Thunderbirds

Everything had been (and still was, thank you very much!) going to plan so far. She had met him on the ground nearby the warehouse they were to investigate and they had entered without anyone being alerted as to their presence. Nothing had gone wrong so far, and it wasn’t about to either. Kayo refused to let a little sniffle get in the way.

She shivered, despite her expertly crafted suit and the fact that they were in Oman. Kayo told herself it was the fault of some dodgy air con the building probably had, and not from a fever. Because she was not sick.

“You don’t have to be here, you know?” Rigby’s voice echoed up to her. “I can take care of this myself. Go and wait in your cozy little Thunderbird.”

She hadn’t realised how far she’d trailed behind until she glanced up from her feet. Rigby was no longer only a few paces ahead of her; he was already at the bottom of the stairwell. 

“What, and let you get all the glory? No, thanks.”

The idea of moving any faster to catch up to him quicker was most unappealing so Kayo, watching her feet move inch by steady inch, kept moving at her very slow pace. 

Her ears picked up on the sound of boots scuffing against the stone steps. They grew closer and closer until she saw the tips of Rigby’s boots in her vision. 

Kayo lifted her vision to find him standing right in front of her. 

“I thought you rescue guys weren’t about the glory.” He teased, offering out a hand to help Kayo down the last of the (what had seemed to be) never-ending stairs.

“We’re not.” She batted his hand away, her words slightly clipped. “I don’t need a hand.”

“You’re sick, Kayo.”

“No, I’m not!”

Rigby seemed to ignore her last comment, though that offered hand of his was retracted. “You’re going to slow me down, K.”

There was an edge to Rigby’s tone which had Kayo feeling guilty. There was also an edge that suggested he felt guilty himself for weaponising the fact against her.

She decided to ignore both. “I’m fine.”

“Are you actually fine, or are you a Tracy Fine?”

“What is Tracy Fine?”

“When you guys say that you’re fine but you’re actually the opposite?”

Kayo huffed at that, barging past him to clear the last few stairs. “That’s very insulting.”

“Is it an insult if it’s the truth?”

Her next move was a very dumb move. She realised this only after she had tried to jump the rest of the steps and found her legs giving out from under her, leaving her crumpled on the floor.

Somehow she managed to refrain from exclaiming sour words because ow, that hurt.

“Tanusha!”

It was the first time he’d ever called her by that name, the name which only a select few in the world chose to use these days. Between the pain spiking in her ankle and the confusion that had set in by that damned fever, only one other man came to her mind, and it wasn’t her father. This man’s face was a despising image whenever she saw it; the very worst of her family, of humanity as a whole. Whenever he spoke her true name, there was always an element of underlying devilry.

With Rigby though, it was a total antithesis. His was filled with care and, in this very moment, worry. 

He raced down the rest of the steps and crouched beside her, offering up more assistance. This time, Kayo didn’t shrug him off.

“Maybe leave the jumping down staircases move for when you’re not ill?”

“For the last time, I am fine!” Kayo was helped into a sitting position, her back up against one of the walls of the small stairwell. “I made it to the bottom, didn’t I?”

A fond, if a little exasperated, chuckle slipped from his lips. “You almost broke your goddamn ankle is what you did.” Rigby gently rested the back of his hand resting against her forehead. The quirk of a smile vanished. “You are not fine. You’re burning up.”

Burning up? Huh, and here she thought she was freezing to death.

“I’m fi—”

“Go back to your ship, Kayo. I can handle it from here.”

“Rigby—”

“That’s an order.”

Kayo cast a glance over, meeting his steel eyes with a sobering realisation; no longer was she dealing with Rigs, her most trusted friend and ally outside of iR, but with Captain Wayne Rigby, one of the GDF’s finest and most efficient officers. In short, Kayo knew her battle was lost.

Before she could give in to the realisation that okay, yes, maybe she was a little sick and that okay, yes, maybe she should sit the rest of this one out, the door beside them swung open on creaking hinges. Two men blocked the doorway and directed a semi-automatic rifle each toward them.

Ah.

“You both took your time. Are the GDF underfunded or something, sending out rookies like you?” One of the men sneered. 

Kayo, though still dazed with fever, managed to hold Rigby back from making a very stupid mistake.

“Is she okay?”

The voice of Francois Lemaire lacked empathy. Rigby peered over his shoulder, his eyes narrow in a glare as he sized the man up.

Lemaire stood a few feet away from where he was crouching over an unconscious Kayo, hands clasped together in front of him with his fingers fidgeting anxiously as he awaited a response. Rigby knew he was only concerned for himself. The main reason he’d been so against taking Lemaire with them in the first place, no matter his connections to the business they were investigating, was that he couldn’t be trusted. Kayo hadn’t listened to him, deeming Lemaire worth the risk for the information he claimed to possess.

If he could have said I told you so, he would have done, but Kayo wasn’t currently awake. She was unconscious, yet another victim on Lemaire’s long list of collateral damage, only she was lucky enough to still be breathing.

Lemaire was lucky she was still breathing.

Rigby stood to his full height and turned on the man. He could have sworn Lemaire backed up a step or two, cowering slightly when he could see properly the anger that was evident on Rigby’s features. Rigby didn’t follow him, however. He remained rooted on the spot, next to Kayo.

“She’ll live.” He state bluntly, as though it was through no help from him. Technically speaking, it wasn’t. “Now you’re going to tell me what the hell you were thinking.”

“It wasn’t my idea!” Lemaire protested, his hands palm side down on his chest.

“What wasn’t? The ridiculous stunt you just pulled, or dragging us here in the first place. You were the one who said there was a lead, but all you’ve done is lead us into more and more danger!”

“I suggested that there might be something of interest to you both, for your investigation.”

That had Rigby’s ears perking up. Quizzically, his brows furrowed and he advanced towards Lemaire. “Speaking of our investigation, how did you even come to hear about it?”

“I keep tabs on things…”

Despite his attempts to sound confident, Rigby could tell Lemaire was in the deep end. He gulped visibly and, for every step Rigby took towards him, he backed up double. Rigby knew the man wasn’t as heroic as he’d like to show the world, that Lemaire hid behind his money and lived his life alongside the idea that someone was always going to come and rescue him as a rock-solid fact, but this behaviour he found interesting. Whatever this was, Lemaire was in over his head. The stubborn man was just too proud to admit it.

For now.

“You mean you spy on government agencies, on the GDF?”

“I wouldn’t say spy, not like that anyway. I think its a public service—”

“I’d be very careful how you proceed, Mister Lemaire, if you don’t want to end this day arrested and in a cell.”

Lemaire was taken back, affronted by the threat. Finding his lost confidence, he lifted his chin and, smugly commented, “I’d like to see what my lawyers think about that, Mister Rigby.”

“Captain.” Rigby corrected him with a growl.

“Excuse me?”

“You will address me as Captain Rigby, not ‘mister’.”

Lemaire waved him off as though the matter was unimportant. His lack of respect was astonishing, even to Rigby who had dealt with far worse than him in the past. Master criminals with nefarious intent were only a few leagues above this… imbecile, and that was saying something.

“You still haven’t answered my question.” Rigby realised out loud.

“Which one?”

Quite, Rigby thought. Through gritted teeth and with fists curled into balls at his side, he calmly replied. “Both. What were you thinking and what exactly do you ‘keep tabs on’?”

“I wasn’t thinking.” Lemaire proudly proclaimed. “It had been her idea!”

A slender finger was pointed accusingly towards Kayo, who was still peaceful on the ground behind Rigby. The man’s attempt to absolve himself simply by claiming the idea wasn’t his had Rigby’s patience wearing thinner.

“You didn’t think to try and stop her?”

“Why would I? She said she thought she could find a way out of this place. I’d have been a fool to try and stop her.”

“You are a fool, Lemaire, because you let her almost fall to her death! You don’t even care and— Hold on a second! You said you knew the way out of here!”

Lemaire’s eyes suddenly glinted. “… Did I?”

“The whole reason we brought you along with us was because you said you knew the way out of this labryinth.” Rigby sized him up. “Were you lying?”

It didn’t make any sense. Lemaire wouldn’t have put himself in danger if he there wasn’t something he could gain from it. If he was the captain of a ship, Lemaire would be the first to jump overboard and then later proclaim that he’d been the hero all along, simply because he’d been there.

“No! No, no, no! I wasn’t lying. There must have been some sort of miscommunication… Perhaps my secretary sent you the wrong details… or something...”

Rigby was having none of it. He shook his head. “I spoke to you directly. When you told us you had the lead, you said to me that you knew this place like the back of your hand.”

Behind him, Kayo stirred. The first groan was so quiet, he almost missed it. Rigby abandoned his interrogation and crouched back down to help his friend.

She was trying to sit herself up, gripping her head. “Everything… spinning…”

“Take it easy, Kay. You had a nasty fall.”

“Fall… falling… I don’t…”

Again, she tried to move, and, again, Rigby cautioned her against it.

“Take it easy.”

Her eyes, which had been blinking painfully as she reorientated herself, suddenly flashed wide open, and that was the moment Rigby’s heart sunk. He’d seen Kayo scared before. Working with her so often, Rigby had picked up on certain tells. Normally she’d pretend, very convincingly, to be anything but terrified and he usually would have argued that she’d perfected that skill. But this time she wasn’t trying to hide her fear. The absolute terror that was shining from her amber hues sent a chilling shiver down Rigby’s spine.

“We have to get out.” Kayo whispered. Her words were sharp, crisp and she tried to move again.

“Yeah, we’ve been trying that. Don’t you remember?” Perhaps the fall had done more damage than Rignby had previously thought.

Adamant in her need to sit up, he stopped fighting her and aided her instead. Kayo pressed her back into the wall behind her and Rigby immediately set the medical scanner to work again.

As he hovered it over her body, Kayo peeked over his shoulder. “Where is he?”

“Who, Lemaire? He’s right…”

Rigby turned to point the man out, only he’d vanished. He couldn’t suppress his sigh. Now, of all moments, was the time Lemaire decided to bolt? Rigby guessed he shouldn’t have expected any less.

His attention was again returned to Kayo as she pulled on his jacket sleeves. She was shaking her head. “That wasn’t Lemaire.”

“What do you mean that wasn’t Lemaire? Of course it was.” He lifted up three fingers. “How many?”

Kayo batted them away forcefully. “I’m not playing around, Rigs. We need to get out. Now!”

“Kay, relax, alright? He’s probably just gone off for a wander. You know what Lemaire’s like.”

“That wasn’t Lemaire!”

“Then who—?”

The blood drained from Rigby’s face as the realisation sunk in. He felt the presence behind him before he’d had the chance to stand and face the man. Like the coward he was, he didn’t wait for Rigby to confront him.

The so-called Lemaire imposter kicked Rigby’s legs out from under him, knocking him off-balance and sending him to the floor. Polished brogues collided with his stomach. The breath was taken out of him.

Rigby glanced up in time to see Lemaire’s face morph into a more sinister appearance, one Rigby was unfortunately well acquainted with. Large, bushy brows and a thin, gaunt face. He was smiling down at Rigby, the same shoes as before kicking once again as he tried to upholster his weapon.

“And the penny drops.” The Hood’s taunt was accompanied by a condescending smile. “And they claim you are one of the GDF’s best and brightest? Pah!”

The Hood bent down and retrieved Rigby’s weapon. He aimed at the two of them, gesturing for Rigby to join Kayo by the wall.

With little power currently in his court, Rigby obeyed. He shuffled backwards and offered an apologetic look towards Kayo. She, however, had her eyes set on the man in front of them. She glared at her uncle.

“Come now, Tanusha, don’t be like that.” The Hood waved the weapon towards her communications device. “Do something more useful and call off your brothers’s rescue mission. We don’t want to be disturbed.”

He’d spat that word — brothers’s — with every ounce of disdain he could muster. Everyone knew if the Hood’s complete contempt for Kayo’s decision to join his enemies rather than stand with him. It ate away at him, bred more scorn towards the family Kayo chose to call her own.

Kayo did as she was told. Like Rigby, she understood the predicament.

As she typed away her message, he glowered up at the Hood. “What’s your endgame here anyway? I thought this complex was closed down? And why bother pretending to be Lemaire?”