Walk on the Wild Side

By Sapphire

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Chapter 2: Sitting, Waiting, Wishing

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After the darkness of the cave, the lights set up in the 'other' cave, were almost blinding. The narrow space was filled with many different machines, the function of most of them a total mystery to Scott.

As the two brothers stepped through the gate, Brains, who had apparently done some adjustments on one of his gadgets, looked up and smiled. He was the only one they could see, which struck Scott as a little bit strange. He would have expected their 'father' or at least one of his brothers from this dimension to be present to welcome them home.

"It is g-g-good to see you, Scott, Virgil," Brains greeted them.

"I'm sorry, Brains, but we are not, ehr, your Scott and Virgil. There had been some development on our side," Scott informed Brains straight away.

Brains face fell. "Is anybody h-h-hurt?"

Scott sighed. "Yes. I'm sorry, but your Virgil got injured. He should be okay, though, it's only a shoulder wound. Your Scott decided to stay and as we didn't want to explain why there are two of each of us, we thought it best to hide out here."

Brains looked from Scott to Virgil and back. "I see," he said, clearly not happy about the situation.

"Where is everybody?" Scott asked now.

"There has b-b-been a, uh, d-d-development here as well. Some p-people tried to attack the island. So the others, ehr, went to stop th-th-them."

Of course. Scott gave himself a mental slap. He already knew that the development in this dimension and the one he had come from ran more or less parallel, with the one exception of his mother's death in this world and the consequences that had developed from this tragedy. How else was it to explain that he and the Scott from this world had happened to be at the same place at the same time just when the earthquake had opened the access to the gateway? So it made only sense that here the very same pirates that had attacked his home, would also come to the island in this dimension.

"How is everybody? Anybody hurt?"

Brains grinned in a way that could only be described as a feral.

"E-e-everybody is fine. These men didn't even make l-l-landfall. We have some very g-g-good, uh, defences here."

"We sure could have used them on our side," Scott said, relieved to hear that there had been no injuries here.

He filled Brains in on the details of the pirates' attack on his Tracy Island and Brains in turns relayed what this Tracy Island had in terms of defences.

Scott was just about to ask about some more details, when suddenly Brains' wristwatch emitted a loud peep. The engineer lifted his arm to his mouth.

"Brains here."

"Brains," came a tinny voice from the watch. "Dad wants to know if Scott and Virgil have returned by now."

Scott couldn't be sure, as the sound was a little distorted, but he thought is might be his brother John. Scott had learned the last time that in this world John spent a lot of time in International Rescue's very own space station, called Thunderbird 5, working in shifts with Alan.

He wondered how his own John would react to an opportunity like this. John loved space and had complained more than once that even though he was an astronomer and astronaut with NASA, he didn't spend as much time as he would have liked in outer space. On the other hand, John liked to be around people, so spending so much time alone in a tin can floating in orbit around Earth didn't seem like his definition of fun.

"Not, uh, really, John" Brains spoke into his wristwatch, which obviously had a few more functions than just showing the time of day. "There also has been a p-p-pirates' attack on the i-i-island in the other dimension and Virgil got injured. Scott stayed with him, so the other Scott and Virgil have returned here to avoid c-c-complications."

There was a moment silence, and Scott caught a glimpse of the watch face where the tiny face of his middle brother furrowed his brows in concern.

"Okay. I'll inform Dad and the others. Dad wants you to stay put anyway for now. Some troops from WASP have showed up and Dad had called operation cover-up into motion until he can get rid of them. He says that he probably can keep them out of your hair, but to keep a sharp eye out for them just in case."

"FAB, John."

John cut the connection and Brains' watch returned to look like any normal watch.

They made themselves comfortable. Brains went back to fiddling with his machines, while Scott and Virgil sat on some handy boulders close to the entrance of the cave.

Virgil leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. The fingertips of his hands were pressed together, only the index fingers beating a mindless rhythm against each other.

Only now Scott registered how quiet Virgil had been since they had left the house. There had been barely a word from the normally so open brother. Scott would have expected him to ask thousands of questions of Brains, wanting to know everything about how the gateway was working, how Brains had found out about it, and what all those machines in the cave where doing.

It wasn't that Scott a sloth in the brain department. He had a degree in engineering from Princeton and there wasn't a part on any plane in the world he couldn't take apart and put back together making it work better than before. But his true love was -- and always would be -- flying, the faster, the better.

Virgil, on the other hand, was the builder in the family. He had a Master of Science from MIT and had had several offers to stay there and work on a doctorate. But he had declined and instead had chosen to join Tracy Industries in the capacity of a designer. Even though Dad had been thrilled when Virgil had decided to work for the family business, he hadn't played any favours and Virgil had had to work his way up to his current position of head engineer and designer for the aviation section. The fact that he had excellent instincts for what worked and what wouldn't, combined with a nose for what simply looked good, had already led to three hugely commercially successful planes off the lines of Tracy Industry. The latest one, the TI 2070, looked to be just as successful once it would hit the market. Scott had flown the bird in the test phase and he absolutely loved it.

For Virgil to be so silent around so many interesting machines, something had to be wrong.

"What's up, little bro'?" he asked quietly.

"I'm fine, Scott," came the subdued reply from Virgil.

Uhoh, the famous 'I'm fine' quote. Whenever somebody in the family said those words, Scott's internal alarm bells went off ringing loudly. Because in ninety-nine percent of all cases the person uttering those words was anything but fine.

He cast a worried glance at his younger brother, studying him for any signs what the cause of Virgil's problem might be.

For one frightening moment he thought that Virgil might have been injured as well during the pirates' attack and not mentioned it for whatever reason, but then he dismissed the thought. There had been no indication for that. His brother had moved just fine on their way here and there had been no blood that Scott could see.

It had to be something else.

"Where did you go after Father sent everybody off?" Scott asked, hoping he could get his brother to talk.

"Roundhouse," was the almost monosyllable reply.

"And?" Scott probed further.

Virgil sighed. "I've met one of the pirates there, hit him with a baseball bat, took his gun and went back to the living room. That's all, the rest you know. Just let it rest, Scott. Please."

Virgil looked with dull eyes at his brother. Scott's instinct told him that this wasn't all, that there was something Virgil didn't tell him. But he also knew that questioning Virgil further right now, would by an exercise in futility.

That didn't mean he was about to leave it alone for long. He filed away his concerns with the full intention to bring them up at the first opportunity that presented itself.

To distract himself, he started to ask Brains questions about the equipment he had. He was most interested in the wrist communicator the engineer was wearing. He had seen prototypes of small communicators like Brains was wearing, but none that had integrated a high-resolution vid-screen and nothing as small as a watch.

The engineer was only too happy to comply and, after a short while, Scott even managed to draw Virgil into the discussion.

They soon moved on to the other accessories that International Rescue utilized in their rescues. Virgil finally managed to throw off the dark mood he had been in and began to ask questions of his own. The whole logistic side of a secret organization that was bent on saving people's lives seemed to fascinate him.

Scott was mostly impressed by all the efforts the Tracys of this dimension had put into staying hidden. He could see the reason why they did it, even though it made their job much more difficult. Virgil, naturally, loved the technical side of the whole thing.

The kernel of an idea started to form in Scott's mind. What if they, in their own dimension, started their own International Rescue?

They already had the island. Scott knew about all the caves hidden beneath the bedrock. The family had never found any real use for them, except to install a few larger machines, like the desalination plant that made living on the island possible.

After they had moved to the island twelve years ago, Scott and his brothers had spent quite some time exploring those caves. He hadn't been in them for years, but there was no reason why they couldn't be used in case they started their own outfit. There was room enough.

Financing wasn't a problem either. Father had plenty of money. Scott recalled more than one remark from his father where the older Tracy had complained that he would like to do something useful with the money, something to help people directly. Of course, he already financed multiple charities, but too much of that money disappeared in the pockets of greedy officials who claimed a lion's share of the money that was to help the suffering. With International Rescue, Dad would know exactly where the money went. Not a cent would be wasted.

Finally, Scott had to admit, he thought he would like to do it. His career with the Air Force, though well on track, had forced him to spend more and more time behind a desk and less and less time behind the steering yoke of an airplane. The last two years he had been forced to watch how other men got to fly the planes he burned to take up. The reason given to him was that his immense experience was needed to train those other men, and though he understood that reason, he still felt a pang every time he saw a fighter jet soar into the sky above and he had to stay behind on Terra Firma. He was a hands-on guy and flying a desk wasn't something he thrived on. Thunderbird 1, on the other hand … there was a bird he would love to ride.

But what about his brothers? Was it fair to pull them into this whole mad idea?

He knew, without a doubt, that Gordon and Alan would be game. They both were adrenaline junkies, as various near death experiences had proven. Four years ago, Gordon had almost died when the hydrofoil he had driven in a race had capsized at over two hundred miles per hour. And Alan had a good half dozen major car accidents to his credit, all during one race or another. At one point, Father had simply had enough and had tried to pull Alan out of the racing circus, something that had led to a spectacular row between his father and his youngest brother. It was only thanks to his mother's intervention that the two had found a compromise they both could live with.

That left Virgil and John.

With John, Scott gave himself a fifty-fifty chance that he would go along. His middle brother certainly would be drawn by the whole 'saving-lives-and-doing-the-right-thing' aspect of the plan. John had an urge to help others that was to be believed. Of course, it had gotten him into quite a bit of trouble a few times, but that hadn't doused his willingness to help others.

Virgil would probably be the toughest nut to crack. The chestnut-haired Tracy loved his job like there was no tomorrow. And he was damn good at it. If there was one to take over Tracy Industries once Dad was gone – may that day be a hundred years in the future – it would most likely be Virgil. Though if he wanted to was a whole different question. The managing part and the whole politics that went with running a company the size of TI was not really his forte. John was much better at it and, Scott admitted to himself, he wasn't too bad in that direction either.

Well, it was just an idea right now. There was no need to start searching for problems at the moment, for something that very likely would never happen.

TBC

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