Fate

They were slightly concerned when they discovered the house was all locked up and still no paternal figure in sight. Scott was all for breaking in to make sure their dad hadn't collapsed. Only EOS’s quickly relayed medical read out from Jeff's smart watch had stopped Scott from kicking in the glass in the back door. A quick check on the GPS data from the same smart watch advised them to look in the nearby town. EOS would have told them this sooner, but she hadn’t wanted to interrupt Gordon, who was pointing out why smashing the glass of the back door was the most stupid option, since there were at least three more easily accessible entry points in the old building which would make much more sense. They were all more than a little worried that the squid seemed to have cased the joint. Virgil asked EOS to add those ingress points to the maintenance list, he would rather the old place was a bit more secure than a revolving door. 

The walk into town used to take them about 50 minutes, and even with adult strides, it was deemed both too much effort and too slow, from different parties in the group. Virgil disappeared into a storage shed, and much as Alan might have been hoping for hover bikes, the triumphant cry from Virgil only unearthed a pile of their old bicycles. 

Alan groaned, and John quickly bagsied the one with the least punishing looking saddle. A quick brush down and the application of some grease to the chains soon had them road worthy enough. They set off quickly before Alan could lose patience at Gordon, who kept suggesting the youngest ought to ride the little kiddie trike, and inflict some lasting damage in retaliation. 

Scott had nabbed his own old bike, nobody was stupid enough to try and part him from what had been the pride and joy of his early teens. Holographic stickers and a metallic paint job. Thank god Jeff had believed in buying things with growing room, as they had to shove the seat up as far as it would go. John had taken possession of their mothers old bike, complete with wicker basket, he could appreciate the importance of a sprung seat and a relaxed upright ride. His old bike had been passed down to Alan, who thought the racing bike with his dropped handlebar and million and one gears was the best thing since sliced bagels. Virgil had been left with Jeff's old bike, and he glared at anyone who looked like they were about to laugh at the inelegant hop he had to do in order to get his leg over the high central bar. Even with the intervening years, Virgil hadn’t quite caught up, and a few hasty adjustments were required with a wrench. 

Gordon had been so preoccupied chasing Alan around with the kiddie trike, that he was left with the choice of either said kiddie trike, or an off road mountain bike with squeaky suspension and a cool neon paint job. Scott claimed it had been their grandmothers, but the rest couldn’t be sure he wasn’t just pulling their legs. There was no contest really, the neon colour scheme called to him, and despite all the short jokes, the kiddie trike would have left him a cramping mess before they got even half way to town. 

They managed the journey in good time, right up until they hit traffic. Traffic! In this quiet backwater? 

“What’s going on?” Scott asked, no demanded, with the confidence of someone who was used to having answers provided when he asked. 

“How the hell should I know?” John called back from his position in the third row of bicycles. Which was unexpected enough to make Scott screech to a stop. It was just as well that they had slowed right down in the stream of traffic, because Virgil nearly swerved into the back of him. 

“Aggh!” Virgil braked hard, “it’s obviously for the car show!”

“Car show? What car show?” Scott failed to see what was obvious. 

“The one Dads been organsing!” Virgil's legionary patience was getting tested, Scott looked blank. “Bet you’d have listened if John said it,”Virgil grumbled as he pushed a little more forcefully on the pedals.  

“Maybe it's for the car show!” John shouted up from where he had slipped to the fourth row of bikes while he had been conversing with EOS from where her portable drive was cradled in the wicker bike basket. 

Once the credits started to play, Paul only delayed his trip to the gym long enough to get changed. He needed to finish getting his emotions out before the others went on to standby and had their chance to watch it; if he was going to help them decompress, he needed to blow off steam first, otherwise they’d set each other off like so many blocks of C4. The emotional catharsis of it would have been so very visceral and so very, very satisfying, but it would not have helped the situation. They needed to be calm and controlled, not infuriated and ready to make rash decisions.

With a certain clinical detachment, Scarlet fished his wraps out of his locker in the changing room, wound and wove them over knuckles and between fingers, then strode into the officer’s gym. He’d heard the dull thudding of fists into canvas while he was getting the wraps on, now he could see the source: Colonel White, sweat making dark triangles on his tee-shirt as he pounded the punching bag.

‘He was down here before it even finished…’ Without a word, Scarlet steadied the bag for White, who acknowledged him with a short nod before returning to pounding the bag.

It didn’t take an oracle to divine why the Old Man was here. As a man who prided himself on discerning fact from fiction, of seeing through lies and illusions, to find out how thoroughly he’d been tricked would have been a bitter pill to swallow. ‘And it very nearly worked…’ was the thought that Paul allowed himself. If it hadn’t been for Cobalt getting shot and Five boarding the base to get to his brother, kicking off the chain of events that led to them digging deeper, UnNamed would have been able to take the election in a clean sweep and plant his flag on Mars only a few short years later, his empire built on the backs of literal slaves.

‘And that man would have had access to so many of our secrets... would the knowledge of the War have stopped him? Or would it have spurred him on to announce himself as the one to officially make first contact with intelligent alien life? And what would he have done with me?’ Paul shivered at the thought. ‘All going well, we’ll never get to find out.’

The pounding on the bag stopped. White paused long to suck down air and water in roughly equal quantities and wipe the sweat off his face and neck with a towel, then he was steadying the bag and bracing himself. “Your turn, Captain.” 

Scarlet nodded, rolled his shoulders, and unleashed his fury on the canvas.

T H U N D E R F A L L 

"Hello, darling." 

Startled, Gordon bounced out of the pew and to his feet. "Penny!" His heart settled down a little, Parker was behind the hover chair. "Uh.. how did you find me?" The interfaith chapel in the early part of the morning would have been the last place for someone to look for him. Well, maybe not Salt or Virgil, but everyone else, yeah. Waking to find Scott and Kayo gone and knowing what his brother would be doing, he’d left the iso pod when the nurses came to check on John and Virgil, watched the broadcast and then came straight here to clear his head.

"I asked Cloudbase, and he most kindly told me." She held out one hand to him and patted Parker's on the handle with the other. "I'll be fine here, Parker. You should check on Lil, I'm sure she can use some company." 

"h'If you're sure, M'Lady?" It wasn't that Parker didn't trust Gordon, just that M'Lady was - fragile right now. 

"Captain Xanthic will take excellent care of me." 

Gordon took her hand and kissed the knuckles gently. "I'll protect her as much as she'll let me." Which was pretty much the best statement Gordon could make. It was the one that Parker did himself. "As you say, M'Lady." He gave Gordon a look and got a nod back. "Hi’ll will be back in an 'our m'lady, Doctor Burgundy wan's 'o check your dressin."

"I promise not to leave this room for any other reason than the base falling out of the sky."

Gordon took over pushing the chair and parked it next to the pew he'd been sitting on. He sat back down and took Penny's hand, running his thumb over her first two knuckles in slow circles.

She reached over and ran her free hand through his hair. "Do you want to talk, darling?"

Gordon leaned into the affection like a giant cat. “...I don’t know... it’s... like... I know about what happened, but now I know about what happened.” He stared out the windows for a long time, silent and still.

Penelope let him think. She too had a lot to ponder. While she’d come late into the game and young as she was at the time, the thought that she or her father should have seen something, that they should have detected something... it was a thought that sat heavily on her soul, hard and sharp and jagged like so much broken glass.

“...Scott’s getting, like, the biggest Squid hug I can make happen,” Gordon said at last. “He’s shielded me and Al from more than I realised.”

“Where is he?” Penelope asked, her fingers sifting through his hair again. “I daresay that this is not a time for him to be alone with his thoughts for too long.”

“He and Kayo slipped out of Medical while the rest of us were asleep. If he’s not in his room, he’ll be in the hiding spot on the Promenade.”

She pursed her lips. "I'd say we should go seek him out, but I promised Parker I'd stay here." "And I promised to keep you safe." Gordon took a slow breath. 

She ran her fingers through his hair again. "Cloud?" Yes, Lady Penelope?

"Can you tell me where Captain Cobalt is, please?" I am very sorry, Lady Penelope, but I cannot. He has requested privacy. 

"I see." She tilted her head for a moment. "Can you tell us if he is alone? Because if he is, that is not healthy for him right now."

Silence stretched on for over a minute while Cloud mulled over the question. I can tell you that Captain Cobalt is not alone. He still requests privacy. 

"Thank you, Cloud. That was most kind of you." She smiled at the small camera in the corner above the window. 

You are welcome, Lady Penelope.

Penny laced her fingers with Gordon’s. “I understand if you are not quite ready to talk in detail yet, but when you are, I am here.”

Gordon gave her hand a little squeeze and offered her a weak, but genuine smile. “Same here, gorgeous, same here.” With that he leaned his head against her shoulder and they sat together until Parker came to fetch Penelope back.

T H U N D E R F A L L 

Triage, Virgil decided, was a word he didn’t like very much right now. 

He'd woken up just as the nurses arrived and Gordon left, and while he wasn't happy about why Gordon was leaving, he understood. 

The problem was that he also wanted to see the broadcast, if only to be able to help Scott to carry his burden a little better, but with the injuries he had and the strain his body was under, it had been explained to him that ‘getting healthy’ was a bigger priority than ‘knowing’, that he had to triage himself above watching the expose, and that he had very hard limits right now. ‘The doc’s right,’ was his sour conclusion. ‘I won’t rest, much less sleep if I watch it, and I need that right now. I’ll crash if I don’t get enough rest and I can’t afford a crash right now.’

A glance at Alan, curled up between him and a recently awakened John, reassured him that the youngest was still drowsing, then Virgil turned his attention back to what he was working on in lieu of watching the broadcast. The notebook in front of him was covered in angry shapes, dark and sharp lines as he tried to get his emotions out of his head.

He was in the middle of laying down a band of brick red when the intercom buzzed, getting both his and John’s attention and a muffled snort out of Alan.

“Hello, it’s Doctor Orchid, may I come in?”

Virgil looked over at John, who nodded. "Sure, Doctor." Part of him wanted to make himself more presentable. This was the first time he'd be meeting her in person. But she'd seen him at his absolute lowest, medical scrubs wouldn't bother her. 

The door slid open to reveal an older woman of medium height, with grey hair streaked with white and kind blue eyes. She dressed like no one else they'd seen on Cloudbase so far; a brilliant tunic style shirt in colours that Gordon would have loved, over a long black skirt. 

She turned the recliner around more to face him and made herself comfortable in it. "I'm sorry it's under these circumstances, but I'm very glad to see you in person, Two." 

Virgil set his crayon aside. "Me too." Her smile was soft. "So, who are your friends?" "Oh. Uh - Doctor Orchid, this is Five." He gestured at John, "and this is our brother Three." Virgil looked down fondly at the form curled up next to him. 

"I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance Five. I've heard a great deal about you."

John's face stilled. "Oh?" How such a simple syllable could have that much weight was beyond Virgil's knowledge. 

"You stormed and boarded Cloudbase, you sent Security and Technology into tizzies, and you made the Colonel swear, and in my presence, no less." Her smile was fond. "I have heard many things about you." "Oh." The embarrassment that showed on John's face also filled the word.

She nodded to the notebook. “I’m glad to see you’re still journaling, is it helping?”

“It is,” Virgil nodded, fidgeting with his crayon.

“Good.” Orchid resettled herself in the chair, rearranging the folds of her skirt. “We don’t need to discuss anything big right now, I’ll come back later so we can talk in private,” she started, “but I wanted to visit, I know what it’s like to be shut away when everything is happening just out there and you desperately want to be on the front lines where you belong.” In answer to John’s querying look, Orchid pointed at her right eye. “Prosthetic. Once upon a time I was a WAAF med-evac helicopter pilot until some career-ending shrapnel. There was too much damage to the nerve for a cybernetic one.”

“I’m sorry,” John told her, and he was. Losing a job that you loved... well, there were reasons why he and Virgil had stuck it out.

“Thank you,” Orchid nodded to him, then she smiled, a wicked twinkle in her eye. “So, how many languages can you swear in, Five? I’m always looking for new ways to get my point across with the captains.” Her smile turned conspiratorial. “I suspect that half the time they just like the shock value of hearing a grandmother-type like me swear about their problems, so I like to surprise them with something new every now and again.”

Virgil and John exchanged a look, then a slight smile tugged at John’s mouth. “How familiar are you with Finnish and Hungarian?” he asked.

T H U N D E R F A L L 

It felt like he hadn’t seen the inside of his quarters in days. It hadn’t been, but thanks to how the Room of Sleep mucked with his internal clock, it sure felt like it.

Blue dragged himself inside, shucked off his uniform and sank onto his couch with a weary groan. The RoS was good, but it wasn’t a proper rest, not by a long shot. A few minutes of flopping, then he grabbed his personal phone off the coffee table to check for any messages and see if his broker had been able to scoop up any more TI shares, then he’d crash out for two hours before going back onto standby. 

Well, that had been his intention, but on the list of waiting messages was one that had him freezing. 

It was from his father. 

Adam steeled himself and opened it. 'Adam, please call me as soon as you get this.’

That was it, ten simple words, nine if you didn't count his name. It could mean anything, but since it was after the expose, he had a decent idea what this might be about. Dreading it wouldn't get it over any faster.

The call connected on the first ring, "Adam?""Hi Dad." Adam kept his voice as bland as possible. "Everyone okay?" Which he really hoped wasn't the reason for his father calling.

"What? Oh, no, everyone is fine." There was silence, then, "This is what you were talking about when you visited."

There was no need to explain what 'this' was. "Yes, sir."

"That damn slimy bastard!"

Adam blinked, his father didn't swear. "Dad?"

"All that is true, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir, it is."

There was a sharp intake of breath. "This isn't insider trading, and I'm sorry I accused you of that."

Adam blinked, his father never apologised.

"I'm going to buy every damn share I can and force that bottom feeder out. Again, I'm sorry."

The line went dead and Adam was left looking at his phone, stunned. He'd never seen this side of his father before. Ever. 

He would have been lying if he said that it didn't give him a spark of hope: for the first time in a very long time, he and his father were on the same side.

T H U N D E R F A L L 

Curled up on the bed in the VIP quarters allocated to Kayo, Scott lay with his head on her lap, one of her hands stroking his brow and the other on his shoulder, and found that he quite simply didn’t have any tears left to cry.

Secrets and shame that he’d carried for literal decades were now laid out for the consumption by the viewing public, to be taken apart and analysed by pundits, talking heads, panels, armchair psychologists and chat show hosts. It’d be the subject of blogs, vlogs, podcasts, re-runs, tabloids, documentaries and news headlines. Journalists would be shoving their microphones before anyone they could find with a possible link to him, and of course there’d be the vultures, people happy to leap in and make a claim on camera for a quick buck and a few minutes of fame.

His history was out in the open now, and there was more to come.

‘I don’t know what I’d be doing if I didn’t have Kayo right now,’ was his thought. Around his brothers he wouldn’t have been able to cry. And yes, while he’d had a proverbial smack upside the head about being the ‘lone guard’ when the Mercy Protocol had been activated in Ireland, this... this was different. This was all the things he’d been protecting his brothers from since they were kids, and he couldn’t let them see him like this, not yet. They still needed him to be strong, unshaken, the anchor for their world now tossed upside down and inside out. What had happened in the physio bathroom with Alan had only reinforced that.

But it was safe to fall apart here, in front of her.

He didn’t need to put that mask up for Kayo. He could show her all his cracks, his flaws and frailties, and he could safely lean on her for the strength he just didn’t have right now.

Scott reached out and found her knee, tapping out ‘Thank you’ and ‘I love you’, before starting to sit up. There was work to do, family to check on, and he’d been here for plenty long enough.

The gentle hand on his shoulder became iron, pressing him back into place. “Oh no you don’t,” Kayo informed him, brooking absolutely no opposition. “You’re off duty. You aren’t going anywhere just yet.”

Scott sank back down, warmed by the ferocity in her voice and the message it sent: He was safe. He was loved. He was cared for. He was protected. ‘I needed that reminder.’ 

Well wrung out by everything that had happened, Scott let himself doze off, knowing his beloved was watching over him. 

T H U N D E R F A L L 

Standing in his office, the muted credits still rolling, Lord Hugh Creighton-Ward impatiently waited for his phone call to connect. 

“Father?” 

"Penelope, please tell me that some of that - report - was exaggerated." Lord Hugh ran a hand through his hair, not caring that he was ruining his valet Dorian's handiwork on his 'lion's mane', as the papers liked to call it. He had no idea what the time was in the safe bolt hole she was in, but he had to have the truth of the matter as quickly as possible to inform his next moves.

There was a soft sigh from the speaker. "I wish I could Father, but I rather suspect that some parts were understated." 

"Damnation." Which was the strongest language he would use, then he shook himself. "First things first; is Scott safe?"

"He is as safe as he can possibly be." 

"I should hope so, if he's under Spectrum's aegis." Hugh started to pace around his desk, confident that the microphone would pick up his voice. "My broker has called me twice to make sure that I still want to buy any loose Tracy Industries stock." He chuckled, "Rachel is sure I've lost my mind." 

"Are you having doubts, Father?"

"Absolutely not!" Hugh turned to glare at his desk. "I was certain that things couldn't have been as bad as you made them out to be, but - " he shook his head. "I should have known better than to think that you would exaggerate anything, my dear." 

"I rather wish I had." There was a very delicate sniff. "Father, how did we miss this?"

Hugh sighed, "It's not that we missed it, my darling. It's that our vision was clouded by charm, cunning, and slippery words from someone we thought we could trust." He returned to his desk and sat down heavily, worn by the things he'd overlooked. "How is your young man?"

"He too is safe. Spectrum has him and the others." 

"Thank goodness for that!" Hugh looked at the messages flashing on the discreet screen on the side of his desktop. "Penelope, my dear, I have to go. I love you and stay safe." 

"I will do my best. I love you too, stay safe." 

Hugh made sure that the call ended before he let the snarl cross his lips. "There will be ice skating in Hell before I speak to you again Jeff Tracy!" A decisive jab of his finger, and he deleted the waiting messages. Another button press connected him to his valet. “Dorian, have my bags packed for a standard business trip, three days. Tell Katerina I need the first flight to Boston that she can find, a car reserved there, an air taxi waiting to take me from Boston to New York at a moment’s notice, and a car and a hotel room there as well.” 

“Yes sir.” Dorian sounded utterly nonplussed by the sudden change of plans. “There is a flight in four hours and I will have a car meet you at the airport.” 

“Perfect.” Lord Hugh checked on his information - and specifically who else was buying shares - confirmed his suspicions, then swept up his phone and tablet, plans clicking into place. 

He had recruiting to do.

T H U N D E R F A L L 

In her room at the Plaza in New York, Ruth ‘Sally’ Tracy checked the caller ID on her phone, saw it was yet another person from Kansas and ignored it. She didn’t have the time or the energy to spend on talking to yet another gossip who wanted to know if it was true and fish for more under the guise of false sympathy or a veneer of care and compassion.

She hadn’t watched the expose. She couldn’t, not yet, not with all the work that she had to do on behalf of the children that she’d failed. If she did she’d fall apart, and she absolutely couldn’t lose momentum, not now. ‘But they’re safe now, they’re all safe and they’re well away from him,’ she reassured herself, soothing a small fraction of how heartsick she was over it all. 

The phone buzzed again for attention. A check and she accepted this call. “Hello, Lord Creighton-Ward.”  

“Good afternoon, Dr. Tracy,” he replied, warm and sincere as he continued on with “I have just spoken with Penny, she reports that she and her household are safe and well. Have you heard from the boys?” 

“I have, they’re safe.” 

“I am glad to hear that,” Hugh responded, then switched to a more professional tone. “Addressing the business at hand, I wish to confirm I shall be in New York by six thirty tomorrow evening. As we discussed earlier I’m going to Boston first to lure in that Svenson chap you mentioned. All going well, we three shall meet for dinner at eight at Harvest to firm up our strategy.” 

“That sounds good to me. Thank you, Lord Hugh.” 

“You are most welcome, Dr. Tracy,” Lord Creighton-Ward responded, then his tone gentled again. “Do take care of yourself, my dear.” 

“I’ll try, Lord Hugh, I’ll try.”

“That is all I ask. Good bye.” 

“Good bye.”