Thank you. :)
22
Manhattan Island, in wild and trying circumstances-
Scraping, clopping and sometimes hissing its vented gases, the pollution sweeper circled overhead; lit up by a sparse handful of pale LEDs. Green on one side, bug-spattered white on the other. John's attention lay elsewhere, though. Rather than watching the gourd-like sweeper, his gaze was locked to a tight little grouping of hurtling lights. Might be his exopod. Might not. No way to be sure until way past the commitment point; when all he could do to escape was jump over-side and hope that a hungry plant didn't snap him up, on the way down.
No real weapons… Buddy and Ellie had those… so he'd have to out-think, out-science, whatever was speeding his way with trouble in mind. Wished his head didn't hurt; that he didn't feel so much like just throwing up and collapsing.
Yeah… so, staring hard at that small, fast-moving constellation of blinking lights, John decided that it matched his image of the exopod. Only, there was a swarm of other devices right behind and above his maybe space-armour. Security drones?
Frowning, John stepped closer to the building's ragged edge and pressed his wrist comm, again. One little chirp, that's all. Enough to guide it on in. Then, he got ready to jump, turning to sprint in the same direction that his swooping exopod was headed. Would have triggered 'distort' again, but he really needed his armour to find him.
Some kind of particle beam shot out from behind the exopod, melting the floor at John's racing feet. He dove past the steaming new gap, rolled, and came up running once more, somewhat peppered with gravel and glass shards. Coughing blood, by that point, which was very much a bad sign. He heard the low hum of pursuing machinery and the sizzling noise of that red-and-white beacon, as well as his own hoarse breath and pounding footsteps. Cut across the truncated building, moving fast and staying low. Then his exopod arrived, dropping onto the speeding astronaut like the claw in a prize machine. With a series of sharp snaps, the flight gear locked onto his legs and closed tight round his ribcage, its twin wings spreading out with a brief and business-like whirr.
One step, running. Second long stride, getting locked into place by cold, hard metal and contact plates. Third, no step at all. Just a wild, soaring lunge into open air, over that serrated plate-glass wall. Hand controls found him, rather than the other way around, seeming to grow right into his grip on both sides.
Air was f*cking thick with armed security drones and something else… probes, it looked like, from Thunderbird 5. Eos must have found a way to help out, the astronaut figured. Had to twist and dodge to avoid crisscrossing lasers. Those beeping reconnaissance mechs behaved like a flock of starlings at a spaceport, meanwhile, blocking one laser-strike and target lock after another.
John took to the air, swooping well below the battle, at first, then climbing high above it, aiming to reach that patiently circling sweeper. Wind lanced around him; cold and fierce, stinking of sour, radioactive mist.
Then, something big and dark burst from the water below, to snap at him. A fog of rank breath hissed from its slitted nostrils. Dirty froth blew away from a mouth wide enough to stand up and stretch in. Those stained, jagged teeth were eight inches long, at a guess. Missed him. Scored on a drone, instead, which disappeared in that cavernous, fish-reeking maw with a bug-like crunch and a shower of sparks.
John kicked upward off of a mucus-and-algae covered snout. (Scared fairly close to sh*tless, actually, and ready to apologize… h*ll, to kiss Buddy and Ellie straight on the lips.) The… thing… croc, mutant Lipleurodon, whatever… dropped back into the mire below with a window-shattering splash.
On the bright side, less one more close call with a hunting security drone, John did make it up to the hovering sweeper. Just, y'know, before the hole opened up again; this time, much longer and worse.
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Thunderbird 3, somewhat earlier, up in the cockpit-
If you guessed 'Alan Tracy hates to fly holding patterns', step right up and claim your prize*. The youngest astronaut was ready to tear out his golden-blond hair in big, ragged bunches; forced to fly lazy figure-of-eights over the roiling north Pacific. People were missing, hurt, maybe dying, out there. Including some of his brothers.
Piper tried to distract him by talking music and videogames, ordinarily a sure bet to get Al's attention. Not this time, though. He had that tight, burning clench in his stomach that said he was needed somewheres else, right the heck now.
So, y'know, he'd been sliding that holding pattern a little farther north and west with each lazy eight that he carved in the bright-dawning sky. Just sort of accidentally/ on purpose drifting along. Then, two things happened at once. His Bird's hypersensitive comm picked up an exopod launch signal… and then his astronaut brother's transponder designation flashed up on their suddenly active tracking screen: JTSF. Stood for 'John Tracy Space Flight', and usually meant that bro number two had left the station. Except, John wasn't up there, and Dad wasn't trained on the thing.
Alan and Piper looked at each other for a second; sky-blue eyes meeting ocean-dark ones. Then,
"The exopod's heading for John, bet me!" Alan blurted. "Thunderbird 3 might be the only one to pick up on it, 'cause I'm supposed to be John's backup, in case something goes wrong, or he gets lost, out there!"
And, sure enough, that blinking green transponder signal was speeding away from the station as though "oh, crap" quick-summoned. Piper chewed her lip, nodding thoughtfully. Of course, the Colonel had told them to stay put… but nobody seriously expected them to do that, right? Not when they'd just got a real, solid lead on John, and maybe the Pendergasts, too? I mean, right?
And then, to confuse things even more, Thunderbird 5 began launching every single probe she had; all of them heading up and out, straight for the western hemisphere.
"Got any stealth technology, A-T?" Pip asked him, not wanting to just flat out disobey…
Alan grinned at her.
"Are you kidding? Babe, no one but me, Brains and John knows what this Bird can do! Hang on tight, and get ready to be amazed!"
How was he supposed to remember that a fully shielded spacecraft, invisible to all scanners and sensor arrays, would pick up no incoming messages, either?
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Elsewhere-
There were ways that he could fight back; avoid responding to questions. He could turn inward, thinking of dumb, mind-clogging stuff like the exact taste of Penny's sticky-pink lipstick… the way the barbeque grill smelt, after a good scrape-down and cleaning… the feel of a long morning run on the beach. The taste of cold beer on a hot day, in the shifting shade of a palm tree. John's puzzled expression, then sudden, barked laugh, on finally getting a joke. Mucking out the horse stalls. Eating an apple.
There were so many questions; flat, insistent, demanding. They ground away at his mind, giving no respite. No rest. But, he did his best to clog up his thoughts with the sound of Granddad's deep, off-key singing voice. Virgil's piano. Alan's electric guitar on high reverb.
-When did you first meet Dr. Hackenbacker? -
He didn't let himself answer that. Saw Gordon, instead, swimming laps in the pool, performing hundreds of perfect, lane-end flip turns while Alan did cannonballs from the diving board.
-Where did your father find Tanusha? -
Small Kayo, opening presents on her first Unity Day/ Christmas with the family, getting Hello Kitty number one, and a red bicycle with fat white training wheels.
-How and where did you find Colonel Tracy, after his disappearance? -
Leaping up to greet Dad, newly returned from Mars. His rough chin, cigar smell, and warm, strong embrace. Uncle Lee and Pete, Mom and Granddad, back when they'd all still been living and happy.
-Controlled by the Hood, wasn't he? -
Dad, teaching him to fly, on that clear blue warm afternoon, when the sky went on forever, and nothing was ever going to change, or go wrong.
He held on to all of that, because they'd come. They'd know, and they'd find him. All he had to do was hang on and keep fighting.
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* A weekend date with Gordon, an actual worn-by-Scott IR Tee-shirt, a ride in Thunderbird 2, or the chance to get your butt handed to you, playing Alan at Zombie Run. Some restrictions apply, must be a WorldGov citizen to win.