Could hold nothing down but ramen noodles and unsweetened iced tea. This did not stop her from working, though. Even if her husband did treat her like fragile, explosive crystal. Kept trying to make her go back to their suite and lie down.

"No, Dear," she'd told him, more than once. "I am one-hundred percent still your research partner and fellow scientist, even if also your wife. I may have suspended returning to Bonn, but that does not mean that I've given up working."

Darling Hiram had some decidedly antiquarian notions of pregnant female safety. He'd agreed (mostly to keep her from getting upset, Moffy feared) but had let her actually do very little. Now, to top things off, his young lab assistant had come back, pushing Doctor Moffat still further away from the action.

"Mister Brain," yodeled Caleb, loping into that vast, flood-lit chamber, "I'm here to help out! Training's over, and they don't really need me, upstairs."

Hiram looked up from tinkering with the transport disk's control panel. Her handsome, brilliant, incredibly tender and loving, rump-headed husband straightened right up, and actually smiled.

"G- Good! That is, ah… is v- very good, Caleb. Dearest, you m- may now…"

"No," snapped Vanessa, fighting exhaustion and nausea as she got to her swollen feet. "I may not! Not go lie down, not have a nice, soothing bath, not get out of the way like a good little wife! Hiram, I was a particle physicist before we got married, and I remain one, now. This baby…" Moffy placed both hands protectively over her slightly curved midsection, "…is not our sole collaboration, Doctor."

Hiram took a sharp, sudden breath and then blinked; the large brown eyes behind those spectacles at once concerned, and very proud.

"Of c- course, Moffy," he soothed, smiling at her. "And th- thank you for, ah… for r- reminding me of this fact."

Right. Vanessa's own blue eyes went all at once narrow and flinty.

"Don't you dare humour me, Hiram Hackenbacker," she growled, feeling ready to cry, and throw up.

Utterly distracted, neither scientist noticed young Caleb, who was walking around that large, faintly humming neutronium transport disk. It was nearly complete. Just about ready to test… if they'd had a destination in mind, and a subject willing to face such a risk.

Someone, maybe, who'd done a little research, and knew the exact spacetime coordinates for Earth, seven-hundred years in the future. Someone with nothing to lose but a broken and aching heart.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Thunderbird Prototype, coming in fast and hot-

Captain Lee Cooper Taylor flew that Bird like he'd stolen it, entering the atmosphere between two lumbering freighters and a GDF mine-sweeper. Had to turn the ship on end to squeeze through there, but made it past with no more than a shriek and flare of repelling shields, whooping like a kid the whole way. Then,

"'Scuse me, Fellers," he'd commed, "and Ladies," (because one of those freighters 'd had a female pilot with a vivid and spicy vocabulary). "Comin' through!"

Pacific-West traffic was backed up for half an AU thanks to that Snafu in Japan, only Lee didn't have time to wait his turn. Not with trouble stirring down below, and his boys at desperate risk.

"You c'n direct all compliments, complaints and insurance claims ta Colonel Linda Casey, at the GDF Tower," added the handsome old astronaut, weaving through thousands of miles of stalled traffic. Figured he'd wait to call home till he had the danger zone in sight and could do something to reassure Beth.

"Mike," said Taylor, to the Minimax hovering at his right shoulder. "Round up some a' y'r pals and form us a big, powered rescue bell. If'n them GDF subs don't get there in time, we're gonna need a Plan B."

…And C, as it turned out.