Thanks, Tikatu, Whirl Girl and Bow Echo! Got a little more done, so I thought I'd post a bit. Hi, Sueemm!
5
Manchester, former United Kingdom, at the elite Enlightenment Academy-
Alan Tracy was dreaming, and he knew it, but the knowledge didn't help, any. In his dream, he ran through a rocky landscape of ice, broken mechas and twisted dead bodies. There was a dense fog all around him, and he could hear the noise of a rough, surging ocean. Something was following him, and it laughed aloud as its shadow kept the boy stumbling blindly along through the mist.
Big, metal hands lashed out, going for his throat… always the throat. And, in his nightmare, Alan couldn't fight back. Could do nothing but run, knowing that his brothers were already dead, and that he was being driven straight to their killer.
He was terrified; sobbing aloud, and shaking with fear, trying to stay ahead of the monster behind him. Saw a sudden light through the fog, and headed for it, thinking that maybe someone had come to help him. Then, in the manner of dreams, he was suddenly bathed in a weird, amber glow. Kayo was there. She turned to him slowly, and smiled, but her eyes were dead holes. Dad was there, too, holding a rifle, and Kayo said,
"Shoot him."
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Alan lurched bolt upright in bed, his heart pounding, a scream tearing his throat. Managed to muffle the noise, somehow, and rocked back and forth a little, both arms wrapped around himself in a desperate hug.
Wasn't a baby. Did not want to cry, again… but it hurt so much, and felt so frickin' scary. He was alone in the room, which wasn't very large; featuring two narrow beds, at opposite walls, and a single, plain wooden desk. One bed was made up and unslept in. The other, his, was a sweaty knot of twisted sheets and striped woolen blanket. Through the open window, he saw faint, artificial moonlight. Felt a gentle breeze, and heard the big metal fan that created it. No ocean, no sea-smell, no thunder of departing aircraft. Just tinkling goat bells and faintly humming machinery. Very quietly, to no one at all, Alan said,
"I want to go home."
He was restless. Extremely tired, but afraid to go back to sleep. So, instead, Alan sat up, kicked off his covers, and then swung both legs off the bed, thinking,
'So good, so far.'
Braced himself for a moment, with both hands on the crinkling mattress, and hair in his eyes. At home, Alan liked to sleep on the floor in his clothing, and his alarm clock was usually John. Here, he was expected to stay in bed, wear the school's baggy tan-and-green unisex "rest uniform", and get up to a morning unity chant.
…Also, to not leave his room unless he'd summoned a robot escort for his supervised "comfort break", but Alan 'd had just about enough of their stupid rules. In the desk, on the same side as his bed, was his personals drawer. Alan had been allowed to pack a bag, before the Child Welfare crew took him away. (He'd immediately filed to be considered an adult, but, yeah… probably celebrate his twenty-fifth birthday and be an old man, like Scott, before they even looked at his case, or Grandma's.)
Anyways, no one had gone through his bag here at the Academy, and it had never left the boy's grasp on the way over from home. Inside the red bag, which had "3" printed on it in white, Alan had stuffed a few of those awful celery crunch bars, his ukulele, and his wrist comm, disguised to look like an old-time analog watch.
He'd used the comm already a couple of times, calling up to the station… but that was risky. Alan knew it. His brother didn't want to leave him hanging, and so John would try to pick up, maybe getting nailed for trespass, if someone else fielded their coded signals.
Alan stood up. Scratched his ribs. Rubbed at the back of his neck. There were no mirrors in the room, but he knew that he must look like crap, from lack of sleep. And… he really wanted to talk to someone who wasn't a robot, and didn't say stuff like,
"Here in the sharing circle, we are all one. Each citizen's growth and strivings strengthen the others. No one is better. No one is stronger. No one has more. We just are. Let go… accept… peacefully, non-judgmentally, we are."
Alan shuddered, wondering… were Shala and Eddie right? Were his competitive, rough-and-tumble brothers upsetting the balance, and stirring up "negative energy"? All alone and hating it, he scrunched his bare toes deep in the carpet. Wished… a lot of junk: that none of this had happened, that he was still at home, that he remembered Mom, that he could forget the Mechanic, Dad and that gun.
Then, because sometimes the universe listens, his personals drawer began to vibrate with a sharp, insect hum. The wrist comm, it had to be… but not just a call, or he wouldn't have got it, in here. A general alert.
Alan leapt across the small room to that plain wooden desk, and yanked his drawer wide open. Reached inside, grabbed his red bag, and pulled out the fancy "diving watch" it contained. Sure as heck, it was buzzing; face gone bright, poison red, with nothing displayed but a set of coordinates.
Al had to stifle a whoop and wild air-punch. Not that, y'know, he'd wanted a situation to come up, or anything. 'Specially not a Code Red. But "all operatives report" meant everyone, including Alan R. Tracy, right the heck now.
"Wait for me, guys!" he whispered fiercely. "I'm coming to help!"
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The North Pacific, at the badly damaged Cutwater Destiny deep sea drilling platform-
The observation deck was tilting, and their environment shield had shut off, letting in wind and cold, stinging spray. Lady Penelope took Bertie, and stuffed the squirming small dog into her blouse. Nowhere else to put him, as Parker was otherwise engaged. Along with six others, he'd formed a human chain. They were trying to reach a waiter who'd plunged down the collapsing platform, and was now hanging onto the lower rail, screaming for help. Below the poor man lay a drop of some three-hundred feet, onto the hard, concrete main deck.
Cutwater Destiny was a decommissioned compliant tower platform, and very, very tall. The newly-built observation deck, shuttles and crowd had added tremendous strain to that rusting hulk… but also, thinking back, Penny could swear that she'd heard a dull 'Thunk', just before the collapse. An explosion, perhaps?
The human chain had fallen short. Despite Parker's full-stretch reach, a gap of three feet lay between the end of his hand, and that shrieking, white-jacketed waiter. Everyone else looked on, too frightened to move. Well, then… needs must. Murmuring,
"Courage, Bertie. Mummy's going to work,"
Lady Penelope clambered across the high railing. Then, when she reached the chain's first link (a stout GDF major, braced with a post in the crook of his elbow) she gave him a nod, and began edging down that cordon of brave, hand-clasped people. Had to scuttle down, turned rather sideways, one leg flexed, while the other was tensely extended.
Bertie had nosed up to look out the top of her silk blouse (the hem of which she'd tied in a hard, rapid knot). His tongue lolled, and his eyes bugged wide, but her lamb never whimpered. News drones hovered and zipped, capturing shot after shot of disaster at sea.
"Steady on, Bertie," Penelope whispered, managing a smile for every person she passed in the chain. At length, she reached Parker, who said,
"Evenin', Milady… Master Bertram."
"Good evening, Parker. Beastly weather, what?"
"Indeed, Milady," he agreed, after a moment of sober reflection. Then, with a nod down-slope. "Mind th' next bit, Yer Ladyship. Summat slick, it is."
Penelope nodded, saying,
"Thank you, Parker. I shall."
They locked wrists, and then Penny swung free, horribly aware of that drop, and of what lay below her. Still, no sense letting down the side, and all that. Nodding majestically at one of those buzzing camera mechs, Penelope stretched her right hand out to the young waiter, whose feet were frantically kicking at wind and cold air.
"Help!" he gasped. "Please, help me!"
"Calm yourself, my good man," Penny soothed him. "Reach a bit… there's a fine fellow… and we'll have you… urf… up in a… trice."
His weight now dangled on her, and everyone else in the chain. He was crying, she saw. Understandable, Penny supposed. She shifted her gaze to let him collect himself, and because the chain had started to move.
Slowly, bracing with their down-slope legs, the human links began to pull upward. One by one by one, they were each handed back to the upper railing, meaning that the whole chain was gradually crossing that weather-slick observation deck.
And still, the ocean pounded, crumpling metal shrieked, and people cried aloud, not knowing where to run. One of the observation deck's welded legs had already snapped under strain, crushing a shuttle, and smashing the other one off the drill platform, entirely. Penny sensed all of this, but paid no direct mind, seeing only Bertie, and willing herself to hold on.
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Overhead, in Thunderbird 1.2-
Jan had fired her grapples; had got a good lock with one of the cables, but then the other bounced off with a sharp, sour clang. Biting her lip, she cut off the electromagnets, and lined up for another try.
"Just like the sim," she murmured, adding tensely, "Josh, where are you?"
Just beneath her, the bright-red, steel observation deck was now canted at a forty-five-degree angle. The entire platform would go, soon. Couldn't stop that. Not in Herbie, by herself. Could only help these people, here; keeping their perch steady till Thunderbird 2.2 got to them. They had formed a chain, she saw, and were trying to get somebody back up to safety.
"You can do it, guys," she whispered. "Don't let go. You got this."
Then, easing her Bird forward through buffeting wind, the girl waited for target-lock, her thumbs poised right over the firing studs. Couldn't afford another mistake…
Now. Green triangle! She fired, sending twin, magnetic cables rocketing out of her Bird. This time, both locked on, striking the observation deck's high-side, just under the railing.
"Gotcha!" Jan crowed, then swiveled her VTOLs and reversed thrust to haul backward.
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Thunderbird 5, in the main control centre-
He had thirty seconds, John figured, to convince his brother to change the d*mn plan.
"Listen, Scott… you've got to come up here. I'm sending the elevator down, and I need it back up, with a warm body on board."
"What?!" snapped his brother's holo, as Scott raced for the suit-up lift. "Why?"
John didn't like to explain himself. Not even to Scott. Still…
"It's Captain O'Bannon. They sent her aboard to check out the station, and she cleared it as empty. If they don't see someone coming up from the Island, Scott, they'll know that she lied for me. I need you to do this. Plus, I can get you to the danger zone, faster."
Judging by the holo's weird jerky flickers, Scott was being dressed by his uniform drones. Staring hard at John, his older brother's image said,
"Swear we'll get there in time, John. Nothing else matters, but we get there in time for Pen and those kids." Reporters and crowd, as well, but he didn't have time to say so.
John could've quoted odds, but Scott wasn't wearing his "let's calculate" face, so, maybe not.
"I swear," he told his tense brother. "5's got a lot of inertia, but also no air resistance. Promise, we'll get there in time."
The glowing image burst into a run. From John's perspective, in midair.
"Okay, Buddy. You win. Tell Virgil what's up, scramble those Birds, and send me the elevator."
"Already halfway down, Scott. See you in a couple of minutes."
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London, former United Kingdom, high in the GDF Tower-
Linda Casey's office had a new occupant: General Steele, a well-respected, fiftyish, grey-haired man with piercing blue eyes and a closely-trimmed beard. He had been named director by a foolish and dithering World Council. They'd felt well justified in this, as Casey had become a liability, having been prepared to release those impounded Thunderbird craft back to the Tracys. "Resolve the situation," they'd ordered him.
Thus, like Jeff, she'd been ruthlessly placed where she could no longer meddle. And that was quite far, indeed. Colonel Jeff Tracy had the protection of fame and popularity, which was why he'd been farmed out to Mars, and a future, unfortunate "accident". Casey, the former director, was little known by the masses. She had been sent to an outpost on Proxima B, one of Earth's harshest colonies.
This troubled Steele not at all, because the grizzled general disliked loose cannons and swiftly burnt off his loose ends. International Rescue was trouble, pure and simple. Somehow, they'd succeeded in aiding the Mechanic to eliminate his former mentor. But, what the Hood had lost, Steele intended to rebuild.
Cutwater Destiny had been mined, of course; it's western riser peppered with drill-bombs. Soon, the recruits would arrive, and then die, very much on camera. Their fate would lead to greater central control of all would-be rescue organizations. And afterward…? Why, then he had some law-breaking pilots to capture and execute.