mariashades asked: Whumptober 2024 Day No. 18: REVENGE

Unreliable Narrator "I see what's mine and take it." (Panic! at the Disco, Emperor's New Clothes). TAG, with John. Spoilers for s2e22

Massive thanks to Sineater for all the help with the muse.

Characters: John, EOS, The Mechanic

Warning: Unreliable Narrator, Personality Change, False Arrests

The interruption of his visit had been unfortunate, but he'd managed to achieve his purpose and had left the do-gooders a little surprise package…

He grinned to himself as his ship zoomed off.

Oh yes…a really nice surprise…

…

John sighed and pinched his nose.

He'd been desperate to get back on Five ever since they had returned from training at Gran Roca. They'd all been shaken that the Mechanic had managed to not only infiltrate their home but their secure network too.

Brains and he had spent some time while still at the ranch patching the hole in the network left by tearing out the Mechanic, but John wouldn't feel happy until he had gone over every single piece of code himself.

They had started the second he'd returned.

Now he was tired and had a little bit of a headache forming.

'John, your stats indicate that you need some rest.'

'I'll rest when we've finished.'

'You are not running within optimal parameters.'

'I'm fine, EOS.'

'Whatever you say, John.'

How could his AI sound so petulant…John groaned and conceded that she might actually have a point.

'Fine. Wake me up in a couple of hours.'

'FAB, John.'

'Or…if you find something.'

'Will do.'

John was out the minute he hit his bunk.

…

EOS hummed to herself as she investigated the code, a habit she'd picked up from Virgil. She wasn't sure why he did it but she found that she quite liked the habit.

A red light flashed and she looked inwards.

EOS gave a mental shrug, adjusted some controls, sent some code into the ether and deleted the alert.

And carried on working through the rest of the code.

…

The smell of fresh bagel and coffee woke John and he stumbled into the kitchen. His headache wasn't gone, if anything it was even more painful, but John could and had worked through worse.

'EOS, where are we with everything?'

'All code is clear so far.'

'And how is the planet doing?'

'All clear, no calls for International Rescue.'

'Excellent. Let's keep looking.'

The day passed in relative quiet. A simple rescue of two climbers for Scott, a tow for a yacht that couldn't wait due to a weather front rolling in for Virgil and Gordon.

John was just thinking of grabbing some dinner when alerts sounded. Now wide awake, John swept the holos aside to pull up the relevant information.

'What's happening, EOS?'

'Tracy Island is under attack.'

'I'm not getting much data! EOS, can you boost?'

'On it.'

Suddenly there were streams of data and some words stood out, making John's blood boil.

GDF. The GDF had taken the island and arrested his brothers. John couldn't find the reason but he didn't care.

'EOS – we have work to do.'

'I have established that your brothers have been split up. Virgil and Alan have been taken to the GDF base outside Auckland but Scott and Gordon have been taken somewhere else. I – I can't find where they are. Grandma, Kayo and Brains are at a base in Hamilton while Lady Penelope and Parker have been detained in London.'

'Can you deep dive and find Scott and Gordon?'

'No – whatever has happened has been deeply encrypted.'

'Whatever the reasons…I know that they are lying. And I'm not going to let them get away with it. These are my brothers and I'm taking them back!'

'What are you going to do?'

'EOS, how do you feel about going to war.'

'With the GDF?'

'With the GDF and with any other agency or government that gets in my way until I have my brothers back. All my brothers back.'

'With pleasure, John. With pleasure.'

Fingers flying and a frown John got to work.

…

'Scott?'

'Yeah, Virg?'

'Have you seen the news?'

Scott put down the report he was looking at. For Virgil to point out something in the news it had to be big.

He looked up at the big screen. Emblazoned across the screen was news that the GDF and the World Government were under attack from an unknown hacker or hackers.

They stood transfixed while the reporter gave a ten-minute report that actually had no content. But Scott was worried that he knew what was going on.

Very few people in the world could do such damage simultaneously.

'Thunderbird Five, come in please.'

'Hello Scott. Can I help?'

'Is John there, EOS? I need a word.'

'John's asleep. Do you want me to wake him?'

'No, EOS, that's fine. Please tell him to call me when he gets up.'

'FAB, Scott.'

EOS disappeared and Scott went back to watching the news. Something was wrong, he could feel it in his gut.

…

Hours passed.

Scott became more antsy as the time passed and there was no contact from John. The couple of times he'd tried EOS had brushed him off and now his Scooter sense was screaming at him.

He tried to call the elevator down but found he'd been locked out. He tried getting down to the hangars but he'd been locked out of them too. They all had. Scott tried everything but EOS – and it had to be EOS, there was no way that John would have willingly done this unless he'd had a total personality transplant – had them trapped.

Scott slouched in the chair. How had he been so stupid? How could they have relied so much on their own technology when the Mechanic had already exploited…

And just like that Scott knew.

This wasn't EOS. This wasn't John.

This was the Mechanic.

The Mechanic! What better revenge than to use their tech against them?

'BRAINS! Brains, I need you!'