#fischler

He scrambled for the floatation device in his baldric, and tucked it under Fischler’s arms heaving a sigh of relief as it inflated without issue and the weight lifted from him.

“Gord… …on”

“There’s noise, Two, tell John to clear it up.”

Silence fell and Gordon chanced a look upwards. There wasn’t a star in the sky, only a flaming scrap heap.

“We can’t see you on our scanners, Gordon,” said Virgil. “John says there’s some sort of interference blocking it.”

“I’m just glad we still have comms,” said Gordon, leaning his head against the sturdy orange nylon. “I have Fischler, he’s going into shock.”

“Hypothermic?”

“Probably. He was not dressed for the Arctic. Four’s our best bet out, the only way clear is down.”

“Okay, hang tight, keep talking to him, we’ll work it out.”

Gordon punched Fischler, jolting him out of his stupor.

“Don’t die on me now.”

“It crashed,” said Fischler, looking around him in amazement.

The sloshing water echoed in the chamber they’d found themselves trapped in, the metal creaking ominously above them.

“Of course it crashed,” snapped Gordon. “Weren’t you paying any attention to us?”

“They never crash,” was all Fischler would say.

Gordon sighed irritably, straining his mind to find something, anything, that he could ask to distract the man who’d pulled them both into this mess.

“How’d you make it?”

Fischler launched into his grand tale, a well-rehearsed speech that mobilised the best of his grandeur and the worst of Gordon’s patience.

“Lead balloons, they said it wasn’t possible, but I showed them!” he exclaimed, just as Gordon caught sight of a faint and familiar gleam.

“That’s her!” he yelled excitedly, surging upwards with relief. “She’s coming now!”

“Eh? Another of your ships?” said Fischler, peering down. “They didn’t do much good the first time, look at my beauty!”

And he launched into another long spiel that Gordon silenced by dragging him underwater, strong kicks pushing them towards his ‘bird.

He ran a loving hand over her controls, leaving Fischler without an audience and despondent for the first time all day.

“We’re in, preparing to surface now.”

“FAB,” chorused his brothers’ voices.

“And good luck,” said John, smirking a little.

“Is that the ginger one?” said Fischler, wandering in with his shirt still half done up. “Such a stick in the mud, very unfriendly to me, you know.”

“I wonder why,” muttered Gordon under his breath as John bid him a hasty farewell. “I told you to get out of those clothes already.”

“I can’t do the buttons, my fingers are numb.”

Gordon looked up sharply, grabbing for his hands. They were red and swollen, twitching away from his touch.

“Hold still, let me help you.”

“Help me? You’ve gone out of your way to destroy my work and you think you can help me now?”

“You did that to yourself,” snapped Gordon. “Your so-called work is dangerous, you’re careless with the lives around you, and you waste our time again and again. Stop complaining and do as you are told.”

Fischler said nothing as Gordon helped him undress and wrapped a blanket firmly around him.

“I can’t see any blisters,” he said at last. “You need to tell me if any develop, I’m not convinced you avoided frostbite that easily.”

“You think I’d deserve it, don’t you?”

“I think it would be fair. said Gordon quietly, refusing to look at him. “Natural consequences and all that. But just because it’s fair doesn’t mean you deserve it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

Gordon clenched his jaw.

“I’m not here to justify our actions to you. You needed help. The people who work for you needed help. So we helped.”

“It can’t be that simple, what’s your play?”

“Can’t make you believe me.”

“There’s always an angle. Nobody does things like that for nothing.”

Gordon’s lip curled.

“The lives of others aren’t nothing. Maybe remember that before you build your next project and we have to rescue your sorry ass again. Because you’re right, I don’t think you deserve to be saved time and time again. But International Rescue says different.”

Thunderbird Four surfaced, bobbing up and down on top of the waves and Gordon handed the controls over to Virgil.

#9 - Virgil + Gordon + Dealer’s Choice + Brave

His little brother never had learnt to shut his mouth.

He was meant to be meeting Gordon, but it seemed that his brother had made alternate plans involving an alleyway and a fight.

Paralysing horror coupled with fierce pride as he watched Gordon, still pulling himself up from the ground with a taunting smile. Virgil ran towards them, fear eating up his oxygen and leaving him gasping for air even as he toppled onto the stranger and knocked the wind from his lungs too.

“Thanks V,” said Gordon cheerfully, blood smeared across his chin. He swiped at it again before bending down to check on the man.

“What did he do?”

The look in Gordon’s eyes darkened.

He said nothing, only reached into the man’s jacket pocket, fingers slipping into the lining and pulling out a number of small plastic vials, clear liquid still sloshing inside them.

Virgil swore.

“The idiot started bragging in the bathroom,” said Gordon, neatly placing the vials where he found them. “I decided it was time to be a mouthy little shit, get his attention off the girls and onto me.”

He couldn’t smile, falling back against the wall with a groan.

“Cops are on their way,” he said, still staring at the man. “We should go.”

Virgil grabbed him under the arm, hauling him upwards.

“You can never just keep your mouth shut, can you?”

Gordon opened his mouth, righteous indignation written across his features but Virgil spoke over him.

“I’m proud of you. That was brave. He might have had friends.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t know I had you.”

#10 - EOS + The Hood + Humour + Alarm

He glared across the room at Fuse and Havoc, daring them to interrupt him again with their incessant beeping as they tripped over each other’s apologies.

“Honest, I turned it off,” said Havoc waving her wrist in his direction.

“I don’t think anyone ever showed me how to turn it on, you know?”

“Silence,” he hissed. “This is the twelfth time, I am not some, some microwave to be interrupted and told when to start and stop. Once more and I will smash them and the replacements will come out of your wages.”

“But, boss, you don’t pay us,” said Fuse, looking over at his sister in confusion. “Are you getting paid Havoc?”

“I will makeyou pay, the way I plan to make International Rescue pay.”

Havoc nudged him with a sharp elbow and a glare that told Fuse to shut it now.

“Chaos first, pay second. You got food, din’tcha?”

“Excellent perspective as always,” said the Hood silkily, as he pulled up the blueprints with a flourish. “This is your new objective, the TRx-154 engine. Find it, steal it, bring it back to me.”

“And create some chaos?” asked Fuse, hope shining in his eyes.

The Hood’s upper lip curled as he examined the blueprints more closely. His companions would never appreciate the subtlety that went into his work, nor the –

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

“Turn that incessant sound off,” he shouted, whirling around to face them.

Nobody moved.

The merry beeping continued.

“Uh, boss?” Havoc said as she jabbed a finger at him. “I think it’s yours now.”

The Hood ripped the comm from his wrist, throwing it down in disgust and slammed his foot over it, grinding the intricate wiring into the ground and grinning savagely with every crunching motion.

“Out of yourpay,” he snarled, turning about face and stalking out of the room.

“Come on,” muttered Havoc. “Let’s get that engine and forget about him.”

***

“What are you twinkling for?” asked John, catching sight of EOS’s rapidly oscillating light circle from the corner of his eye. “See something funny?”

“Oh, nothing,” said EOS, the giggle catching in her voice. “I have discovered to set remote alarms across external networks by jumping across the wireless datastream.”

“I’ve told you to be careful with that before,” scolded John. “Any sudden loss of power and I won’t be able to debug you properly.”

EOS sighed to herself, reluctantly drawing back from the new network she had been exploring.

“If you would let me experiment, I’m sure we could find some useful data.”

“That’s not our job, you know that. Our job is saving lives.”

“Maybe it could be a hobby? Your brothers say it’s good to have a hobby.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” said John absently. “The Chaos Crew just resurfaced in Poland, I want you to narrow down their objectives and forward all data to the GDF. We have a situation.”

#11 - Gordon + Fischler + Fluff + explosion

A loud, echoing crunch of metal was Fischler’s only warning that the magnificent hovering ferry of the future would be hovering no longer and he could only stare at the controls in shock as she began to teeter in the air, her marvellous balloons and stellar propellers no longer able to hold her weight.

Gordon’s warning of the events about to unfold had been exceptionally detailed and carefully catalogued as one by one, everything that could go wrong did, until he was left alone on the bridge of a nearly evacuated airship with her captain – a man who seemed utterly oblivious to the fact that his beloved machine was in fact a Titanic.

“Get down,” he shouted at Fischler who was standing motionless, gormless face and all, as the engines began to disintegrate beneath them.

He barely had time to register the way confusion morphed into disbelief, dragging the man backwards and shielding him as the propellers burst out of their fittings and ripped through the control room, shredding the metal as they flew.

“BRACE!”

The shock of Arctic waters could never be forgotten and each time Gordon was forced into them, the cold bit deeper into his suit. One day the icy chill would attack his heart instead of his extremities, and Gordon knew that would be the last time he would swim in an ocean.

He jabbed at his flashlight, the water a deep and murky blue beneath his kicking legs.

“I need back up now,” he yelled into his comm, struggling to hoist Fischler above the water. “Somebody get Four to me.”

He scrambled for the floatation device in his baldric, and tucked it under Fischler’s arms heaving a sigh of relief as it inflated without issue and the weight lifted from him.

“Gord… …on”

“There’s noise, Two, tell John to clear it up.”

Silence fell and Gordon chanced a look upwards. There wasn’t a star in the sky, only a flaming scrap heap.

“We can’t see you on our scanners, Gordon,” said Virgil. “John says there’s some sort of interference blocking it.”

“I’m just glad we still have comms,” said Gordon, leaning his head against the sturdy orange nylon. “I have Fischler, he’s going into shock.”

“Hypothermic?”

“Probably. He was not dressed for the Arctic. Four’s our best bet out, the only way clear is down.”

“Okay, hang tight, keep talking to him, we’ll work it out.”

Gordon punched Fischler, jolting him out of his stupor.

“Don’t die on me now.”

“It crashed,” said Fischler, looking around him in amazement.

The sloshing water echoed in the chamber they’d found themselves trapped in, the metal creaking ominously above them.

“Of course it crashed,” snapped Gordon. “Weren’t you paying any attention to us?”

“They never crash,” was all Fischler would say.

Gordon sighed irritably, straining his mind to find something, anything, that he could ask to distract the man who’d pulled them both into this mess.

“How’d you make it?”

Fischler launched into his grand tale, a well-rehearsed speech that mobilised the best of his grandeur and the worst of Gordon’s patience.

“Lead balloons, they said it wasn’t possible, but I showed them!” he exclaimed, just as Gordon caught sight of a faint and familiar gleam.

“That’s her!” he yelled excitedly, surging upwards with relief. “She’s coming now!”

“Eh? Another of your ships?” said Fischler, peering down. “They didn’t do much good the first time, look at my beauty!”

And he launched into another long spiel that Gordon silenced by dragging him underwater, strong kicks pushing them towards his ‘bird.

He ran a loving hand over her controls, leaving Fischler without an audience and despondent for the first time all day.

“We’re in, preparing to surface now.”

“FAB,” chorused his brothers’ voices.

“And good luck,” said John, smirking a little.

“Is that the ginger one?” said Fischler, wandering in with his shirt still half done up. “Such a stick in the mud, very unfriendly to me, you know.”

“I wonder why,” muttered Gordon under his breath as John bid him a hasty farewell. “I told you to get out of those clothes already.”

“I can’t do the buttons, my fingers are numb.”

Gordon looked up sharply, grabbing for his hands. They were red and swollen, twitching away from his touch.

“Hold still, let me help you.”

“Help me? You’ve gone out of your way to destroy my work and you think you can help me now?”

“You did that to yourself,” snapped Gordon. “Your so-called work is dangerous, you’re careless with the lives around you, and you waste our time again and again. Stop complaining and do as you are told.”

Fischler said nothing as Gordon helped him undress and wrapped a blanket firmly around him.

“I can’t see any blisters,” he said at last. “You need to tell me if any develop, I’m not convinced you avoided frostbite that easily.”

“You think I’d deserve it, don’t you?”

“I think it would be fair. said Gordon quietly, refusing to look at him. “Natural consequences and all that. But just because it’s fair doesn’t mean you deserve it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

Gordon clenched his jaw.

“I’m not here to justify our actions to you. You needed help. The people who work for you needed help. So we helped.”

“It can’t be that simple, what’s your play?”

“Can’t make you believe me.”

“There’s always an angle. Nobody does things like that for nothing.”

Gordon’s lip curled.

“The lives of others aren’t nothing. Maybe remember that before you build your next project and we have to rescue your sorry ass again. Because you’re right, I don’t think you deserve to be saved time and time again. But International Rescue says different.”

Thunderbird Four surfaced, bobbing up and down on top of the waves and Gordon handed the controls over to Virgil.

Unfortunately Fischler Senior gave way less than a year later to Fischler Junior

The need for safer methods soon gave way under the new directions, and Brains began to regret taking the role here. He’d had no end of offers and had narrowed them down to two in the end – Fischler Engineering and Tracy Industries.

Still, he was a positive man and made the most of what he could.

Fischler Jnr switched him from ore extraction methods to design, something Brains loved to do. But he soon came to realise that Fischler’s ideas of safety and his own could not have been further apart.

Brains looked into how he could get out of his contract, but the legal team Junior had employed had sealed every loophole he could find.

Soon he found that he couldn’t even leave the campus. The flat he had was part of his pay package, and for the first time he began to believe that he would never get free. It wasn’t false imprisonment per se, but he couldn’t get out. The campus had every amenity he could ever need. In theory. He couldn’t even put his finger on what had happened to say he couldn’t leave, but the threat was there, even if it had never been explicitly stated.

One day he couldn’t get into his lab. It had been locked and an armed guard blocked the way. Frowning, Brains allowed the guard to direct him to a part of the complex he’d never been before on the promise that all would be explained.

His boss was in the middle of a huge lab. There was scattered ore all over the place and the machinery needed to extract it lay idle. The frown on Brains’ face deepened as he realised that the man was babbling away to himself, pacing and waving his arms around. It looked like he hadn’t even noticed their approach.

Suddenly Fischler Jnr spun on his heel and spotted them. He ran over and grabbed Brains’ arm and dragged him over to a pile of ore.

‘I found it! I found it!’

The man all but pushed him into the pile, and there was nothing Brains could do to stop himself crashing down. It sounded like his boss had completely lost it.

‘F-F-Found what, S-S-Sir?’ ‘The metal! The metal my father had been looking for all this time! I found it! Me! Take that, Daddy! And I didn’t need your precious precautions!’

Brains shook his head. He had no idea what the man was on about, and the increasingly erratic behaviour had him wondering where the man’s head was. It was clear to him that something was going on, he just wasn’t sure what.

‘O-O-Okay, Mr F-F-Fischler. What would y-y-you like me to do?’

Suddenly the man stopped, eyes narrowed in suspicion. He pointed a shaky finger at Brains.

‘You’re here to take it away from me! You mean to give it to my rivals!’

The words were all but shrieked at him, and Brains held up his hands placatingly while backing away. He didn’t get far as he collided with the guard.

‘Boss, you asked me to bring Dr Hackenbacker here to see you.’ ‘I – I did?’ ‘Yes, Sir.’

Brains remained frozen to the spot, a suspicion of what was going on forming. The expression on Fischler’s face changed from wariness to excitement again, and he lunged forward and once more grabbed Brains arm and dragged him back to the pile.

‘Daddy said I would never amount to anything if I didn’t do things right, but I found the rarest metal on earth and he never did! And now, Brains – you don’t mind if I call you Brains, do you? – I need you to process this ore and check the purity out. Everything you need is here and, er…’ – he flapped a hand at the guard who remained impassive – ‘whatever-his-name-is will get you anything you need.’

Brains listened to the man with increasing concern. He was talking so fast his words were blurring, and mentally Brains ran through in his head the symptoms of cyanide poisoning. Excitement, restlessness, rapid breathing…he was pretty sure the man was showing the signs. In fact, he’d put money on it if he had been a betting man.

Fischler Jnr had no regard for safety, unlike his father, and as Brains looked around the lab he could see – or rather could not see – the extraction equipment to remove any traces of cyanide gas that would be produced as a side effect of using cyanide salts in extracting ore. He could see the process had been started, the small pile of metal on the table testified to that, but this was beyond what even he thought Fischler was capable of.

If he didn’t get them all out of here they could die from exposure.

As he turned to talk to the guard, he half listened as his boss began babbling about spies and people who wanted what he had. The man had clearly been exposed already, no one wanted what Fischler had, at least no one wanted to extract ore this way anymore. His father had been in the process of removing the method from the company – it had been one of the reasons Brains had been hired, to find a safer way to extract the metals. Hopefully the guard would listen to him and let him get Fischler Jnr medical help.

‘W-W-We need to g-g-get him out of here! H-H-He’s showing classic s-s-symptoms of cyanide p-p-poisoning.’

The guard started, eyes going wide. He nodded, even as he looked around in fear. They both turned to the raving man who had remained oblivious to them and was still talking about how great he was. He was even saying how his son was following in his footsteps, and that thought made Brains shudder. He didn’t think he could deal with another Fischler.

Nodding to the guard, they positioned themselves each side of their boss, and grabbed an arm each, dragging a now kicking and screaming man outside. Eventually the guard simply picked Fischler up and flung him over his shoulder while the man screamed obscenities and promises that Brains would never work in this field again, something that Brains would actually be very thankful for.

But it was the last thing that Fischler said that stuck in Brains’ mind as he set about sealing off the lab. If what the man said was true, Fischler had indeed found the rarest metal on earth, and Brains was only sorry that the man’s hubris (and insanity) meant the source of it was lost.

Fischler claimed to have found it on a deserted island in the Pacific. There were many, too many for Brains to search.

Cahelium. The man claimed to have found Cahelium X.

What Brains could do with such a metal! But it was not to be, and he put it out of his mind as he carried on, helping the powers that be shut down Fischler Engineering and making everything safe. Nothing was ever said about Cahelium X and he put it down to the fevered ramblings of a poisoned mind.

With Fischler Engineering gone and his contract nullified, Brains was freed to take up the position Mr Tracy offered him with Tracy Industries. He never did say anything about Fischler Jnr’s claims of finding Cahelium X, even when Mr Tracy took him to the deserted island he was making his home and the discussion of the ore found underneath what would be their home.

But that ore had turned out to be what Fischler had claimed it to be, making Brains believe that there had been a little industrial espionage after all.