Selene wasn't used to creeping around her own home, yet here she was, tip-toeing past Alan who was laying face down on her living room rug, the bed she had made up for him on the couch didn't even look like it had been used.
She stepped over his leg and went to the kitchen to make a start on some coffee. A quick check of the fridge and cupboards confirmed exactly what she had already known, there was nothing in there and the food fairy had yet to magically deliver.
She hadn't been planning on coming back to the flat anytime soon and wasn't in the habit of keeping food in just to let it spoil. She had nothing to feed the hungry boys that were currently living with her, she’d have to go shopping.
She poured coffee into a to-go cup for herself, doctoring it with coffee creamer and sugar as she always did, thankfully things that could live in the cupboard, and delivered a cup each to John and Scott, leaving them on the bedside tables for when they woke up.
John stirred as she placed the cup down.
“Hey, gorgeous,” she whispered, dipping her head to give him a quick kiss. “I’m just going out to grab some things for breakfast, go back to sleep, you need to catch up on your rest.”
He nodded and mumbled something about remembering to switch the gravity off when she got back and settled back into sleep, his soft snores beginning almost immediately. She brushed the hair back from his face and pulled the covers up so he wouldn't get cold, her boy was used to a temperature controlled Five or a tropical island, England was always a bit hit or miss for him.
She stopped to cover Alan over too and tucking a cushion under his head, then grabbed her bag and left the flat.
By the time she struggled home two hours later, weighed down by shopping bags the boys were all awake.
“No, it’s fine, I don’t need any help,” she called sarcastically as she struggled to place her hand against the scanner and then shoved the door open with her backside. “I’m Superwoman, I’ve got this shit.”
“Sorry,” John appeared beside her, taking the heaviest of the bags. She lifted her head for a kiss, something they would usually do automatically but he was already gone, taking the bags to the kitchen and leaving them on the floor to return to the lounge. Selene blinked, that wasn't normal.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, dumping her own bags and following him.
All three were squashed together on the couch, crowded around the holoscreen where a news report was playing.
“They’re out on a rescue,” Scott told her, his tone sounding equal parts defeated, resigned and disbelieving.
“We couldn’t expect them not to answer a call,” John sighed, although his tone said that he was anything but happy.
“What’s happened?” Selene asked, perching on the arm of the sofa beside John.
“Road collapse in Cornwall,” Scott answered.
“From what the reporters have said it looks like it’s a sinkhole. There are a lot of old tin mines in that area and it’s close to the coastline, so the old mines tend to flood which further weakens the already crumbling foundations,” John continued.
“The road just opened beneath us,” a scared looking woman was telling the reporter. “It was like looking into hell. We were on that bus you see, and managed to climb out of the back window before it was sucked in.”
On screen the sleek silver underbelly of Thunderbird One lowered into shot.
"And here come the Thunderbirds, right on time to help as only they can.” The camera panned up to show the underside of One with the big feet of her pilot clearly visible through the glass bottom of her cockpit. “We’re expecting Scott Tracy to touch down any second now to liaise with the emergency services already here.”
Selene saw Scott tense, knowing as well as he did that they wouldn't be talking to the eldest Tracy any time soon.
“Here she comes, back up everyone, back up!” The reporter continued as he backed away with the camera crew, who panned out for a wider shot.
The hovering jets kicked up dust and rubble as the landing legs lowered from her undercarriage. She touched down, not as gently as she normally would, Selene noticed, and her engines cut out a little abruptly, but she was down. The glass bottom of the cockpit opened and the pilot's chair extended from the cabin of the plane.
“And here comes...Jeff Tracy?” the reporter's voice rose in shock and awe.
Scott’s sharp intake of breath was as audible as the reporter’s, his fingers tightening on the arm of the couch.
“Scott?” Alan’s soft tone was so unlike his usual bouncing voice it was scary.
“I’m OK, Allie.”
“We don’t have to watch this…” Selene started to say, but knew she was wasting her time, they would watch, there was no way they couldn’t.
On screen Jeff could be seen talking to a number of fire officers in the distance.
“We have been given word that Thunderbird Two should be arriving any minute, bringing with it the organisation’s life saving equipment.” The reporter continued to repeat the same details over and over, recapping for anyone that had just tuned in as they waited for Virgil and the big green machine to arrive. “We’ve heard from our sources that…”
“John?” EOS’s voice rang out clearly from her portable drive on the coffee table and Selene stretched out to grab it, handing it to him.
“Yes, EOS?”
“You promised me you would contact me today to explain why you will not be here, yet you have not. I have done as you told me and I am relaying all calls to the control center at the Villa, but I still do not understand.”
John sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. It was strange to see him this way, talking to EOS, the round lights of her drive flickering in time to her words, her voice coming from his bare hand. Selene was so used to seeing his hands with his gloves on, so used to feeling the brush of their soft material against her skin that she hardly noticed them any more. He was wearing casual civvies, they all were and they looked tired, emotionally wrung out.
“EOS, now really isn’t the best time to talk about this,” he started.
“Why not? The rescue is underway and I am capable of focusing on multiple tasks at once, this will not tax my systems.”
“I know that, but we’re watching the rescue right now.”
“I can tell you what is happening, that way you will not have to watch.” A holographic image popped out of the drive.
“No, EOS, we don’t want to see that.”
“I am confused, you cannot be there, so you wish to watch. I have offered you a more informative way to watch, but you do not want it.”
“EOS…”
“Let me talk to her,” Selene offered, holding out her hand for the drive. John gratefully handed it over.
She got up and took herself off into the bedroom, shutting the door.
“EOS, are you still there?”
“Where else would I be? I do not have a body and you have hold of my portable drive.”
“Yeah, stupid question, sorry.” Selene sank down on the bed and prepared to do verbal and mental battle with the world’s most intelligent AI.
“EOS, do you remember when we spoke about feelings and how sometimes they make us do things that aren't entirely logical?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what happened here. Feelings got hurt, people got frustrated, and the only solution was to take a time out. We had to step back from the situation and put some distance between us and the problems. We did this the only way we knew how, by taking a break from International Rescue.”
“Then why are they watching?”
Selene sighed, struggling to find the words that would actually make sense to the very literal AI that she was talking to.
“It’s hard to explain, but just because you are angry, it doesn’t mean you stop caring and you don’t want someone you love getting hurt. They need to watch, they need to know what is going on.”
“Then why would they not make use of my systems?”
“Because they don’t want that level of knowledge.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do they, baby girl and I don't think I can find the words to explain it to you." She sighed, knowing she had to at least try."That’s the thing with feelings, sometimes they can’t be understood, they can't be explained, you just have to respect them.”
“You mean that, even though I do not understand, I still have to listen and do as I’m told?”
“That’s a simplified way of putting it, but yes.”
“And what does John require of me?”
“Just for you to do your best to help the others where you can. To help the rescue run smoothly as best it can.”
“I can do that, I’ll find the best way to be useful.”
“Thank you, EOS, I’ll get John to talk to you after the rescue is finished, OK?”
“I understand.”
“Good girl.”
Selene sighed as EOS cut the connection. She just hoped that she’d said enough. She handed John back the drive and took her seat on the arm of the couch, making a mental note that if they continued to stay there for much longer she’d need to invest in another couch, there just wasn't room for four of them on it.
“Did she listen?”
Selene nodded. “As best she can. I think she understood, but it’s such a hard situation to explain.”
“At least you tried, thanks for that, I wasn’t really up to it.”
Selene nodded to the TV. “So, what did I miss?” She could see that Two had arrived and had settled near One. From what she could tell the emergency services had shut the road and stopped any more cars from entering and those that were there had been pushed back or removed as best they could, giving them as clear a working space as possible but the bigger Thunderbird had still had to land in a field next to the road.
“Virgil dropped Gordon off in Four before landing, the old mine shafts have completely flooded and there are people trapped in their cars down there,” Alan answered.
“What are the others doing?”
“Nothing yet, Dad has been talking to the emergency services for the past fifteen minutes and Virgil, well he hasn’t even moved from Two,” John continued.
They watched in silence for another five minutes as the news reporter continued to drone on about the history of the area and just how and when the accident had occurred.
Movement in the background caught their eye as Virgil emerged from Two’s pod wearing his Exo-suit.
“It looks like Virgil is going in from the top with breathing equipment so Gordon is likely going in from the coast. I’d assume he plans to travel up the shafts as far as possible in the sub and then go EVA the rest of the way,” Scott said, almost as if he were talking to himself.
“Is that the best way?” Selene asked quietly. “What if more subsidence happens while Four is down there?”
Scott shrugged, trying for an unconcerned tone, but failing. “Not our problem, is it?”
Selene frowned, she knew he didn’t mean what he said, but it was still hard to hear. No matter how unconcerned he appeared she knew he was hating every second of it, hating not being there in case anything happened to his family.
***
John was used to being the one watching the action from the heavens, he was used to having to tamp down the worry and fear that were his near constant companions every single time he sent his brothers out to yet another call. It was their job after all and they did it well, they knew the risks and he calculated them for them.
He was the one that orchestrated the rescues, it was his decision which calls were worthy of their time or could be passed on to local authorities to deal with. He was the one that had to weigh up the pros and cons of accepting a call and it was his job to capture and correlate all the relevant information to build them the clearest picture of the entire situation. If they took the wrong equipment or made a bad call on how to proceed due to lack of information it could not only cost them valuable time but possibly lives as well, theirs or those they were trying to help.
For ten years International Rescue had had one goal, to save lives and they had done that to the best of their ability every single day. Not only had they put their lives at risk but they had also put them on hold. Alan wasn’t a normal teenager by any stretch of the imagination, he had already seen more in his short life than most men of eighty and none of them had much time to cultivate relationships or even friendships outside of the family. He was the rare exception and he firmly believed that that was all down to Selene and her willingness to understand and to take on his entire family as well as himself. There weren't many people who would put up with cancelled plans, long stretches of time apart and invasions of privacy the way she had, not and still stay as cheerful and loving.
As a team they had worked tirelessly with Brains to improve their equipment and were developing new machinery all the time, anything that might allow them to save just one more life. They knew they couldn't save everyone, but they would give it a damn good try. When their father had disappeared and feared dead, they had all been devastated and that had been the moment they had changed the rules of International Rescue, no longer would they value others lives over their own. They had been through the pain of losing a parent, twice over, and knew that they couldn't cope with losing anyone else. They had pulled together after their father’s accident but it hasn't been easy. They would do everything in their power to help someone but they had to know when to pull out. It wasn't a case of thinking that their lives were worth more than anyone else's, they didn't think they were special they just knew that some people were beyond help and if they had continued to throw themselves recklessly into danger to save just one person, there would soon be none of them left to help those that came after. The rescue calls never ended, there would always be people that needed saving for that was how the world worked.
That was the part that had bothered John the most in the whole situation, their father had lost his dad and the love of his life, he had to know what they had been through, how much it hurt to lose someone you loved so much, yet he seemed willing to throw his own sons into danger that could be avoided just by listening to them. They had superior knowledge of the equipment, they had more rescue experience, but their father seemed blind to anything but his own opinions and dusty memories of another time in his life.
John didn’t necessarily agree with the way Scott had gone about dealing with the situation but he had seen the sense in backing him up in it. Their father was a stubborn man and prone to only seeing one side of the story. They all understood that they had been vastly different people the last time their father had seen them, they had all grown into their roles in International Rescue, changing from inexperienced young men to more than capable adults that knew their jobs and did them well. He was still treating them like children.
To be sitting in a small flat in Camden, in the same country as the rescue that was happening and not be a part of it, even in his usual limited way, was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do. He was the one that anticipated the problems, his quick mind rolling through a dozen possible scenarios in order to better know how to advise and help his brothers. They were used to asking for something from him and finding that he had already realised they would need it and had it cued up ready. Information flowed from his fingertips, carefully collated for ease of access. He was the eye in the sky, their hub of information and help, he saw everything, he knew everything. He oversaw every rescue and he did it so well through years of experience, just as Scott, Virgil, Gordon and Alan did. Now he was out of the loop, watching but not truly seeing, an outsider, a bystander, knowing nothing about the rescue itself. And he hated it.
His mind was screaming at him to take EOS up on her offer, to pick up her drive and patch in, to watch everything that was going on just so he would know. But he wouldn’t, because that would make it harder. They couldn't back down. They wouldn’t back down. To do so now would be to undermine themselves and to devalue the point they were trying to make. They had to sit this one out no matter how hard it was.
John glanced at Scott, seeing the tense set to his shoulders, the hard line of his jaw, the way his eyes remained fixed, almost unblinkingly, on the news report.
***
Scott noticed when Selene left the room with EOS’s drive and when she returned only to vanish again a few minutes later but he didn’t know or particularly care what she was doing. All he could focus on were the scenes playing out in front of him. Was that how everyone felt? Watching the action but not being a part of it? Did they feel useless, pushed aside, anxious and unable to help? No, he decided, they didn’t. They wouldn’t because the general public had no idea what went into executing a rescue, they would never fully comprehend the danger that he and his brothers put themselves in every single day.
He wanted to be there with Virgil and Gordon, his need to protect them went bone deep, as much a part of him as his love of flying. He was their big brother and he couldn't help but feel like he’d abandoned them.
He hadn’t realised until that moment just how hard it would be to not be involved, to not be in the center of things and to have to sit back and watch. Scott did not sit and watch, he never had, it just wasn't in his nature. Scott at heart was a doer and it was taking every ounce of self control he had not to jump up, borrow Selene’s car and head straight there.
He’d never felt so limited in his life, he was used to having everything at his fingertips. He was always in constant contact with his brothers, a never ending stream of noise pouring into his helmet from his comm, telling him where they were, what they were doing and what was going on. In contrast the little flat was silent, no buzz of background noise from his team, no gentle ribbing of brotherly banter, no soft, calm voice of John filling in the blanks and no chance to help if anything went wrong.
All three of them watched as their brothers and their father did their best to help as many of the trapped people as possible but Scott could tell it was hopeless. Virgil had apparently been ordered to give up on trying to reach them from the pit and had returned to Two, using the mighty machines' electromagnetic cables to haul cars out of the hole one at a time.
Over and over again he lifted out the crushed metal boxes and set them gently aside. Paramedics rushed over, along with fire crews who used large metal cutters to shear away the roofs, peeling the tops back like sardine cans, but each mangled body they extracted went straight into one of the black body bags that were waiting.
The camera panned the scene near constantly, at one time zeroing in on the tense face of Virgil, his eyes showing the strain of the situation and the things he had witnessed in that chasm. But no matter how soul destroyed he looked he was soon back in the cockpit and hovering skillfully over the sinkhole, his cables lowering in preparation.
Scott leant forward, as if that would make a difference to what he was seeing, like he could physically turn the screen for a better angle. His fists were clenched on his knees, anxiety tensing the muscles of his back and shoulders. He could feel that something was off…
They all heard the rumbling noise coming through from the television a moment before the ground beneath Thunderbird Two gave way, taking an ambulance with it.
“We don’t know what just happened,” the reporter said, speaking directly to the camera, “but it seems that International Rescue weren't anticipating it.”
“Of course they weren’t,” Scott heard John growl through gritted teeth. “I wasn’t there to watch out for the land subsidence or pressure points. EOS either didn’t think to monitor for it as that’s not part of her job, or they never even asked her.”
“You mean Dad never asked her,” Alan muttered, his face showing his distress.
“Now is not the time for speculation but we’ve been informed by a reliable source that International Rescue may be experiencing some staffing problems, their usual method of operating seeming to have changed. One can’t help but wonder if they are up for the task after their last rescue at the Clifton Mall in San Diego, where footage emerged of two of the Tracys appearing to be fighting amongst themselves, notably two of the brothers who are not here today.”
“I’m never there,” John argued.
“Do we know if Gordon is still down there?” Selene asked, breaking into their conversation and bringing them all up short, they had been so focused on the things they could see they had almost forgotten about the parts of the rescue they couldn’t.
“Shit!”
***
Virgil stripped off his uniform, letting it drop to the floor with a heavy thump, grateful to be out of the grubby, smelly material and even more grateful to be away from the watchful eye of the world's media.
He reached in to turn on the shower and made use of the toilet as he waited for the water to warm up. He liked his showers hot, scorch the skin off his shoulders hot, especially on a day like this. There were always going to be rescues that didn't go according to plan, there were always going to be times when they couldn't save everyone, they all knew this, they all lived with that knowledge every single time they went out. Unfortunately it seemed like those bad rescues were now outweighing the good ones, especially if the last four were anything to go by and he didn't know how many more he could take.
What made it worse was that he knew some of the deaths that had happened today might have been preventable if they had gotten to work quicker and had more information of the surrounding area. They had pretty much gone in blind.
Gordon had suggested to their father that he contact EOS and Grandma back on the island and use the digital imaging that they had on Five, to check out the area all around the disaster zone before they went in, but Jeff had disagreed. He, of the old school persuasion, had listened only to the emergency services.
Whereas before they might have sent in a drone, none of them knew how to properly work them, that was Scott’s domain. Where John would have taken it upon himself to find the old mine charts of the area, to compare them to the newly built roads and to monitor for subsidence, they had been left with nothing.
Jeff refused to trust EOS without John there to wrangle her, not that she needed it, and so he had ignored their suggestions to call on her for guidance.
They knew the old mines had flooded and that it had likely come from the sea, so Virgil had dropped Gordon in Thunderbird Four just off the coast and left him to navigate his way blindly through the tunnel system that had been naturally carved out by hundreds of years of sea water pounding at the rocks. Normally John would have been there to map out the tunnels, to plot his course and monitor him the entire time to make sure that he was aware of any danger that might be waiting up ahead. This time Gordon had been on his own.
Gordon had made good progress. For all his cheerful, fun loving, carefree attitude he was always the professional when it came to rescues, keeping an enviably clear head and doing whatever was needed in the safest way possible. Virgil had sat in the cockpit of Two where Jeff had told him to wait for further instructions, itching to get involved, desperate to get started. With every minute that ticked down he couldn't help but think about the number of people that might be still alive, trapped down that hole, desperately clinging to the hope that someone one would come for them. He couldn’t imagine the fear that they must be feeling, the pain they could be in and here he was sitting idly by, not doing a thing to help them.
Virgil stepped under the scalding spray, wincing as the water practically sizzled against his skin but the warmth felt good sinking into his tired muscles. He’d seen too many dead today, he needed the bite of pain to remind himself that he had been lucky enough to get out of there where they hadn't. Gordon, he knew, would be doing exactly the same thing.
They had liaised as best they could between themselves, making use of their superior comm lines, something that the emergency services did not have. Their father had issued instructions, organising the rescue from his vantage point above ground, but his instincts were rusty, his judgement clouded and he was too weak still to get involved with any of the actual rescuing. This had left the grunt work to Virgil and Gordon.
God, he missed Scott.
He ducked his head under the spray, wetting his hair and vigorously rubbing in some shampoo, needing to wash out the stiff mixture of sweat, dirt and hair gel.
Scott would have been right down in there with them, another set of hands, another person to rely on. Scott would never have made him sit out and wait, he would have trusted him to assess the situation and call it, making his own choice as to how he wanted to proceed. They were a team, just as much as he and Gordon were, working together seamlessly through years of practice. Scott never talked down to him, he never ordered him around unless it was absolutely necessary, Scott never treated him like he was staff.
He rinsed his hair and reached for his favorite shower gel, the one that smelt like eucalyptus and mint, cool, invigorating, the only thing that could wake him in the morning. He paused, reconsidering. He didn’t want to be awake right now, he wanted to sleep, to forget about the shit show that their lives had become. He bypassed that bottle and selected the herbal wash that Selene had made for him, the one that smelt of rosemary and camomile, soothing but still slightly spicy in its aroma. Thinking of Selene brought his mind back to John.
God, he missed John. If his brother had been there, doing his job as effortlessly as he always did then things might have gone differently. His brother would have been tracking Gordon, he would have told him that the tunnel was too tight, he would have been monitoring the structural integrity of the road above, the force that Two’s hovering jets were having on the ground, he would have noticed and he would have warned them before the road had collapsed further.
Gordon had been EVA at the time, right under the road as it collapsed, trying to extract a man trapped inside his car. Gordon had survived relatively unscathed, managing to scootch himself back into the tunnel at the last minute, suffering only a severely bruised shoulder from the falling debris. The man hadn’t made it. Gordon had tried to go back for him, but had been forced to give up and retreat, the entire section having caved in to such an extent that he couldn’t force his way back through.
After that it had been a recovery mission instead of a rescue.
Virgil knew exactly what they would have done differently and he was quite sure that they would have been able to save many more people. No they weren’t responsible for the accident, but some deaths had been preventable. If they had had a full crew, if Scott had been there, if John had been monitoring and advising, if Alan had been there to handle Two while Virgil had gone down into the pit, they would have saved any number of people. As it was, not only had the people that were trapped lost their lives, but a paramedic had too.
God, he missed Alan. He missed his family and it had only been a day.
He finished lathering up his body, wincing now and then as his fingers caught bruises and cuts and stepped back under the spray, hissing as the hot water pummelled his skin, the stinging pain bringing everything into sharper focus.
They had been apart before, of course they had, either for university, time in the air force or WASP, time in Five, time in Four or the odd vacation, but they had always parted on good terms. They had never had this amount of bad feeling between them.
No, he corrected himself, there wasn’t bad feeling between himself, Gordon and their brothers, he agreed with them, he understood their point. He didn’t blame them for feeling how they had. Virgil had now experienced it first hand, had his suggestions and opinions brushed aside and ignored. He’d felt that frustration. He understood.
He wished they would come home, but he knew it wouldn’t be happening any time soon. If there was one thing that Tracys were, it was stubborn and their father was the most stubborn of all. He’d had to be to survive so long alone in deep space.
Virgil turned off the water and stepped out, grabbing a towel.
They had all had such high expectations of what life would be like once their father came home, yet now...Virgil forcefully derailed that train of thought before he allowed himself to finish forming the words in his head. He would never, could never, admit, even to himself, that life had been easier without their father there. It just wasn't an option.
Tossing the towel into the laundry hamper he collapsed face down on the bed. Sleep, sleep was what he needed, to sleep and hopefully not dream.
***
Jeff reached for his coffee cup, taking a sip, making a face when he realised how cold it was. He was bone tired, mentally and physically exhausted yet he knew there was no point in him going to bed, he wouldn’t sleep even if he wanted to.
He slowly typed out a few more words but his heart and his mind wasn’t in it. He had been the one to insist on written reports after every rescue, they needed them, they could learn from them.
Virgil and Gordon had already completed their own and handed them in. they contained the bare minimum of details and had obviously both been compiled by Gordon, likely on the journey back to the island from Cornwall.
He sighed, dropping his head into his hands. He’d have to be blind not to see that his organisation was in trouble and that his family were the cause of it. He’d thought that one of them would have called in by now, that they would have cooled off over night and had a change of heart. But it hadn’t happened.
When they had received the distress call he had thought they would have joined them on the rescue, but that hadn’t happened either. It looked like he’d be waiting a while longer.
The sound of a throat clearing made him jump, his head snapping up to meet the eyes of the person who had distrubed him.
“I think we need to talk,” his visitor announced. “Don’t you?”