"International Rescue, what is the nature of your emergency?"

Alan can’t help but smile even wider at what he assumes is a yes from the small AI. He watches her as she quickly braids up her hair and sits down. 

“Oh! Yeah!” Alan snaps out of it and jumps down into his own seat and activates it. “Thunderbirds are Go!” 

They don’t talk much as the seats lower into the ground, the transformation from the lounge chairs into the seats for the rocket a little distracting and then it’s not long till they are split up to actually gear up for their mission. Once they are locked into Three there is little time while Alan begins start up procedure and then lift off. 

It’s only once they’ve successfully exited the atmosphere that Alan turns to look at the AI. “Right, so all we’re doing is going to go find some GDF astronauts who had went to Shadow Alpha One to examine the extent of the damage done by the asteroids. Something about wanting to tear it down and build a new station or something. But they went silent about a day and a half ago.” 

He maneuvers Three on a new trajectory towards the far side of the moon. “The thing I don’t understand was how they could get lost. I mean, yeah, it was a big base, but not complicated in the least. Makes you wonder if something didn’t happen.” He looks over and smirks a little at EOS. “Maybe aliens attacked!” 

It's actually kind of exciting, getting to gear up like the rest of the team. Most of the time EOS has had to get into her uniform manually, which takes much longer. She's glad the computers were programmed with a routine for her beforehand this time, it makes it much more convenient. Also it's a lot of fun, even if she does look warily down at the very distant ground as the loading arm puts the chairs into Thunderbird 3's cockpit. She's glad Brains makes sure to take extra, extra safety precautions, just in case of emergency; she'd definitely break from a fall this high.

Alan begins briefing her on the mission and she calls up a holographic screen with data from Thunderbird Five. His comment about aliens makes her glance over her shoulder at him. "I highly doubt extra-terrestrial life is to blame for any mishaps; the only kind humanity has found has been microbial, or whatever that bio-luminescent glow was on Europa. Still, a team being out of contact for a day and a half is not procedure. There might be more to Shadow Alpha One than meets the eye." A model of the base pops up, and she spins it around, looking at the details. "I must admit I have wanted to visit the base ever since you and Scott rescued Captain Taylor. Hopefully some of the data in the computers survived. A station in operation that long must have gathered a lot of fascinating information."

                          « ♥ »  —— Beatrix deliberates over which jet to take today. On one hand, it’s a calm day and there’s no need to rush. The Hawk 100 would do perfectly fine for the journey up to Edinburgh to collect EOS. On the other hand, should she be called upon, or need to rush back to John for whatever reason, the B15 Saker jet would be a wiser decision. With a sigh, the blonde locks her door and heads to the small hanger behind her home, knowing the obvious choice.

It doesn’t take long to get to Edinburgh in the Saker - in fact the longest part of the journey is probably getting permission to land at Edinburgh airport and arranging a taxi to get to the university. Luckily, it doesn’t take too long, and the taxi is waiting outside the airport when she gets there. 

Spotting the little AI upon arrival is no trouble - the shock of ginger hair sat on a bench is easy to spot. Bee tells the driver to hang on as she steps out and waves to catch EOS’s attention. “Come on, malenkaya sestra, we need to get back to London!” The older woman grins brightly.

She's been watching the clouds pass overhead, categorizing them and using her satellite connection to track the weather patterns. Maybe it will  count for extra credit with her homework for John. Beatrix's words cut through her thoughts and EOS nearly falls off the bench in surprise. Just in time she catches herself, and uses the force of righting herself to bounce up onto her feet and scoop up her bags.

@dawn-bringer-eos

Alan was sitting on the couch, a frown on his face, and his arms crossed. He had just finished talking with John—a rescue was needed and in space no less. Alan had lit up at the announcement and was already in his seat ready to go, but John had stopped him. He was not allowed to go on the mission by himself.

Alan just didn’t understand. Everyone else was allowed to go on solo missions, why not him?

Scott was currently in Canada helping to transport vital supplies—as well as some Tim Horton’s—to some scientist in the arctic circle, Virgil was in England helping with a capsized shipping vessel that had spilled all the tea it was carrying into the the ocean, and Gordon was off the coast of Australia helping some frat boys who thought it would be cool to try and attract some sharks, but had somehow sprung a leak and their boat was actively sinking into what was now shark infested water. Even Kayo was off who knew where doing who knew what.

Alan mentally went through the remaining occupants of the island. Grandma wasn’t cleared for any rescue duty, let alone going up into space. Brains did not do space well—he was getting better, but that was just floating around Five.

There was no one else available, so he was forced to wait and whichever brother came back first would be the one to go with him. Luckily it was more of a search and rescue mission, and since there weren’t many places to hide on the moon there wasn’t too much of a rush to get him there—waiting on his brothers and then using Three would still get them there faster than any of the shuttles available to the GDF.

Alan had slumped down even further into the couch. It just wasn’t fair. How much trouble could he get into on the moon?  

He was just about to call John back and beg him to let him do this mission solo, even though he knew his odds of changing John’s mind were very poor, when EOS walked into the room.

EOS! How had he forgotten about her? He jumped up and scrambled over the couch running over to the red-headed mobile unit, his smile stretching from ear to ear.

“Hey, EOS, how would you fancy a trip to the moon?”

As she walks into the lounge, EOS is, to put it mildly, distracted. Because her original function was to play video games, she still ends up with a compulsion to play them on occasion, and today is no different. This time it's a rather addictive matching game, the sort with matching different colorful objects to create combos and a limited number of moves to achieve a goal. Of course, the game itself is downloaded into her systems so there's no need for any physical interaction, but she still channels the movement of the tiles into her arms and hands as if she were really tapping and swiping on an invisible screen. For, um... motor control purposes. And to ward off accusations of cheating.

She's deep into the game and it takes her a second or two to respond to the question Alan just asked. For a second she looks at him with a foggy, confused expression, almost as if he’d asked her to go to... oh. "...The Moon? Why would I be going to the Moon?" Swipe, five-match, swipe to clear more... Her response time to the real world is quite laggy today, and only now does the information that John had radioed about a rescue reach her consciousness. "Oh, the rescue." EOS waves her hand in front of her face a little as she closes out of the game.

"I am afraid I did not record most of the briefing. I... suppose it must be alright for me to go with you, since everyone else is out..." That part did get saved in her memory banks, somehow. She hops down the few steps to the indented seating area. "I'll leave a note on the servers for anyone wondering where I am, and I can instruct the launch sequence to include me." There's no time to do her hair up in the secure but slightly elaborate braid crown, like she normally would for a space trip, but she quickly braids her hair and puts it in loops to keep it tidy. Finally, she flops into Thunderbird Two's passenger seat and looks up at Alan expectantly.

This might not make much sense, but I’ve been up visiting family in Maine, and since I decided Eugene is from around here I couldn’t help picturing him with the traditional accent. By 2070 or so I’m sure the accent will be fairly rare, but I’m guessing even for those who don’t really use it, it will be somewhat of a local joke.

what artificial intelligence is actually like:

Was feeling down today so I doodled an EOS and my OC Eugene (probably while they’re still silly university students). She’s about two inches taller than him and she likes ti gloat. ;) Sorry if the quality is sub-par, I had to scan it with my phone since I’m on vacation this week.