zero point

two

Colonel White cut the connection and met the cool blue eyes of the officer seated on the other side of his desk.

'Poor man,' White said out loud, more for himself than for the benefit of the officer who'd been party to the exchange, and swiveled his chair around so that he faced the wide expanse of window behind him instead of the penetrating gaze that he could now feel boring into the back of his head.

Poor man… The expression on Jeff Tracy's face had been indescribable – equal parts grief and hope, and the kind of fear and horror that accompanies a wound that just won't stop bleeding. White stared into the cirrus that stretched out beneath Cloudbase like a smoke-filled sea, thinking dark thoughts and distracted only by the breathing of the other occupant of the office. Any moment now there would be fidgeting from the other side of the desk, the clearing of a throat, and then –

'You can't release Tracy to his family.'

White's head turned at the words and he swiveled back to face Captain Blue. 'I don't plan to.'

Blue looked at him in that calm and unnerving way that he had, the clear eyes seeking for an effective way to pierce the colonel's glacial façade. Failing that: 'Excuse me, sir, but what exactly is your plan?'

'Having family around might loosen Tracy's tongue. He's not talking to us, but he might tell his father where he's been.'

Blue continued to study his commanding officer, not convinced that this was one of the colonel's better ideas. It was true that Tracy hadn't been cooperative, but given the circumstances of his incarceration Captain Blue couldn't blame him. Since his arrival at Cloudbase Virgil Tracy had been interrogated daily. He'd been scanned and re-scanned, had his skin and his blood and his bone marrow extracted from him in less-than-pleasant circumstances, and been kept in isolation from the outside world for the best part of two months – little wonder Tracy no longer felt like talking.

And then there was always the most obvious problem staring Spectrum in the face.

'What if he really doesn't know,' Blue said.

White stared back, because that possibility was something he wasn't yet prepared to entertain. 'Where's Scarlet?'

'Observing the prisoner, sir,' Blue replied, unsurprised by the deflection.

'And what does Captain Scarlet think about our guest?' It was a rhetorical question, but White wanted to hear Blue say it and the captain had no choice but to oblige.

'Scarlet says he can smell Mysteron all over him.'

Scott Tracy stepped into the lounge of the villa and cast an uneasy glance around the room. The place was deserted, the unnatural silence intensified by the echoing clang of steel doors slamming shut on the other side of the wall behind him. The venting hiss of exhaust gases from Thunderbird 1's hasty shut-down sounded faintly, dulled by twenty centimetres of steel-reinforced concrete and barely audible as the panel that led to Thunderbird 1's hangar revolved smoothly back into position.

Scott's gaze swept more critically around the room, pausing on the magazine dropped half-open on the couch, and the tumbler of whiskey left half-empty on his father's desk. His eyes touched briefly on the piano, the silent ghost that lurked forever in his field of view, relentlessly drawing his gaze no matter how hard he tried to evade it. Two years, and Scott still held on to the irrational hope that one day he would come through the door and Virgil would be seated at the baby grand, riffing effortlessly through Dangerous Game or tying his fingers in knots over Rachmaninoff.

Movement caught his eye, and Scott turned to see Jeff and Kyrano on the other side of the lounge's wide glass doors – they must have waited on the balcony as Thunderbird 1 descended into her hangar, watching as the palm trees were whipped by One's exhaust into a dry frenzy of rustling. Now, as the trees settled into silence and the swimming pool slid slowly back to conceal the hangar entrance, Jeff turned bleakly to Kyrano, despair etched into his every move.

Jeff spoke, his lips moving silently as Scott watched through the glass, and Kyrano nodded mutely in response. Scott didn't want to go out there. Not if it was bad – bad enough to bring him home. But he hadn't flown seven thousand miles at Mach 19 on nothing but his father's imperative to 'come home, now,' to not find out what the hell was going on.

Kyrano looked up as the glass door slid open on its tracks, inclined his head in his age-old greeting and slid his hands from the folds of his robes. They were good hands, working hands, as lined by the years as Kyrano's face, but the old man's eyes were bright, still young, and they looked gravely now at Scott as he turned towards him.

'Mr Scott,' Kyrano said as he passed Scott in the doorway.

'Kyrano,' Scott returned, unnerved by the sustained directness of the gaze. He closed the door behind Kyrano's retreat and turned to find his father with his elbows on the railing, hands rubbing wearily at his face. 'Dad,' he said to his father's back. 'What's going on?'

'Pour yourself a drink,' Jeff said, not turning around. He waved a hand towards the collection he'd assembled on the balcony railing: two tumblers and a bottle, one-third gone. 'What's Thunderbird 2's ETA?' he asked his son.

Scott eyed the array of glassware and resisted the urge to send it tumbling to the flagstones below. In the absence of a straight answer, the resultant smash would be satisfying. 'Still at the danger zone,' Scott told him, wondering why they were talking about Thunderbird 2 when his father had recalled him from duty and ordered him to come home. 'I left Gordon and Cam to pack up Mobile Control so I could get back here as soon as possible. Are you going to tell me why I needed to do that?'

Jeff reached for the glass nearest his elbow, poured himself a drink and downed it in one hard swallow. 'Spectrum called,' he said, still not looking at his son. 'A Colonel White.' Jeff filled his glass again and returned the bottle back to the railing. 'Tim Casey knows him,' he said, swirling the whiskey around the inside of the tumbler. 'I suppose I should call Tim. Find out what I can before we go.'

'Go where?'

Jeff glanced down at the pool, the water still rippling from Thunderbird 1's recent entry. Light from the swells bounced bright into his eyes and brought amber prisms dancing from the whiskey in his glass.

'Dad?' Scott took hold of his father's arm and turned Jeff around to face him. 'Go where?'

Jeff looked at his son, his grey eyes as bleak as a cold winter's day. 'I want you to fly me to Spectrum.'

'Spectrum? But what – Why?'

There was only one way to say it, and thank god Jeff had Jack Daniels to help him. 'They tell me they've found Virgil,' he said. And then he laughed. A short, sharp, desolate bark at the joke that the universe was playing on them.

Scott's grip tightened on his father's arm. 'You mean they've found his body? After all this time?'

'Not his body.' The mirth died in Jeff's eyes, his lips twisting bitterly. 'They told me they've found Virgil.'

Jeff watched as emotion chased across his son's face, the cobalt of Scott's eyes intensifying as he found the meaning behind his father's words. 'It has to be a mistake,' Scott said when the reality became clear, his voice rising and cracking with disbelief. 'It has to be. I was there, Dad. There was nothing left. Nothing.'

'I know,' Jeff said, because he'd been there too, standing bereft in the hollowed-out remains of the Faulkner Labs sub-basement. No trace remained of the lab itself. No equipment. No furniture. No shards of broken glass or tile to show that men had once made something in that safe, secluded place. All that remained now was a burnished void of nothing, a perfect sphere of glass-fused stone that had been burned impossibly into the rock. A dark, dead chamber that echoed with the voices of Spectrum technicians, swarming ant-like through an emptiness that only hours earlier had contained his son.

Jeff shivered. A wave of anger passed abruptly through him, as though he couldn't believe that life could be cruel enough to do this to him. Or maybe he was angry because he couldn't permit himself to hope for the alternative. 'I don't believe it,' he said. 'I can't believe it. Your brother's gone.'

He shook free of Scott's grip, savagely drained what was left of his drink and slammed the empty glass down hard on the railing. 'He's gone.'

'The Colonel's bringing in the family,' Blue announced as he closed the door to the observation room behind him.

'Makes sense,' Scarlet replied, not looking up. He was seated exactly where Captain Blue had left him hours ago, unmoved and unmoving, his eyes on the tempered glass screen that separated Spectrum from what was ostensibly the enemy – one Virgil Tracy.

'Does it?' Blue said to him, unconvinced. He took the chair next to Scarlet and angled it around to better observe the prisoner. Right now he was sleeping – or at least he appeared to be, the broad chest rising and falling slowly beneath a grey Spectrum-issue t-shirt. 'If Tracy had something to tell us we'd have broken him by now.'

'You can't break what isn't human.'

'And yet every test Fawn has done indicates otherwise.'

'Then Fawn needs a new test,' Scarlet snapped. 'I told you, Adam, I can – '

'I know. You can smell it.' Captain Blue sighed inwardly as the headache he'd been fighting all morning began to make a bigger nuisance of itself. He took off his uniform cap, dumped it onto the nearest chair and scratched his nails through his blond hair. He needed a haircut. It was almost touching his ears.

'Even the Colonel must be starting to think he's human,' Blue started again. He'd never doubted Scarlet's ability to sense when a Mysteron was near before, but… 'Why else would he be bringing in the family?' Blue pressed his fingers into his temples and rotated them firmly. 'What if Virgil Tracy is exactly what he says he is – the unhappy victim of an unhappy accident?'

The object of their attention stirred on the bench that did double-duty as both bed and diagnostic pallet and rolled over so that he faced them, opened his eyes and stared at the two-way mirror that filled up one wall of his cell.

'He knows we're here,' Scarlet said.

'Bullshit. He's just hating on whoever's on the other side of the glass.' Captain Blue looked sideways at his partner, troubled by the working of the muscles in Scarlet's jaw, the rhythmic clenching and unclenching as Scarlet's attention fixated on the man on the other side of the two-way window. 'You're starting to sound paranoid, Paul. If the colonel didn't agree with your assessment – '

'With my paranoia, you mean.'

'Whatever. The point is, if he didn't agree with you, you'd be in lockdown by now. Or worse, on the other side of that glass.'

Scarlet's lips tightened. He knew exactly what it was like on the other side of the glass, having your meat cut from you in chunks so the doctors could watch you regenerate right before their eyes. Tracy had exhibited none of the typical traits of retrometabolism, it was true, but what if the Mysterons had improved the process? What if they were producing replicants that were indistinguishable from humans?

Tracy was sitting up now, and looking at the head. He did this a lot, thinking about how badly he needed to use it or not – even after two months of pissing for an audience he still baulked at the indignity. He slowly braced his hands on his knees, an unconscious prelude to standing up, and Scarlet rose from his chair to stare intently at the prisoner – this had been the first sign of movement for hours.

Captain Blue ceased his futile attempt to release the tension in his head and accepted that he would be living with a headache for the rest of the day. 'What are you looking for, Paul?'

'Not looking.' Scarlet leaned carefully towards the two-way and balanced his fingertips against the glass. 'Waiting.'

As if on cue, Virgil Tracy rose to his feet and turned deliberately to face the mirror. As specimens of humanity go, he was a fine one, although two months of confinement had paled his skin, and the bruises around his eyes detracted from his handsome face, and if they kept him much longer in the box he'd start to lose his muscle tone as well.

If he lived that long.