Ouch! My Spaceship!

31 May 2066 0900hrs, Gran Roca Ranch

Eighteen days - or seventeen, depending on which side of the Date Line you started counting on - whipped past in a blur of meetings, legalities, press statements, and discoveries as decades of secrets were brought to the light and lies were peeled off like the layers of a foul and rotten onion. John had shown Scott and Gordon what he and Virgil found in UnNamed’s office and it was only the follow up information - that the FBI and a whole alphabet soup of other organisations had been alerted and started moving the instant Thunderfall had been triggered - that had kept them both from shattering anew. 

As they worked to uncover all the hidden caches and documents, the world news headlines changed daily, sometimes hourly, as different names were uncovered, connections were made, and new secrets were dragged into the light. UnNamed had gathered up many people into his slipstream as he chased his dream; his ignoble end had also triggered the end of the dreams of many others. 

Everyone took a small measure of grim satisfaction in that. 

Lee Taylor, surprisingly, had remained untouched by most of UnNamed’s filth, to the point that the attempted assault in the boardroom was the only thing that could be pinned on him and that had earned him little more than a legal slap on the wrists. But despite that, he hadn’t escaped the fall out. Disgraced and shamed but still stridently asserting UnNamed’s innocence, the Helios Colony staunchly refused to allow him to come back (not that Spectrum would have permitted it anyway), very few of his friends returned his calls, and he’d been forced to move in with his sister. Lee was still trying to drum up support for UnNamed’s memory, but he didn’t have the charm or the cunning to turn that into a credible assault on the Tracys and EOS made a project out of keeping his voice in the public sphere as muted as possible.

Eighteen days had also provided more than enough time for the Mysterons to strike again, an attack in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, offering the perfect cover story to close the literal and proverbial files for ‘Captain Cobalt’ and ‘Captain Xanthic’. 

That, Scott was honest enough to admit, was something he was still wrestling with. ‘Cobalt’ had been intended as an identity, a mask to cover himself with, but taking off that mask hadn’t been as simple or easy as packing up his room and taking off his uniform. He had to unlearn ‘Cobalt’ and relearn who ‘Scott Tracy’ was, and that was taking time. Gordon, he knew, was also stumbling a little with the transition, but overall it was easier for him; Gordon had let go of more identities than he had.

In those preceding eighteen days they’d also had the funeral, held at the small cemetery in Kansas where generations of Tracys had already been laid to rest. 

As per the instructions in his will, UnNamed had been cremated. There’d been a very polite question from the staff at Arlington if they wished to make use of a grave there, as was UnNamed’s right due to his military service, but they’d just as politely refused the offer and the box of ashes had been put into the ground next to Grant Tracy. The entire thing had been very small and very quiet by design: the online hordes of keyboard warriors had rallied by this point, declaiming all sorts of nonsense and rubbish about conspiracy theories and how ‘conveniently’ UnNamed had died so quickly after being arrested, and no one wanted to give them an opportunity to spread their lies and hate.

(There had been mutterings about shooting the box of ashes into space and getting rid of all traces of him, but Scott had quietly put a stop to that for Grandma’s sake. Yes, UnNamed had been a monster, but he’d also been her son. Those wounds were obscure, difficult, and they ran deep, and he knew the value of having a place to go to to grieve.) 

The ceremony - what little there was of it anyway - had been attended by himself, Grandma, and two of the cemetery staff, and the spot was being left unmarked for now; again, because of the die-hards and conspiracy theorists. 

Eighteen days was also how long it took until Scott felt safe enough - and strong enough - to leave the Island and go to Gran Roca Ranch. A Spectrum team had already gone through the outbuildings, the house, and the training facility, uncovering a small horde of information. They’d been made privy to a portion of it, and the number of deals, blackmail schemes, and plots UnNamed had been involved in was mind boggling.

Entering the house, Scott walked through the hall slowly, letting his thoughts drift. He'd always wondered why UnNamed hadn't sold the ranch. The will reading had revealed that he couldn't, it was set up in an ironclad trust for Scott, and Scott alone. There had been several tries to break the trust, but they hadn't worked. Thinking back, matching dates and events, Scott could trace those moments to points in his life when UnNamed had been especially callous.

Finding out that the ranch was his, and his alone, made it even more precious to him.

The house was going to need a cleaning from attic to training facility, along with a redo of the decor. He had already decided that every hint of UnNamed was going to be excised from it. But there was one place Scott knew that UnNamed hadn't gone but once after his mother had died: her office.

Scott stood in front of the door, both gathering his courage and steeling his heart. The others had wanted to come. Kayo had argued with him about it, that he'd need the back up. Even Grandma had offered. But he'd refused them all, pointing out to his beloved that while yes, he didn't need to do this alone, it was something he wanted to do alone. Kayo had kissed him fiercely and told him she'd be no more than fifteen minutes away, if he required her. God, how he loved that woman.

He took a deep breath, and opened the door. The room was full of light, Lucy had always loved the light after the grey of England and had claimed a south facing bedroom as her office. Scott just stood there to take in the room. It hadn't changed since UnNamed had swept in, taking all her work, papers, and computer after her death. Scott had made sure to clean and dust the room whenever they came to the ranch, and after UnNamed had vanished, left instructions for the cleaning crew to do so. So there wasn't even the suggestion of her perfume, just a whiff of lemon and oil.

His eyes were drawn to the drafting table, a huge thing that his mom had found at some sale before he had even been conceived. She had taken it through every move she had until it had been sent here, after Gordon's birth. He'd spent a lot of the first four years of his life either next to or under that table. Finally leaving the doorway, he went first to that, and laid a hand on the back of the drafting stool that seemed much too short. He picked up a mechanical drafting pencil, an ancient thing, at least a century old and heavy enough to use as a weapon. He'd offer it to Virgil, and if Virgil didn't want it, he would keep it. Their mom had written so much of her work with this. All the other pencils and pens were the normal collection of an engineer, so he left those.

Scott moved to the desk and sat down,  the steel pencil flipping slowly through his fingers. The chair padding hadn't fared too well in the light and heat, it sounded - crunchy. He chuckled to himself. ‘Everything ages, even furniture.’ He tried to roll the pencil around his thumb, only to send it tumbling to the floor.

"Smooth move, dumbass." He sighed, slid off the chair and crawled into the footwell. He sneezed as his feeling around sent the dust bunnies running for cover. His questing fingers wrapped around the barrel of the pen. But it was on the vertical and not the horizontal. "Huh?"

He got his phone out to have some light. In the harsh photo light was the pencil, standing up in a hole in a floorboard. Which made him blink, none of the other boards were that rough. He plucked the pencil free, then wedged a finger into the hole and pulled. The board came up and revealed a dark space below. Curiosity well and fully engaged led him to reaching into the shadows, to have his hand brush something dusty and rough. He swallowed hard, and pulled out a brown envelope. An old fashioned one that was closed with string and a knot he recognized. Scott weighed the envelope in his hand. It was heavy, far heavier than the size made it out to be. He was also loathed to open it. This was something special, something important, something his mom hadn't wanted found, so opening it would almost be like betraying her trust. However, his mom was long gone and any betrayal couldn't hurt her now. If it was too personal - well, there was the firepit out back. He took a hard breath, undid the string, and slid the contents out onto his lap. 

What landed there made no sense to him, not at first. Papers, passports, several flash drives, two more envelopes with pre-paid credit cards in one and a thick stack of 100 dollar bills in the other. He fixated on her passport, the picture was horrible of course, but it was one more image of his mother. A piece of paper behind the passport caught his attention, only to lose it when he realized that there were two more passports, both his, one for America and the other for the United Kingdom. Lucy had never renounced her citizenship, so he had a dual one. Dear God, if he'd known that when he was younger. If he'd had this in those days - would he have run? Left his brothers behind, in the care of UnNamed? He was pretty sure he wouldn't have, but to know he had an out? That might have made the bad times more bearable. 

The paper between them was a list, with several things crossed off: passports, marriage license, birth certificates, residency proof for me, pictures, money - that had been circled and underlined. Other items hadn't been: clothes, one stuffie each, Scott Bernie Bear, books for John, crayons for Virgil, Blub the Fish for Gordon (need dumb hand held), baby ?, Val - phone.

‘... it’s an escape plan.’ Scott found himself sitting on the floor without remembering how he’d gotten there. ‘Mom was going to escape with all of us… she saw what was going on… what he was doing… and she was going to save us…’  

He was crying, but he did not care. This was catharsis, the purging of long-hidden wounds and washing them clean. Yes, it would hurt, like any washing of a wound, but this was healing that he desperately needed. 

T H U N D E R F A L L 

Hours later, the night was warm as he came out onto the porch, the wooden planks creaking underfoot. He leaned on the railing and stared out, a thousand and one thoughts tumbling through his mind. If not for the avalanche, that cruel twist of fate, Mom would have done it. He knew that down to his bones. She’d have taken all of them, found a safe bolt hole, and she’d have fought UnNamed tooth and nail and forced him to concede. 

A shift of air, a faint smell of perfume, spices, and av-gas, and - just as he suspected would happen - Kayo was there, her arm around his waist and her head resting on his shoulder. He looped his arm around her, kissed the top of her head, and held her close. ‘I hadn’t called, but she still knew she needed to come. God I love her so much.’ 

“Big thoughts?” she asked him. 

“Yeah.” Scott let the comfortable silence wrap around them both. The smells of wet ground, creosote, sage, and cedarwood gave Scott a deep sense of nostalgia and comfort. There was also an edge of longing to it. The pain of his mom's death would always colour his life, but at this very moment it was the shadow that made the light even brighter. 

It wasn’t a conscious decision, a stringing together of thoughts into a logical order with a logical conclusion. It was, he knew, something that he’d already decided years ago, but he’d buried it under layer upon layer of secrets and shame and fear to keep her safe. If he’d let even a hint of it show, UnNamed would have turned it into another chain, another shackle, another way to control them all like puppets on strings. 

‘But now we’re free.’ It still felt like it was too good to be true, even though UnNamed was dead, cremated, and buried, even though he’d seen that box go into the ground, there was still some corner of his mind that was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for everything to get turned upside down again. ‘To hell with that. I’m not letting a dead man rule me any more.’

This wasn’t the moment he’d let himself fantasise about, he didn’t even have a ring, but it was the right moment, and that was what mattered more; to both of them. 

He turned so he could hold Kayo in both of his arms, brushed a kiss against her lips, then he got down on one knee, her hands in his and his heart in his eyes. “Kayo…Tanusha, will you marry me?” 

“Yes!” She was in his arms, crouched down on the old wooden planks, her arms around him and her head in the crook of his neck. “Yes.” Kayo murmured the word like a prayer. “Yes.”