(Before saying anything else, this is way later than I wanted to get this list out, and for that I am so sorry!)
Anyway... It's back!
Thundertober 2025 is set to begin on the 1st October and will run through the entire month! This year, as we celebrate 60 years since the original Thunderbirds and 10 years since Thunderbirds Are Go, prompts chosen have been based around episode titles and events from both shows. (Can you guess which ones...?) Alt prompts have been provided for all those who may want to break it up and are based on anniversaries.
Like with all the previous events, anyone is welcome to give these prompts a shot in any creative form. I'm talking art, I'm talking writing, I'm talking just about anything! And whether you're new to the Thunderbirds fandom or you know your way around, I'm excited to see what you all have in store!
When posting your fine works of our boys in blue, please make sure you mention this event blog ( @thunder-tober ) and tag as #thundertober and #thundertober2025 so I can get round to everyone!
Above all, have fun and make sure to ask questions if you have any!
Another veeeeery late post for this years Thundertober! This is set within the Stakes and Daggers universe, which is an AU where International Rescue is a vampire hunting business. Not properly read this back through because I know that if I do, I’ll spend another two months on it and it’s late enough as it is, so we’re just hitting post and hoping for the best!
Scott’s worried for his brother and so takes on a personal mission to save him from himself. Things don’t quite go to plan, however, and he’s soon grappling with questions he isn’t sure he wants answered.
Words: 3,751
Rating: Mature.
Universe: TAG
Triggers: Blood / Violence / Vampires
AO3 link here.
Other Days: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6
Common mythology dictated that a vampire was unable to enter a dwelling uninvited. Thankfully the same could not be said in reverse, and Scott Tracy, one of the world’s most elite vampire hunters, was able to sneak into the Creighton-Ward Manor without a hitch.
A window had been left open in the South Wing. It hadn’t taken him long to jump up, over the window ledge, and down into the drawing room. Having been the only window in the room to not have large, black-out curtain covers draped over the glass, it meant that a single ray of sunlight was shining through in an almost perfect line. Scott realised, as he padded over to the shadows, that the window had been purposefully left open; an ornate vase sat on a small, round table opposite. It was in the direct path of the beam of sunshine, and the gorgeous daffodils were soaking up the warm rays.
Brighter than sunlight, his brother had boasted. Oh, Gordon, how could you have been so blind?
He’d specifically chosen the lunch hour to do this job. It was, after all, far less likely to bump into a creature of the night during the middle fo the day, but Scott still moved through the manor as quietly as he could. He opened doors slowly and avoided walking directly on the hardwood flooring, instead favouring the plush rugs and carpets wherever possible.
The plan was still unformed. Scott hadn’t thought beyond getting into the manor. He’d been so riled up when he’d heard the news that he’d taken the first flight out to England, the first bus to Foxley Heath, and he’d marched directly to the manor without thinking anything further through.
What if there was more than one vampire residing at the address? What if they were prepared for his unannounced visit? What if there were unseen traps that he’d been setting off since arriving in the village? Usually he was more methodical, but one of his brothers was at risk of being hurt and Scott couldn’t allow it.
He pulled his backpack of weapons tighter to his body and began to make his way upstairs. Carefully. Every footfall was lighter than the last.
When he eventually reached the top Scott had two options; left or right. If he’d thought through his plan before coming here, he might have had the foresight to ask John for the schematics of the building, or he might have asked Brains for access to the prototype tracker he’d been working on. But telling them about coming here would have turned this into an official mission and that wasn’t what this was. This was strictly personal. Scott wasn’t about to let everyone else jump in too.
Left or right.
He took out a silver coin from his pocket and flipped it high in the air. It landed on the back of his hand. Scott covered it with his palm, mentally assigned a side to left and right, and then revealed his fated answer.
Left.
Alright. Scott pocketed the coin and slowly continued his journey. Walnut panelling lined the hallway, with dimly lit by uplighters along the way. They flickered, mimicking candles, and Scott wondered whether the effect had been designed purposefully for old times sake or whether it was a sign of something more sinister. He hoped it was the former.
Trinkets sat atop various tables and sideboards. Scott refrained from investigating the shadows. It would have taken time he didn’t have, and he didn’t want to be there for longer than was necessary. In the bad lighting it was hard to decipher what some of the decorations were. The only thing Scott noticed was the one thing was missing.
It wasn’t uncommon for mirrors to be absent in the home of a vampire. Why bother with them when all that stared back was nothingness? There had been occasions where Scott had seen a mirror in a vampire’s abode, but they were usually covered in great swathes of fabric, a reminder to all who saw it that the inhabitants wasn’t like everyone else. A reminder of what they were.
And yet, despite this rarity, Scott had been surprised to not notice any ornate mirror, disguised or otherwise, in the Creighton-Ward Manor. They were one of the Old Families, with more wealth to their name than most people, living or dead, could ever dream of. Heirlooms from centuries ago were commonly passed down through each generation, some as mundane as a gifted (if unwanted) mirror. Other items with more value could have been, Scott supposed, trinkets that helped the vampires evade capture, or aided them in their bloodthirsty lifestyles.
Vampiric blood had been in the hearts of the Creighton-Ward family for almost a millennia. Hundreds of legends had been born, told and retold over the years, each more outlandish than the last, but all of them detailing the origin of the family’s ‘curse’. Some even boldly claimed that Lord Richard Ward, the first Earl of Clarendon, had been the first Vampire Lord to roam the Earth.
Scott had originally learned about the story when he was still training to be a hunter. It was a common tale, taught to hunters in order to aid their learning of how to decipher stories that were sensationalised and those that still retained some semblance of the truth. Lord Richard Ward’s story, as old as it now was, leaned more on the side of sensationalised gossip, but Scott still knew it like the back of his hand.
As the story went, Lord Richard had been playing a card game with a scarred man in a local tavern. He had won the game fair and square but the other man hadn’t believed so. He was infuriated that Richard, who already held so much in his hand, had taken all the man had left.
According to the legend, this scarred man had lured Lord Richard into an alley beside the tavern and had “poisoned him with malice and scorn, struck true with a double-bladed dagger to his neck, and then left the lord for dead in the jitty”. Some myths continued with the idea that the Earl’s vengeful spirit reanimated his corpse. Thirsty for the blood he now needed to keep the should-be cadavar alive, Lord Richard began to sow the seeds of destruction that would be never ending. Never forgiving.
Of course, Lord Richard wasn’t the first Vampire Lord. Whoever killed him, whether he had been a scarred man or not, hadn’t murdered him with a “doubled-bladed dagger”, and Scott was certain that the vampire had meant to turn Lord Richard into one of his own kind. Who is was and their motives were lost to time, thanks in part due to the ridiculous stories that continued to twist the truth. But Scott figured the who and the why no longer mattered. Lord Richard was now finally at peace again, if a vampire could ever truly find peace, and he guessed that whoever his Maker had been was too. There were very few, if any, vampires who were as old as that.
Lord Richard Ward had continued to sire multiple vampires of notoriety over the years, until his defeat at the Battle of Logs Bridge in 1682. He had been fighting a good fight for years against a group of powerful hunters, but when his own flesh and blood, so to speak, had turned against him, it turned the tide in favour of the hunters. Since then, a tentative peace had been struck with the Creighton-Wards. It was one that Scott didn’t want to break just because his stupid brother had allowed his heart to get in the way of their work, but needs must.
The mental retelling of the story had accompanied Scott as he continued his search of the manor. His senses brought him back to the present; they weren’t picking up any clues of note. Again, he began to question whether his plan had been a wise one.
Did he even know if she was here? What would he do if she wasn’t? What would he do if he ran into someone else? In Scott’s opinion, he had every right to be there, to question her, to challenge her, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to convince anyone else of that. And if they questioned him about his breaking and entering, then he’d be in for a very rough night.
He was about to turn back, to leave and rethink his ridiculous plan, when he finally felt it; the subtle tug that a hunter feels when in the vicinity of a vampire. It was a minute sensation, one that can often be easily misunderstood or ignored entirely, but Scott felt this one. It drew him in, urged him forward. The hunter instinct that overpowered the normal human instincts to run: protect and kill. The sentiment surged through him. Normally he hated it. Today, he embraced it.
Carved flowers of different designs decorated the wooden door. A round, golden handle glinted in the flickering candle-like light, and he almost expected it to burn when he touched it. There had to be a trap. How had it been so easy for him to get this far without being caught out?
Scott ignored the apprehensive warning that swelled deep in his gut—he wouldn’t be getting much further if he listened to it—and quietly opened the door.
Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward’s bedroom was exactly how he expected it would be. The buttercream coloured black-out curtains were drawn and doing their job perfectly. Instead of the natural light, more uplighters winked and sparkled, casting unnatural shadows across the room.
The door closed behind him with a soft click and Scott made his way across to the canopied bed. A vague shape outlined the covers in a way that suggested a soul slumbered beneath them. Their back, it appeared, was turned away from the door, from him. Scott slowed to a stop at the edge of the bed, a sliver-bladed dagger slipping from beneath his sleeve. He held the engraved hilt with his left hand, blade pointed in an angular direction towards the bed. With his right hand he drew back the covers with a snap of his wrist. The sheets flapped dramatically, pooling at the bottom of the mattress in a crumpled heap, the body beneath them finally unveiled.
Only it wasn’t a sleeping body that greeted him.
His dagger plunged down automatically and unforgivingly, piercing holes into the silk pillows instead of ancient, porcelain skin. Stuffing escaped, feathers floating around calmly in a stark contrast to Scott’s frustrated cry. The situation sank in quickly and his subsequent attacks on the pillows were fuelled only by rage. She wasn’t here.
She wasn’t here. She wasn’t here.
“How very ungentlemanly of you.” The soft, smooth voice came from the shadows behind him.
Scott’s heart leapt. His plan might have had to change but she was here. He turned on his heels slowly and Penelope Creighton-Ward stepped out of the darkness. She stood with her back straight, her white, flowing nightgown covering most of her body from her shoulders to her ankles. Long, golden waves of hair cascaded over one shoulder, shining and luscious. In her right hand she held a compact pistol. It was aimed directly at his chest.
“And here I’d been hoping you’d stopped by for a nice chat. Tell me,” she asked as the gun’s safety was clicked off, “what was it that you hoped to accomplish by coming here this afternoon, Scott Tracy?”
Instinctively, Scott raised both his hands in the universal sign of surrender. In doing so, he opened his palms wide and allowed the dagger to clatter to the floor. “Talking is good,” he lied. If he could just get her to lower her guard a little…
“Do you often start a conversation by trying to unceremoniously stab someone in their sleep?”
He cocked his head, unable to hide the trace of humour in his growing smirk.
Penelope mirrored him. “Say you’re sorry.”
When he realised she was being serious, the amusement faded from his features. “What?”
“Say. You’re. Sorry.”
“You want me to apologise?”
In answer, Penelope’s lips curled into a sweet, poisonous smile that was intended to throw him off-guard. “It’s just two simple words, darling.” She took a step towards him, that gun still aimed with intention. “All you have to do is say two simple words, and all of this can be forgiven.”
Scott refused to bend so easily. Apologise to a vampire? She must have been out of her mind! Besides, it wasn’t he who required forgiveness. “No,” he said defiantly.
Penelope blinked, shocked at his blatant refusal, but he continued regardless. “You corrupted my brother’s mind. You compelled him to be your willing slave or something. It’s you who should be apologising, leech.”
“I did no such thing!” Any trace of innocence that Penelope had in her countenance transformed into something far darker, far more sinister.
“I came here to make it right.”
“I did not harm your brother.”
He acted as though he hadn’t heard her, launching himself towards her gun. Scott caught her wrist and pulled her arm down. If she fired, at least the bullet wouldn’t hit him now. But Penelope didn’t fire as he expected.
Her right hand still held her weapon but her free hand wrapped around his. Ice cold and firm, Penelope’s grip was vice-like. Entangled as they were now, she span them around with an irritated yell. Scott was marched until his back slammed into one of the tall dressers. He ignored the pain as best he could.
Penelope pinned him with an arm against his neck. “That, my dear, was a very silly move.”
“I am going to kill you,” Scott growled. He fought back against her hold, but her strength was incredible.
She didn’t move an inch.
“That’s terribly violent of you. I thought you said you were willing to talk.”
Scott pushed back with a new wave of strength. He wouldn’t be defeated by her. Clearly not having expected it, Penelope stumbled. He took the advantage. His hands slipped from her wrist, delivering a stunning chop. Penelope gasped, the gun tumbling to the floor.
He advanced, twisting out of her hold. Manicured claws were now protruding from the ends of her fingertips, replacing her normal nails. Penelope swiped, Scott ducked. Every single one of her attacks were dodged, as though she’d decided to go easy on him. He attacked back where he could. One well-timed head-butt had caused a trickle of blood to leak from her nose. The black seeped over her skin, staining her lips in a horrifying colour.
Scott knew he should have aimed for the door instead of rounding her bed as he did. He might have found some sort of advantage if he’d lead her out of her bedchambers, into a more open space. From this position, he only had one tactic to play.
As Penelope stalked towards him, a snarl playing on her lips, Scott leapt for the windows. If he could pull back the curtains, allow the sunlight to come streaming inside—
He didn’t have time. Penelope pounced onto him and Scott fell backwards onto her crumpled sheets. Before he could even think about moving, she’d straddled him, pinning him into place once more.
Only this time, the position was far trickier to escape from.
“You claimed you were willing to talk, so talk, Scott Tracy.”
His hand darted for his trouser pocket, to where he’d strategically placed a vial of Holy Water—
Penelope seized both his wrists painfully tight. Her strength, like any vampire, was unnatural, but Scott didn’t stop fighting. He thrashed and he cursed her as she lifted his hands over his head.
At her mercy.
“Is this how you think I battled your brother?” She chuckled.
“Where is he?” Venom laced every word that came out of Scott’s mouth. If talking had been in his plans, it certainly wasn’t anymore. He’d kill her for this. He’d burn her body until she was nothing but ashes on the wind. He’d make sure it was as though she’d never existed.
Penelope tutted. “You’re a very violent man, Scott Tracy.” She was in his mind. There, like a distant feeling he couldn’t quite place, he could feel the shadow of her lurking in his thoughts.
“Get out of my head!”
He wasn’t sure if she obeyed his command. Penelope lowered herself so her face was merely inches from his, and all attention he’d paid to that shadow in his mind was transferred back to reality.
“Is this how you imagined it happened? How I corrupted his mind? Do you think he’d go easily? Do you think he’d hand on every word I said with burning anticipation?” Her head dipped to his bare, open neck. Scott had never felt so vulnerable before. “Are you still sure that’s what happened, little hunter? Are you sure that I kept him as a pet and that I didn’t—”
Penelope broke off to lick up the column of his neck. Scott froze. The prospect of Gordon being dead already wasn’t one he’d considered, purely because he hadn’t wanted to.
“Aren’t you trained to consider every possible situation?” She asked, a reminder that she was very much still in his thoughts. Her lips whispered against his hot skin. “Your beloved brother could be just another lifeless body, piled up on a heap that I keep in my basement. I could have already ended his life with a simple bite.”
“Where is Gordon?” Scott trembled, knowing his voice betrayed him by shaking. His natural instincts had finally won out over his hunter reflexes and he was too scared to fight back, to panicked to yell for help. There was nobody around who’d offer him a hand, anyway. He had screwed up royally, and now he was nothing more than food to the creature who pinned him in place. He was going to die and she was going to make it hurt, and he still didn’t know what fate had befallen his brother.
His lips smiled against his neck, amusement tainting her statement. “You’re terrified. I can feel your heart pounding, I can hear your blood rushing through your weak, little system. Your adrenaline… It is intoxicating.”
This was it. End of the line. He’d been foolish to come here without a proper plan, without adequate back-up. He’d always been reckless but this had been a whole new low for him. Perhaps, Scott thought darkly, that this was always how it was destined to end.
But the stinging bite of teeth never came.
Scott felt lighter as Penelope pulled herself up into a sitting position, her entire demeanour shifting from predator to lady.
“Now that you’re not trying to kill me, I’ll do the talking, seeing as you’re so terrible at doing it yourself.”
He blinked, confused. He wasn’t entirely convinced this wasn’t part of some twisted game she was playing. His chest continued to rise and fall uneasily until Penelope swung her legs off the bed and stood herself up, dusting down her nightgown.
“Your brother is about five doors down. He’s probably fast asleep. The poor lamb was out until past dawn on the hunt. I’d told him it was pointless, that there wouldn’t be anything out there—I keep these lands clean from the vermin of our kind—but he didn’t listen. Does stubbornness run in the family?”
Scott was still too stunned to speak. His brother was… unharmed? She didn’t want to make a meal out of either of them?
Penelope sighed. “Yes. He’s unharmed, and no, I wouldn’t want to make a meal out of either of you. For a start, feeding on you here would make a mess of my lovely linen. But, more importantly, I’m not one of those Night Walkers, Scott Tracy, and I’m offended you believe me to be a monster. Besides, it’s common knowledge that vampires don’t eat people.” She rolled her eyes, somewhat fondly to his surprise. “Honestly, what do they teach you at hunter school these days?”
Too exhausted from the whiplash of Penelope’s sudden change of heart, Scott had no energy to chastise her for still being in his mind. Instead, he sat himself up on shaky elbows and shook his head. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, for goodness sake! Your brother is here. He’s safe. If you don’t believe me, take a look for yourself.”
She strolled off towards the door, opening it wide and gesturing him to follow her. Scott hastily jumped from the bed and trailed after her. Penelope guided him down the rest of the hallway and, exactly five doors down from hers as promised, was Gordon.
The sheets were tangled around his sleeping form, but he seemed peaceful. Penelope remained in the doorway as Scott entered the room. Blackout curtains, that were almost identical to those in Penelope’s bedchambers, cut out the midday sun, but unlike Penelope’s room, Gordon had no uplighters lit. Only the light from the hallway cast any luminance into the dark room, enough to note the shape of his brother.
“He’s truly out cold.” Penelope’s voice drifted over to him through his mind. “Like I said, he had a long night, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t wake him. He’ll probably be awake by sunset. You can speak to him then. In the meantime, if you’d like to actually talk about things this time, you can find me in the drawing room.”
Scott whirled around to face her, but Penelope had already disappeared. Questions flooded his mind, the main one being why he and his brother were still alive, but the thought of spending time with her, of being civil with a vampire, filled Scott with dread. It was an unfamiliar feeling in regards to the situation but he quickly realised he didn’t like it. He also wasn’t sure if those questions were ones he wanted answers for. Life was so much simpler when it was black and white, and Lady Creighton-Ward had just shaken that idea up ten-fold.
Maybe he would go and talk with her, just to clear some things up, but for now all Scott wanted to do was to be with his brother. His very-much-still-alive-and-breathing brother.
“Oh, Gordon,” Scott whispered, taking a careful seat on the edge of the bed. “I think we’re both eligible to the Idiot title now.”
I ran with the idea of a probe being an investigation of sorts and ended up here, writing out part of a fic that has been tormenting me since September 2023.
I haven't had the time to re-read through this one, so if there are any mistakes or if things don't make sense, sorry!
And if you can spot the amount of Taylor Swift lyric references from her new album that I've managed to sneak into this one then I shall be impressed. I think I’ve hidden at least three.
International Rescue has come under intense scrutiny surrounding some of their operations. With an exposé being published by renowned investigative journalist, Daniella Hardy, can Scott convince her to think twice before she twists the truth too far and ruins everything?
Words: 2,872
Rating: Gen.
Universe: TAG
Triggers: None.
AO3 link here.
Other Days: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4
He was certain that, if he were to glance at himself in the mirror, he would be looking like absolute shit.
His eyes felt square from looking at his holo screen for too long. His legs had gone numb from sitting in his office chair for too long. His head was slowly aching from thinking over all the ways this report could go wrong for too long. His stomach was complaining at him from being ignored for too long. His heart was straining because the thought of getting this wrong had been weighing on him for too long.
The heels of his palms were pushed into his eyes, rubbing roughly, as he finally peeled himself away from the screen. He needed a drink before he went any further.
Scott stood and paced over to the drinks cabinet. Thank God for his father and his foresight on such a matter. As had become a personal tradition, Scott lifted the crystal glass up in a silent toast to Jeff before he took his first swig.
Everything had got out of hand way too fast. Everything had spiralled and now… Well, now Scott wasn’t sure he could wind it all back into some sort of order again.
The whiskey burned as it ran down his throat. He savoured it, leaning his back against the cabinet.
Where had it all gone wrong? How had such a damning list been compiled with such ease?
Aiding and abetting a terrorist; employment of a minor; faking someone’s death; using untested, and potentially dangerous, technology; the accusations of being a money laundering operation…
Some were more threatening than others. Some had Scott worrying that it wasn’t just a reputation that was on the line. And the worst part of it all was every accusation Ms. Hardy had laid at his feet was backed up by some solid fact. He couldn’t strike a defamation suit against her because it was true. Twisted a little, maybe, but still, nevertheless, true.
She’d done her homework, ensuring she had the right amount of evidence to back up her claims. At least she’d had the decency to forewarn him of the publication.
The Crimes of International Rescue: An Exposé on the World’s Most Covert and Respected Organisation.
The title alone made Scott feel sick to his stomach, felt like he and his family were being stripped down and examined under a microscope for an assessment that wasn’t ever going to conclude in their favour. And he felt powerless to stop it. There was no legal way to get Ms. Hardy to cease publishing her article, and Scott wasn’t the sort of man who resorted to violent, if empty, threats to try and scare her away either. His only option had been to organise a meeting with her, to talk with her face to face, to try and make her see why publishing such an exposé was a bad call.
He glanced at his watch; almost seven pm. She’d be here for that chat in five minutes.
Scott had specifically chosen the Tracy Industries offices in New York, one for the familiarity of the place, but also to show her the monetary might of the Tracy family. He might not have resorted to violent threats, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t above all kinds of threats. And it certainly didn’t mean he felt good about it.
The glass was drained and returned to the cabinet. Then, steeling himself for the meeting, Scott returned to his seat behind the desk. He used the brief moments he had left to review some of the notes that Callum had written up for him. It was basic PR, along with a slightly scathing sign-off that decreed that Scott should have allowed someone from the department to sit-in on the meeting. When his office door knocked, Scott almost wished that he had.
His assistant, Emery, entered. She was followed by a woman Scott could only presume was Ms. Hardy. She was dressed in a fitted Houndstooth jacket with a matching skirt. Her white blouse crisp and tucked into the skirt, dark tights accentuated her legs, and her heels raised her by a few inches. Her ash brown hair was wrapped into a neat chignon, two strands falling to frame her face.
He flashed a quick smile. “Thank you, Emery. You can finish up for the day and head home now, if you like.”
His assistant wasn’t unaccustomed to working overtime, but Scott made the mental note to add a nice bonus to her next pay-check regardless.
When Emery had left, closing the door behind her with a soft clock, Scott turned his attention to his guest. He gestured to the seat opposite the desk, a maroon-coloured, velvet-upholstered armchair. With a slight nod, she slid herself into the seat, legs crossing at her ankles.
“I’m very grateful for you agreeing to meet with me, Ms. Hardy,” Scott said, his entire persona naturally exuding businessman. It was like a mask he slipped on when attending board meetings, only this time it hadn’t been put on on purpose. He was looking far too rigid and sounding far too uptight for the easy-going version of himself he had originally been aiming for.
“I can’t say I was surprised by your invitation,” Ms. Hardy replied. She glanced around his office, taking note of whatever she deemed important to remember, and then flashed him a polite smile. “I take it you asked me here to try and convince me not to publish?”
Scott didn’t mind getting straight to business, he supposed. It suited him far better, and the sooner she was out of his door, the better.
“Are you going to offer me money?” She continued. “Or threaten me with it? Let me tell you now, Mr. Tracy, that I’ve had both offers and threats posed to me in the past with stories that were far more damning than this little investigation, and I’ve never sold out. I don’t intend to start now, either.”
His lips twitched, faintly impressed by her code. “Please, call me Scott. No, I didn’t ask you here because I want to bribe or threaten you. I just wanted to talk.”
“Talking me out of printing the truth? Now that is a new one.”
Scott bristled slightly at that. “It’s not entirely the truth, though, is it, Ms. Hardy?”
“Call me Daniella, please,” she parroted back his request of informality.
“Daniella,” Scott attempted again, “I wanted to see if we could come to some sort of agreement, to avoid this whole thing turning into some sort of a storm inside a teacup.”
She scoffed. “Alright, if you want to talk, let us begin with your claims that the truth I possess isn’t actually the truth, shall we?” Daniella leaned back into the plush chair, elbows perched on the arm rests, a pen twirling between her fingers.
Scott resisted the urge to sigh. He pushed his irritation as far down as he could manage, and allowed her to carry on.
“I have stacks of evidence—eyewitness testimonies; reports from both your organisation and the GDF, as well as certain companies that were involved in your rescues; communications from various parties—that suggest that what I possess is the cold hard truth. The conclusions I made in that expose were not made out of malice or misjudgment, Scott, contrary to what you may think. They were drawn from the sources I had available to me, and, yes, they are damning.”
“Yes, but that’s just it,” Scott snapped. “You had what was available; but you weren’t there when those things actually happened.”
Daniella blinked, though she didn’t back down. “Being present when someone is breaking or twisting the law does not negate that law.”
“No, it doesn’t, and I’m not saying it does. I am saying that different situations mean that you sometimes have to take the lesser of two evils.”
She arched a brow. “Let me get this right. Are you saying that breaking out a known terrorist and harbouring him on your private island is the lesser of… what evil, exactly?”
That frustration bubbled to the surface. God, she was worse than Kat Cavanaugh! And that, Scott realised, was a quite a feat. He leaned forward onto his desk, arms flat against the mahogany grain. “That isn’t what I’m saying. You’re twisting the truth again!”
Daniella was unrelenting. “Did you, or did you not, break the criminal known as the Mechanic out of the Hex, a GDF secure facility—”
“That wasn’t how it happened—!”
“—And then did you, or did you not, harbour him on your island?”
An agitated sigh was the answer she received. Scott pushed himself away from his desk, stood himself up and walked the few steps to the wall-to-ceiling windows that overlook New York City. His back was turned to the reporter but he knew she was watching him keenly. Only then did it hit him that he hadn’t once asked for the meeting to be confidential.
Cold terror sliced through him. Scott glanced over his shoulder. “This is all off-the-record, right?”
Daniella stared at him as though that hadn’t been the words she’d expected to hear. “Was it supposed to be?”
He could have so easily lied to her. He could have said yes, it was in the letter I sent you. It was one of the agreements to the meeting. It was there in black and white, when he knew for a fact that he’d omitted that detail. It didn’t matter that it was done accidentally. Daniella had every right to publish whatever he said in this meeting alongside the expose, and he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Lying would have been the wisest move. He wouldn’t have to worry about his words tonight being twisted along with everything else and going to print.
But Scott was an honourable man. He didn’t lie or cheat. He owned his mistakes, no matter how big or damning, and maybe—maybe—Daniella would notice that too. Maybe it’d urge her to have a change of heart.
He shook his head in answer. “No, I, uh, I think I left that bit out.”
Daniella remained quiet for a moment. “It can become an off-the-record meeting, if you’d like? From the start. We can pretend that it always had been.”
Scott gawked at her, blue eyes marvelling at the journalist. Perhaps being so open with his mistake had made her have a change of heart. She didn’t have to give him that offer. She could have added far more to her expose if the meeting was on-the-record, she could have twisted the truth even further, but she gave him an out.
“Thank you,” he said thickly. “I’d appreciate that.”
She nodded. “Then consider it done.”
Relief coursed through him. If she was going to be lenient on that, then maybe there was still a good chance he’d be able to talk her out of publishing her main story. A sigh slipped past parted lips and Scott glanced back out of the large windows.
The New York City skyline was bright with the lights of skyscrapers and traffic. From the fiftieth floor of the building that traffic looked like ants, multicoloured, gridlocked ants, all hurrying to get from one destination to another. There was something calming about watching the busy New York scene from so high above, from so far away. From here, he wasn’t in the middle of the chaos. He wasn’t unable to see the bigger picture of the city as a whole.
It was time for a change of tactic.
He turned back to Daniella again. “I don’t know what I can say to you that will change your mind,” he admitted. “You say you have the evidence and I don’t doubt that. You say that difficult situations aren’t an excuse to bend or twist the law and I don’t disagree with you.”
One hand ran through his chestnut locks, messing up his usually neatly-styled hair. After a long day at the office, even his best hair gel was starting to fail him and escaped curls were starting to pop through. He breathed out, slow, steady and deep.
“But if you go ahead and publish this article, you’ll be a catalyst for a chain of events that will only get worse with time. You’ll give our enemies the ammunition they need to damage us. I don’t want to sound dramatic but this expose could signal the beginning of the end of International Rescue, an organisation that the world needs, Ms. Hardy. Please don’t be the one who sparks the ignition that starts that process.”
Daniella pursed her lips, considering his words and warnings. For a moment, Scott gave himself the hope that she was going to listen and finally back down.
But her head tilted ever so slightly, her lips curled a fraction, and her palm balled into a fist around her pen. “You’re saying that publishing this expose—which the public have a right to read, by the way— will cause irreparable damage to one of your companies?”
“Please, Ms. Hardy, I am pleading with you to not publish this article. Why else would I be trying to convince you?”
“To save face? Your reputation? Significant investments? You’re a businessman, Mr. Tracy. How can I be sure that this isn’t just you trying to save yourself money?”
“Because I haven’t taken you to court.”
Daniella scoffed again. “And that shows me that you’re not a corrupt businessman how exactly?”
“If I was concerned about money, then I’d have just taken you to court and sued you for all the millions you don’t have. Your career would be in tatters, and my family would be safe.”
Threats. The one thing Scott had told himself he wouldn’t stoop to.
To her credit, Daniella didn’t seem too bothered by his words. She rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t be able to sue me. Everything I have in that article is based on true events. I have the facts on my side.”
“And I have the money on mine. I have access to the very best lawyers in the world.” Scott sat himself back down, steepling his fingers on his desk. “Trust me when I say that I am not here to make money, or because I am worried about the business side of things should everything turn sour. I am here, Ms. Hardy, to implore you to think about the very real consequences publishing this expose will have.”
He held her gaze, uncompromising in his dire warning. She was a hard read. Her amber eyes gave nothing away and Scott suddenly felt the need to challenge her to a card game once they weren’t butting heads over this article. With a poker face like that, he was certain she’d be a decent opponent, and with John up in orbit most of the time, he needed a new rival to compete against.
Daniella raised herself from the seat. “I want the truth out there, Scott. No matter how much good you do in the world, you cannot be allowed to go unchecked. That is wrong, but…” She trailed off as she rummaged around in her bag before setting a small, oblong device on his desk. “Read it. Make notes. Then meet with me again and we’ll work together on it. It’ll be less expose and more of an interview, holding you to account still, but slightly less harsh.”
It was an olive branch, Scott recognised, and the deal was one that wouldn’t get better. The fact that she had, once again, given him the opportunity to change things in his favour was in itself surprising. He’d begun to think that the argument would have gone on all night, and though he was sure there would be more petitioning in the future, this was better than nothing.
His hand slid across the desk to pick up the thumb drive. “Thank you.”
“I’m not doing this for you or your organisation, Mr. Tracy. I’m doing this because I don’t think you’re lying about it being catastrophic for the rest of the world. I don’t want to be the cause of any disastrous chain reaction and,” Daniella trailed off again.
“And?”
“And,” she hesitated, “I don’t think that you’re necessarily deserving of something so damning. You sound decent and I want to give you a chance.”
Scott couldn’t help the grin that formed now, dimples on full display. “I appreciate it, more than you can imagine. I’ll be in contact in a few days.”
Daniella offered him a small smile before she headed for the door, and only once she was gone did Scott feel the sting of relieved tears threatening to run down his cheeks. Only once she was gone did he let them escape. He stood and made his way back to the drinks cabinet, pouring himself another whiskey and downing the brown liquid in one.
That had been far too close. He didn’t know who had been watching down on him favourably tonight but he was thankful for the luck they’d sent his way. He was so unbelievably thankful because, next time, he wasn’t sure he’d get off the hook so easily.
Almost didn't get this one out on time today! It might become a slightly common thing. This was my last, fully written-before-the-day-of-posting piece, so unless I have a writing sprint, some may be coming a couple of days later!
As usual, the story ended up being far larger than I’d originally intended and I ran out of time to expand any further. Sorry if it felt a little blunt at the end!
Kayo has until dawn to save a friend. Will she make it in time? And, more importantly, will she regret being the one to jump into the deep end?
Words: 2,140
Rating: Gen.
Universe: TAG
Triggers: Minor Character Death / Guns
AO3 link here.
Other Days: 1 / 2 / 3
Click. Click. Click.
The metal grill of the walkway echoed as Kayo took her quick steps.
It creaked and bowed below each footfall and, at one point, she was fairly certain a section was about to entirely snap from under her. A fall from five storeys to an early grave was a sobering thought.
But she didn’t stall and she didn’t allow her mind to linger on such a devastating distraction. She had to get to the meeting point, and she had to get there fast.
Time was ticking by perilously. From the rectangular factory windows above her, Kayo could see the sky was slowly shifting from shades of indigo to lighter shades of peach; dawn was fast approaching. Her deadline was nipping at her heels. She picked up her pace, the walkway beneath her groaning at her increased speed.
When news of his disappearance had reached her, Kayo had joined the search immediately. They had been searching for him for three days and three nights. The GDF had given her full rein of the mission from day one. She had enlisted Penelope’s help on day two. Parker had secured her a solid lead by the morning of the third day, and Kayo had managed to get in contact with the abductor by the evening. Now, on the cusp of the dawn of the fourth day, Kayo would end this.
The end of the walkway ended with a set of double doors. Kayo pushed them open slowly, revealing another flight of concrete stairs. If the schematics had been correct, it would lead her up to the sixth and final floor; the old foreman offices. It was her last hope. It was where she’d been led up to this point. She had to have faith that the meeting point was at the end.
Kayo took two steps at a time. The sooner this was over, the better.
The staircase led to another set of doors, this time already open, with a long corridor beyond. All the way down the hall there were various doorways. Some still had the doors attached, though the rooms were all locked up tight behind them. Where there was no longer a door, planks had been nailed into the walls, boarding up the entrances. It was a reminder that the former GDF weapons factory had been abandoned for a long time.
She tried each door that was still on their hinges. None of them opened.
Racing along, it didn’t take her long to reach the end of the corridor. Or at least, that part of the corridor. It turned to the right, continuing down the for another two-hundred feet or so, identical to the last. And again Kayo tried every door she passed, all of them the same as the previous hallway. She marched faster, growing more and more frustrated with every door handle that rattled but refused to open.
Until one eventually did.
Hesitantly Kayo crossed the threshold. Her eyes darted to the left and to the right, looking for any signs of traps or triggers. If she was caught out now, wounded or potentially worse, then everything would have been in vain.
Lanterns lit the way forward from here, trailing like breadcrumbs across the room. The large windows had been partly shattered in places, causing the wind to whistle through. It was the only sound in the vicinity and it was unnerving to say the least. Still, Kayo pressed forward. She followed the lanterns and stepped over the discarded papers which littered the floor, around the broken desk and across the piles of rubble that had fallen from the caved-in ceiling. They led her to another door, closed again this time, but this one clearly connected to the room next door. When she tried the handle, it opened.
The room beyond was the same as the first. So was the next one. And the next. And the next. The lanterns kept leading her to the doors that connected like a chain to the offices down the corridor. They were taking her back the way she’d come. Clearly the rooms had been locked from being accessed from the outside to conceal this little game.
Kayo buried the irritation that was rising up. How far back would this trail lead her? Would she run out of time before she got to the end? It fuelled her to move faster, the frustration lending itself to her desire to finally finish the job.
Continuing through the rooms with speed, she also continued to remain mindful to watch for any possible traps, until finally the last room ended, not with another door, but a gaping hole in the floor.
It only went down one level thankfully. She calculated the angle and then carefully dropped herself down.
Slow clapping pierced the gentle humming of the generator in front of her. Kayo slowly turned on her heels.
“It’s over, Corporal Dennis. Surrender now and—”
Kayo ceased talking when she saw the scene before her, her next words completely lost from the shock. Corporal Dennis, the supposed abductor, was sprawled unconscious on the floor before her. Dead.
Her heart dropped. “No, that— That isn’t—”
A familiar figure emerged from behind a large piece of machinery, a wry smile taunting her as he stepped into the light. He still wore his GDF uniform, though it was clear at this point that he no longer had any allegiance to the organisation.
“Rigby?” Kayo breathed out, not wanting to come to terms with the scene. “What are you doing? It was Dennis who—”
He tilted his head, mockingly. “Was it Dennis? Did you even read the notes I sent, Kayo?”
“But why?”
“You were two minutes too late.” Rigby lifted his wrist to check his watch. “Well, one minute-fifty. But who cares about the details, right? You certainly didn’t.”
Her head was spinning. This wasn’t right. It had been Rigby who was supposed to have been taken hostage by Dennis. It was some sort of weird ransom situation over a GDF special weapon. Rigby wasn’t supposed to be the villain here. He couldn’t have been. He was a loyal soldier of the GDF and, above all else, he was her friend.
“Why,” she repeated, more clearly this time, “are you doing any of this?”
Nonchalantly he shrugged and strolled forward. His boot tapped the shoulder of the deceased Corporal in front of him, the disrespect only being added to with a sneer. “It was a shame Dennis didn’t want to cooperate. I gave him every chance, but…” Rigby sighed. “He could have been so much more useful. So much potential gone to waste.”
Kayo eyed the door to her left. It was open, with a bright red Exit sign tantalisingly flashing intermittently over it. If she could run fast enough, she’d be able to get out and contact the GDF with the truth of the situation—
“Do. Not.” Rigby punctuated, raising his hand, “Even. Think. About it.”
A gun was now pointed at her. Despite his warning, his eyes were daring her, challenging her to defy him. To give him an excuse to pull the trigger.
No, this couldn’t have been Rigby. This wasn’t like him at all. Those piercing blue eyes of his were slightly dimmer, though they shone with the glint of a madman. No, it had to be some sort of weird dream. Perhaps she hadn’t been careful enough when looking out for traps. Perhaps one had got her. Perhaps she’d wake up soon and be in Dennis’s clutches. Kayo would have rathered that situation than this one.
This very real one.
Because no matter how much she tried to convince herself otherwise, Rigby was pointing a gun at her. He had killed Corporal Dennis. That word friend which she had used to describe him for so long now was no longer an accurate description for him.
Yet, despite the reality, she still held onto hope that things weren’t as they seemed. The Rigby she’d known would never have betrayed his fellow soldiers. The Rigby she knew would never have murdered someone in order to get his hands on an experimental weapon. The Rigby she knew wouldn’t be looking at her like she was next on his hit-list.
“Why did you lure me here?”
“Join me,” he answered simply.
Kayo scoffed. “In this mad charade? No, thanks.”
Rigby appeared unperturbed by her refusal. He stepped towards her eagerly. “Join me,” he simply said again, though his gun was still trained on her.
She instinctively took a step back. “Will you shoot me if I don’t? Will my fate be like Dennis’s?”
Those blue eyes darted down to the corpse of the corporal, utterly void of any emotion. It was unnerving how much Rigby had changed. How fast. No, something didn’t sit right with her.
“I needed you to stop looking for me,” he explained. “When Corporal Dennis here wised up to my plans, I decided to use him as a decoy. Have the GDF think that it was him who was behind all of this. I didn’t expect you to be the one who came knocking, especially without a back-up team. Honestly, haven’t you learned your lessons yet?”
Rigby took another step forward but, again, Kayo stepped back an equal amount.
He chuckled at her response. “I guess that’s to be expected.”
“So this was all because you want the secret weapon? Why?”
“It’ll be worth a pretty penny when sold to the right person.”
It was all so very wrong, and when Rigby neared her again, almost backing up her into the small gated area where the generator sat, Kayo struck. She aimed for the gun first, whacking his hand and causing his grip to falter. It didn’t take long for it to fall to the floor with a clatter. Then, she went for his legs, swiping them out from under him. Rigby was a tall, well-built soldier, trained for fighting, but he stumbled clumsily. He barely remained upright and he certainly wasn’t balanced when Kayo slipped past him and kicked him forward, past the open gate, and into the generator.
“Nice try, uncle,” Kayo spat, shutting the gate before he could run back out. “But Rigby would never be swayed by something so pathetic as a quick cash grab.”
Rigby, who she had since realised was thankfully not Rigby, cursed her. He rushed to the gate and rattled against it. The lock held firm. “You’ll regret this!”
“You say that every single time, and yet I’m still waiting on the chance to cash in that threat of yours.”
He rattled the cage again as Kayo crossed the room and searched through his belongings. It didn’t take her long to find his favourite gadget. With a push of a button, Rigby’s face morphed back into the owner’s true visage; the Hood.
“And I rarely do any mission without back-up, uncle. They’ll be here soon enough, but while we wait, why don’t you tell me where the real Captain Rigby is?”
The Hood knew he held the last card that Kayo so desperately wanted. He knew what the friendship she’d cultivated with Rigby meant to her. It was probably half the reason why he’d chosen his face as his disguise. He probably could sense her anxious heart beating wildly as she awaited his answer.
So when he refused to oblige her and offered up a smug grin instead, Kayo wasn’t too surprised.
She lifted the gun from where it had fallen and watched as, for a split second, fear crossed her uncle’s features. It soon changed back to glee.
“Are you going to shoot me, Tanusha? Are you finally going to put an end to this game of cat and mouse?”
Kayo inspected the gun carefully. She turned it over in her hands, felt the weight of the weapon. “It’s tempting,” she admitted aloud. “I suppose I could. I could argue it was self-defence. I could say I had no other choice.” She made sure her next words were spoken with unyielding eye contact, and she stepped closer to the gate. “But I would never stoop to your level. I would never kill as an easy route out of a difficult situation. As much as you want to mould me into your likeness, uncle, I will never be like you.”
Despite her words and their bite, the Hood was entirely unbothered by her words. If anything, he looked bored. “Give it time, dear Tanusha. One day you truly won’t have a choice.”
“There are always choices.”
“Yes, there are. But sometimes every single one of them is a bad one.” He chuckled at that, unfazed by the march of soldier’s footsteps high above them as he concluded, “I look forward to the day you finally pluck up enough courage to pull the trigger.”
Scott is in trouble because am I really writing the first prompt for Thundertober and having any of the other characters put in peril? Of course not!
This one came to me almost fully formed (unlike some others this Thundertober, but that’s for another day (tomorrow)).
Please be mindful of the tags! It isn't graphic but it's still a little rough!
What value does the human mind have? And how far are some people willing to go to extract what they want? Scott Tracy is about to find out.
Words: 3,291
Rating: M
Universe: TAG (could fit TOS too)
Triggers: Whump / Minor Violence / Implied Torture / Implied Medical Procedures / Non-Consensual Drug Use / Kidnapping
AO3 link here.
Flames blazed and seared his skin. Everything was blurry, distorted by the smoke that was filling the cabin, but Scott didn’t have to see the flames to know that they were there. He could feel the burning fire that was coursing through him, from fingertips to toes.
A hand darted out in front of him, broken, bent and broken beyond repair. The sleeve of his uniform once reached his wrist. Now it was burned and torn to his elbow. Scott pushed the ramifications of all that was happening to the back of his very fuzzy mind. His fingers reached the comms unit in front of him through memory alone, and clicked it once to switch it on. Static rang out above the crescendo of molten steel twisting, collapsing around him. He prayed someone—anyone—would answer him.
But nobody did.
The comms remained silent, save for the crackling of static. A terrifying reminder that he was truly alone.
Scott tried to scream then. He was burning alive, his skin scorched from the hot flames of fire that now consumed the entire cabin. The only saving grace had been his helmet. It was still secured on his head, the respirator still working; the only thing keeping him from succumbing to the grey smog that fogged his vision. But time was running out. How long before the combustable materials of his aircraft blew?
His mouth opened, his will to yell strong, but… nothing came out. His vocal chords did not respond to that will of his and he was met with pure silence. Scott strained. Again and again he tried to get a sound out, willing his scream to materialise.
But it never did.
And suddenly, for the first time in his life, Scott began to feel the uneasy sense of claustrophobia creeping in.
Despite his inability to do so, Scott continued to try and scream. He continued to push that communications button in the hope that someone would eventually pick up. It would be a cruel hand of fate dealt to him if this was how it all ended.
Tears were running down his face, hot and stinging. He had to get out. This nightmare had to end at some point, one way or another.
He wasn’t sure how long he was stuck in that torment. Five minutes? Thirty? An hour? It felt endless, as though he was on some sort of merry-go-around and there was no way of stopping the ride.
But, between sobs of pure fear, eventually something clicked.
He fought past the pain of burning alive to realise that he hadn’t been burnt to a crisp yet. The flames were licking the bare skin that had been uncovered from his torn up uniform, but there were no burn marks to be found. His hand, bent at an awkward angle and that looked entirely inhuman now, still had full feeling in it. He could move it fairly well, his fingers responding to his mental commands to wiggle. It didn’t hurt. Perhaps it felt a little numb, but his whole body felt that way. And not numb in the same way one becomes after the body has given in to natural exhaustion. This was different.
This was unnatural.
“… so I really must insist you cease this at once, Doctor Coates!”
The voice reverberated around him like it was from a dream. It vibrated through his bones, had him feeling lightheaded.
“You know what the Examiner said,” that otherworldly voice continued. “You know he isn’t ready for the final stages yet.”
Scott tried to block out the unfamiliar voices. It proved impossible, but so had his ability to scream and he’d still stubbornly persisted with that.
“All it takes is a few gentle pushes. Nudges, if you like, in the right direction.” This voice was a different one to the first. Soft. Gentle. Feminine sounding. Matronly, almost.
Scott found her tone soothing. He didn’t like that.
“If you push it too far, you’ll ruin the whole project!”
“Have a little faith in me, Evan.” The woman’s voice simpered. “I am the Examiner’s favourite for a reason.”
A tugging sensation gripped his body and Scott felt as though his very essence was being ripped out of him. He fought against it as best he could, unwilling to give in to such a strange force so easily.
“I’m ending this now, before you break him like you did the last one!” The first voice—Evan—proclaimed.
For the briefest moment, the tugging ceased. Scott had never felt so relieved.
But when it started again, it was worse. This time when he screamed, he could hear himself. Only his cries sounded like they were a thousand lightyears away from him, separated from his very body. Scott understood that they were his. He’d heard himself screaming before, when waking from night terrors especially.
As the tugging grew even stronger, his screams became louder, less ethereal.
So too did the voices.
“Stop it!” The woman’s voice was hoarse as she yelled. “Stop it! Evan, you’re ruining everything!”
Up and up and up.
Scott felt as though he was ascending and, for the briefest, most unsettling of moments, he wondered if this was how the journey to the afterlife felt.
Up and up and up.
The light he was reaching for unnerved him. He wasn’t ready for it all to end yet.
Up and up and up.
There was still so much he hadn’t done, still so much he hadn’t resolved.
Up and up and up.
He couldn’t be dying!
Not yet!
────୨ৎ────
The fact that he wasn’t dead should have been a blessing, then.
It wasn’t.
Beeps and buzzing filled the air around him. Phantom pain from the burning-that-wasn’t-really-burning still radiated from his arms, his legs, his whole body. His head thumped with a gentle rhythm. If if wasn’t so agonising, he might have found it somewhat comforting.
Real.
Wherever he was now, it was real.
The cabin, the fire, the smoke… That had been a dream.
No. It had been a memory.
Now that he was out of it, Scott could recognise that. It had been a memory which he’d thought he’d been able to squander years ago, hidden away from himself for the rest of time. Clearly he’d been mistaken.
He opened his mouth to try and call for his brother. Nothing but a weak whimper came out. But Virgil was usually around somewhere. They had danced this dance so many times before after turbulent missions. Whether he’d fallen asleep in the chair beside Scott’s infirmary bed, or whether he’d popped up to the kitchen to fetch himself a snack, Virgil was always waiting for him to wake up from his unconscious state.
But as Scott blinked his eyes open, he was greeted only by a singular, powerful light that had been directed straight at his face. It made it impossible for him to see a foot in front of him.
His attempts to move were thwarted by the cuffs that were secured around his wrists, keeping him pinned to the bed. His ankles were similarly restrained and, after a few more attempts at wriggling, Scott realised, in his hazy state, that his head and his waist had been strapped down to the bed too.
Trapped.
“You stupid fool!” The same woman’s voice who had invaded his dreams (or would ‘drug-induced nightmares’ be more apt?) carried across the room with a bite. “Look what you’ve done!”
The two figures were too far away for Scott to see anything more than people-shaped, shadowy blurs. His heart-rate picked up, signalled by the machine to his left.
He wasn’t at home, in the medbay.
Virgil wasn’t nearby.
He wasn’t somewhere safe.
As more of his senses returned to him, as more energy was mustered, Scott began to thrash against the bonds that held him in place. It was futile, he knew, but he continued regardless.
In his periphery he saw the two figures advance towards him slowly.
“I couldn’t allow you to continue,” Evan explained as he reached Scott’s bed. His hand reached out, palm flattening across the band over Scott’s forehead. “This one has to remain intact.”
“But if I could just dig a little deeper, go a little further, I could find out the trigger. I could unravel the process and then we could really—” Doctor Coates was cut off by Evan’s glare. She didn’t say anything further.
Evan turned his attention back to Scott, and with a voice that dripped venom, he spoke in a low volume barely above a whisper, “You should try and get some rest, Tracy. You’ll need all your energy for tomorrow. The Examiner is thrilled at the prospect of finally meeting you.”
There was no room for protest. Doctor Coates procured a vial, tapped it once to rid the liquid of any lingering bubbles, and then pushed the syringe needle into the side of Scott’s head. He was hit with a wave of nausea as his vision began to blur.
Drugged, he presumed, again.
Uselessly he began to blabber his pleas, but nothing coherent came out. The last thing he saw before his body caved to the drugs was Evan’s unnerving, arachnean smile.
────୨ৎ────
He was sitting when he awoke this time, though his hands and feet were still tightly secured, preventing any sort of escape.
Perspire dripped from his face, sweating out the remnants of whatever Doctor Coates had drugged him with. Scott was still dizzy, still fighting back the need to vomit. His skin tingled and his bones felt as though they’d been drilled through. He lifted his head from where it had dropped to his chest.
Unlike the previous room, this one had no light. Scott blinked various times in order to double check that it wasn’t that his eyes had stopped working. They hadn’t, thankfully, and whilst they continued to adjust to the darkness he began to notice certain shapes in the shadows. Furniture mainly, though it was sparse; a desk; another chair; a bookshelf; some drawers; a blacked-out window and curtains; a rug; another desk.
Scott struggled again.
Useless.
He sagged in his seat, fuzzy brain rushing through a sea of thoughts in his mind.
Where was he? How did he end up here? Who was behind all of this? And, most importantly, why? How long had he been here, wherever it was? How much longer would he be staying, either by choice or, more likely, force? Would whoever was behind this eventually show their face? Was there a possibility of him pleading his case with someone?
At least one of those questions was answered when the scuff of a shoe behind him made his hair stand on end. He wasn’t alone.
“It is always so entertaining to see them wrestle with their situation.”
Scott assumed the deep voice belonged to the same person as the sound of the shoe. Whoever it was stood just out of his periphery. He doubted it was accidental. Even in the dimness of the room, Scott would have been able to ascertain a size, a height, possibly more, and coupled with the voice, he’d be able to picture the sort of person it all belonged to. With only a rough, British accent to go on, Scott’s mental image of the man, for now, was mostly vacant. Clearly they didn’t want him getting any sort of upper hand.
“And you have been the most entertaining so far,” the voice continued. “Your screams have echoed through the entire complex. I’d never seen—heard—such a defiant creature before. I knew from the beginning that you were going to be special. You haven’t disappointed me so far.” Footsteps were muffled by the plush rug as the man stepped into Scott’s sights. “I’m sure you won’t start to disappoint me now, hm?”
If the man had been trying to remain a mystery by keeping out of his view for so long, it had been pointless. Even with the shadow of the man in front of him, Scott couldn’t make out much. He was reasonably tall and reasonably well-built. From his shape and stature alone there wasn’t anything that Scott would have claimed was noteworthy.
But then the man crouched in front of him and Scott’s heart flipped. Perhaps his hair was just close shaven and not actually bald. If this was the Hood…
No. It couldn’t have been. The Hood didn’t have a voice so gravelly, so like stone. His was slippery and laced with far more sneers than this man’s had been.
The darkness of the room meant he couldn’t discern any further features. The man’s hazel eyes remained a mystery, as did the fullness of his mouth, the scar across his right cheek, the recent bruising on his left. His little eyebrow slit and his enviously high cheekbones were unknown to Scott. All he saw was a round head, everything else obscured by the darkness in the room.
“You won’t disappoint me, will you?” The man repeated. His hand rested on top of Scott’s, his fingers curling around and squeezing.
Scott winced, instinctively trying to pull his hand away from the torment. He had no choice but to endure it, however. Shackled to the arms of the chair he was trapped in, Scott physically couldn’t pull away.
It humoured the man. His fingers tightened and he chuckled softly. “It’s a simple question. Coates didn’t fry your brain that badly. Evan wouldn’t have allowed it.”
His blood ran cold at the mention of the two names he’d since forgotten. Doctor Coates, the matronly-sounding woman, who had been trying to “nudge” and “push” him, almost to the point of “breaking” him. Evan, the stern man with the spider-like grin, who had interfered and had stopped her from ruining their “project”.
“Where am I?” Scott’s voice croaked. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d used it beyond simply screaming. “What’s happening?”
The man ceased the squeezing but his palm remained on top of Scott’s hand. “If you’re expecting me to give you any answers before you’ve even attempted to answer mine, you’ll be sorely disappointed.”
Scott exhaled sharply. “How can I promise to not be a disappointment when I don’t know what is expected of me?”
There was a twitch in the man’s expression. An amused grin? Or an irritated frown? In such poor lighting, Scott couldn’t work it out.
“You’re currently a member of the Facility. All you need to know about what is expected of you is that we require your full cooperation. There’s nothing else you need to trouble yourself about, Mr. Tracy. Everything else is…” He paused deliberately, allowing the weight of his words, the implication of his words, to settle. “… taken care of.”
“What is the Facility?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
Anger rose up alongside the fear that continued to churn. “I think I’ll be the decider of what I need to know!”
“Trust me, you don’t want that.” The man’s fingers began to dance delicately over the skin of Scott’s hand. It made him shiver. “It’s better for you if you aren’t burdened with the silly little details. It makes the process so much smoother.”
“Process?”
But the man chose to ignore his question. His hand left Scott’s and he stood back to his full height. “No, I don’t think you’ll be a disappointment to me, Scott Tracy. Your mind is…” He trailed off, as though he struggled to find the words. “It’s so very colourful. It’s mesmerising. It’s… harrowing. We can use that.”
Scott shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. Though he couldn’t understand exactly what all the man’s words meant, he had the unnerving feeling they weren’t good. “Who are you?”
“You may call me the Examiner.”
“And you’re in charge?”
“Of the Facility? In a way. Everyone has a boss, Scott Tracy. Even you.”
If nothing else about his situation filled him with dread, that certainly worked like a charm. “Is that supposed to be you?”
“No.” The man turned his back on Scott and began to stroll towards the shadow of the desk. “I’m only here to watch over the proceedings. To examine everything that happens. I report back to my boss. He reports to his. We have a very rigid chain of command, one I’m sure you’d appreciate if you were in a better position to understand.”
Scott couldn’t help the quirk of his lips. “Try me.”
“Sometimes,” the Examiner continued, ignoring Scott’s words, “the procedures can go sideways. Unexpected problems can occur. When working with the mind, it is to be expected. After a few months of probing, subjects can simply cease to be. But you, Scott Tracy? You’ve not broken yet.”
A shiver went up Scott’s spine.
“Your mind is immense. It’s strong. It’s…”
“Mesmerising? Harrowing?” He echoed the Examiner’s previous words back to him, biting each syllable.
The man chuckled. “Forgive me, it is just so rare to see someone like you pass through these walls. You are special, Scott Tracy, and I had to see for myself just why that was.”
Everything that happened next went by in a blur. The Examiner clicked his fingers. Doors behind him swung open, light cascading into the room so bright that Scott winced. Two sets of boots marched inside, unshackled him from the chair and lifted him to his feet. Whilst he was still dazed from the sudden light that had filtered in, the moved him towards the second desk.
Only it wasn’t another desk.
It had been a gurney.
Before Scott could even attempt to break free of the guards’ grip, they’d re-secured all four of his limbs to the bed.
“You must forgive them, too,” the Examiner crooned as he approached. Scott noticed all the man’s features now, committing them to memory in case he needed to divulge details at a later date. The scar, the bruise, the brow cut, the cheekbones, the eye colour, the smoothness of his head. “The guards here can be rather brutish sometimes, but needs must, and all that.”
“Let me go!” Scott yelled, thrashing at his restraints yet again. He was beginning to get tired of being tied down.
“I’m afraid that just isn’t possible at the moment. You see, we need you, Scott Tracy. Well, we need your mind, to be more precise.”
“Why?”
The Examiner hushed him, his fingers sliding through his hair in what was supposed to be a soothing manner. Scott was anything but soothed. He was infuriated. He was terrified. He was… oddly beginning to feel more calm.
With the light now penetrating the room, he could see the Examiner’s lips lift into a satisfied grin. “See? It’s not so hard, is it? To give in? To surrender?” His gravelly voice became softer as he whispered. “Surrender to me like you surrendered to Komandor Kaminski and I promise this will all be over in the blink of an eye.”
Scott’s breathing eased, though the name brought forth a new wave of fear underneath the summoned calm the Examiner seemed to bring. Kaminiski, the brutishly efficient madman, was a name that Scott had buried far deeper than he had of the memories of the burning cockpit Doctor Coates had forced him to remember.
But as quickly as that uncovered fear had been rediscovered, it faded again, masked by the serenity that the Examiner was exuding.
None of it made any sense to him but Scott wasn’t sure he necessarily wanted any of it to make any sense anymore. The answers to his questions were unimportant. All he cared about was that sweet, undisturbed peace that the Examiner continued to bring.
“Do you see how easy this is?” He asked, voice as velvet soft as his could be. “Now we can begin.”
This is veeeeery late (and I still have a couple more I want to eventually post!) but here is my go at Thundertober's Day Six prompt! It's a crossover with Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, and it's also part one of two (possibly three). I do love me a good little crossover between these two shows!! (I'm also ill right now so if there are any typos/any of the links don't work, just pretend like everything is fine!)
Jeff Tracy's first visit to a Spectrum base isn't for the reason he might have hoped it would be. After a brief power struggle with his old friend, Charles Grey, can the two of them put it aside to help Jeff's son?
Words: 2,267
Rating: Teen.
Universe: TOS / CSatM
Triggers: None.
AO3 link here.
Other Days: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5
Bland, beige carpets led him down the long hallway. In front of him, two soldiers dressed in livery of muted colours marched as his escort. They spoke to each other in quiet whispers, too quiet for Jeff to hear what they were talking about. If he’d been in any other building, being led to any other commanding office, he might have been worried about it. But Jeff, despite being invited in with such urgency, had never felt more at home in a place such as this.
Jeff was still unaware of why he was there. His career in the Air Force was illustrious and full of merits, and his subsequent time in the Space Agency was acclaimed. Being the first person to do anything in space was a quick-fire way to have your name forever typed into the history books. So when his old friend had contacted him, Jeff didn’t think to question why he’d been invited to visit one of their secret bases.
It wasn’t until he was guided through two large cream door, into the office of Spectrum’s Commander in Chief that a leaden weight dropped in Jeff’s stomach.
His old friend, Charles Grey, sat behind an obnoxiously long table. Papers and files cluttered the desk in an organised mess, and though his uniform was similar to the kind his escorts had worn, Charles’s was in stark white. Most unnervingly of all, however, was he had the face of someone with grave news to share.
“Ah, Jeff,” Charles welcomed him without a hint of a smile. “You’re here. Please, take a seat.”
If the sight of his old friend wasn’t enough to alarm Jeff, then the sight of his eldest son sitting in the chair opposite certainly was. Scott’s back was turned to the entrance but Jeff would recognise the style of his eldest’s hair, the shape of his shoulders, the colour of his uniform.
Charles extended a single hand out, gesturing to the vacant chair beside Scott. As Jeff took the seat, he glanced over to his son. His normally electric eyes were dulled, red and sore.
“What the hell is going on here?” Jeff wasn’t sure what scene he’d just walked into, but that semblance of calm he’d felt before stepping into the office had now disappeared.
Behind the desk, Charles straightened himself up. He frowned, suggesting to Jeff he’d thought his question was asked indignantly, but Jeff didn’t care. Scott was clearly distraught and—
He looked back to his son. “Weren’t you supposed to be running that mission with Alan?”
Scott nodded but said nothing. His eyes were fixated on the desk.
“What is this all about?” Jeff tried to ask Charles again. “You ask me here, command that I come urgently, but all I’m seeing is one of my son’s looking traumatised.”
“Jeff, you need to be a lot calmer before I can say what I have to say.” Charles levelled him with a look. “Do not make me regret bringing you in on this.”
He could have scoffed, but the panic building up inside him fuelled his frustration. Jeff’s heart was racing as wildly as his thoughts were, each one concluding with a worse outcome than the last. “You listen here,” he pointed towards his friend. “This may be your office and this may be your organisation, Charles, but International Rescue is mine, and so are the boys. So, you better start explaining now, whether you think I’m calm enough or not.”
“Yes,” Charles snapped. “This is my office, and this is my organisation, which means that every decision is made by me and I’d appreciate you lowering your tone, Jefferson.”
The lights could very well have dimmed, a spotlight shining just on Charles as Jeff’s focus centred solely on him.
Frustration caved and gave way to the panic. Jeff abruptly stood, making his way straight for the exit. “Scott, with me.”
“Please, Jeff. Sit back down.” Charles implored.
But Jeff’s eyes were ringing. It was deafening.
He knew what this was about. He’d realised it the moment he had noticed the absence of Alan, the moment he’d seen the look on Scott’s face, the moment he’d stepped foot inside this Spectrum base. Penelope had handed him the confidential file months ago, but Jeff had chosen to call it folly. He’d refused to believe the facts that had been printed in black-and-white because he couldn’t bear the truth. Jeff had been to Mars. He had walked the dusty surface. He didn’t want to believe that they hadn’t been alone up there. And he certainly didn’t want to hear the truth reiterated from Charles’s lips now, especially if it concerned one of his boys.
Alan.
So Jeff didn’t stop walking. He exited the office and continued back down the hallway, ignoring the looks he was given by Spectrum personnel as he stormed past. Fresh air beckoned to him from beyond the main doors and he picked up his pace to get out that much faster.
Helicopters whirred overhead. Soldiers marched in the training ground to the right. Jeff blocked out all the hubbub and leant against one of the granite walls, away from everything, and crumpled.
His poor baby boy.
Jeff’s mind immediately jumped to how it must have happened, his imagination concocting one horrific scenario after another to torment him. The worst were the images were Alan suffered at the hands of the alien menace.
His heart, usually toughened against the terrible truths of the world, had never felt more broken. Pieces of it shattered the more Jeff indulged in those atrocious nightmares. He couldn’t stop thinking of Alan’s final moments, of his son being taken over by those things, of his baby boy’s body being left, beaten, bruised and broken beyond repair.
Silent tears had been falling down his cheeks and Jeff hadn’t even noticed. His back was against the cold stone wall, but the only chill he felt was from the dire news. He’d been so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he hadn’t even noticed that a Spectrum officer had joined him, crouching beside him, until he was offered a tissue. Jeff had never felt so pathetic. Breaking down in such a public space? He should have been glad that the base was top secret and that there were no press hounds waiting to snap a news story.
Jeff took the tissue from the man without hesitation, however. His pride wasn’t so strong that he’d deny help. He quickly dried his eyes, blew his nose and then crumpled the tissue into his palm. Sniffling, he whispered his words of thanks and really took in the man who’d sat next to him.
Even though he was crouched down, Jeff knew the man was reasonably tall, perhaps the same height as Scott. His hair was dark, combed back under the Spectrum issued hat all officers were equipped with, and the colour of his uniform was bright red. He was British too, a fact that was noted when he spoke.
“Colonel White wanted you to be left alone, but I thought you might prefer company.”
Jeff choked out a laugh. “Is everyone from across the Atlantic here?”
The man saw the humour of his words and smiled. “No. Spectrum hire from all over the world. We’re chosen for our abilities and skill sets, not from where we grew up.”
“Ah.”
Blissful quiet passed over them in a companionable silence that Jeff hadn’t felt since landing on the helipad. It was broken only when the man in red spoke again.
“The news isn’t what you think, by the way. You ran out of there so fast, I don’t think the Colonel had the chance to explain the situation to you.”
Jeff’s heart leapt then in pure, terribly undiluted hope. It made him sit a little straighter, made his palms sticky with anticipation, made his head feel a little dizzy.
“The old man will probably have my head for telling you this but,” the man continued, pausing to exhale through his nose. “Thunderbird Three’s pilot—Alan—isn’t dead, Mr. Tracy. As far as we are aware, your son is still out there.”
“Alive?” Jeff sputtered.
The man nodded. “For now, at least, that’s what we think, yes.”
“He’s okay?”
“I wouldn’t say he’s okay,” the man stiffened slightly. “But Cloudbase received a coded message that we’re sure was from your son. It’s why Colonel White wanted you to come in, to try and see if it really was from Alan and not a Mysteron copy.”
“What did the message say?”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid I’ve already said too much. If I share that then Colonel White really will have my head.”
The situation had grown more precarious but Jeff clung to that tiny kernel of hope the officer had provided. If Alan was still alive there was a chance of him coming home. He pulled himself together, lifting himself back up to a standing position, and offered his hand out the man.
Gratefully he took Jeff’s hand. “The Colonel means well,” he went on. “He’s usually more bark than bite.”
Jeff just grinned. “I’m aware. Charles and I, we… Well, we got back a few years.”
The officer blinked back his shock, no doubt at Jeff’s usage of White’s real name. He wasn’t sure how common that knowledge was around here, with all the personnel giving colour-coded names for security’s sake. Jeff glanced at this officer’s tunic.
“Red?” He asked.
“Scarlet,” the officer corrected. “Captain.”
Jeff nodded. “Right. Well, thank you, Captain Scarlet.”
Scarlet waved a hand as though it was nothing. “When I heard about the little spat I thought I owed it to Alan to come out here and try to get at least one of you to see reason. Being at the Mysteron’s mercy… It isn’t pleasant.”
Curiosity was bursting at the seams, but Jeff refrained from asking too many questions. Scarlet had been right in trying to get their meeting back on track, if only to help Alan, and if Jeff had to put himself in a position to defend his new friend against any backlash, so be it.
“He won’t really have your head if you tell me the message, will he?” Jeff hedged as they both re-entered the main building side-by-side. “More bark than bite, you said.”
Scarlet smiled. “I’m sure the Colonel would understand, if the circumstances were different. As it is I’ve only just been allowed back on duty, against Colonel White’s request, so I’d rather not risk being sent back.”
“You were off-duty?” Jeff’s curiosity got the better of him.
“I took a hit during my last mission. Colonel White personally ordered bed rest for me until I was fully healed, but one of my comrades needed my assistance and I might have sneaked off to Kuala Lumpur to help him. When the old man found out, I was certain he’d keep me off duty for the next month, but Colonel White is a forgiving man. I’d rather not tempt his generosity.”
“Do you often break protocol?”
Scarlet shot him a look that suggested yes, he did, but he didn’t say anything more.
They soon approached the Colonel’s office. Scarlet stopped a few feet away from the doors.
“I’m afraid this is where I’ll be leaving you.”
“You’re not coming in?” Jeff asked. “It’d mean a great deal to me if you were on this case.”
Scarlet flashed him a grateful smile. “Speak to the Colonel. If you can convince him to swap me out, I’d be more than happy to assist.”
He held out a hand towards the officer, who met it with a firm shake. “You’ve been a great help, Captain Scarlet.”
Before he could reply, the doors to the office swung open and Charles Grey exited. He exchanged a look between the two men, still shaking hands. “Scarlet, aren’t you supposed to be investigating that Mendoza affair?”
“Just taking a quick break, Colonel,” Scarlet said before adding cheekily, “You know how Doctor Fawn gets when we overwork ourselves.
To Jeff’s surprise, Charles laughed. “Quite. I’ll take it from here, Scarlet.”
Captain Scarlet gave a curt nod towards his commanding officer and a quick smile towards Jeff before heading back down the hallway again.
“I presume Scarlet told you the news,” Charles stated once the red tunic had disappeared around a corner.
Jeff sighed. “You should have lead with it, Charles.”
“Yes, well, there’s no point in crying over spilled milk.”
“Who’s crying?” Jeff teased.
Charles, who was fighting back an amused grin, simply cleared his throat. “I’m sorry if things got too official in there before. Why don’t we go and talk somewhere more private so I can explain the whole situation to you properly?”
The prospect was grim but Jeff nodded. It was better to know what was going on than to be in the dark. Especially if his youngest son’s life was hanging in the balance. “I want Scott there too.”
“Scott is currently with Fawn, receiving treatment for shock.”
“I want him present,” Jeff repeated. “If that means we have to wait, then so be it. I also want Captain Scarlet on the case.”
“Scarlet?”
“He seems knowledgeable, and he was the only one in here who was actually helping.”
Charles pursed his lips, debating whether it was worth trying to pull rank again. Jeff had half-expected his old friend to do so, but instead he began leading him down the other end of the hallway. “Very well. In that case I have something else I’d like to show you first. Come with me.”
This is set prior to the main series and prior to Penelope joining International Rescue. It's part of a whole backstory idea I’ve had running through my mind for at least a year now, but I’ve never been brave enough to write it down. This prompt felt like the perfect place to put at least some of the ideas down. It is full of headcanons. If that isn’t your thing, perhaps don’t read this one.
To note: Penny is around twenty-one in this. She has been doing spy-work but this is her first real big thing. She thinks her father will disapprove because he’s constantly made comments about how he wants Penelope to live a safer life than the one he’s had, and it isn’t because he doesn’t think she’s capable. When he does find out she’s in the game he’s going to be proud of her.
Like all of us, Penelope Creighton-Ward had to start somewhere. Before International Rescue, before she was one of the world’s top secret agents, she was someone else’s protégé.
Words: 1,940
Rating: None
Universe: Any (preferably TAG)
Triggers: None
AO3 link here.
Other Days: 1 / 2
2057, October 3rd.
The city was always at its best when night fell and cast its dark shadows across the metropolis. The pavements, wet from an earlier shower, glistened under the combined efforts of the streetlights and the moon. The buildings in the area were lit up like golden beacons of various sizes. Big Ben was easily the tallest. The big face illuminated the roman numerals as the dark hands ticked away the remaining minutes of the day. Cars, buses, vans and taxis drove past, their headlights piercing through the darkness, their rear-lights adding much needed colour to the tableau.
Penelope left it all behind her as she descended into Westminster’s Underground Station. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d used the Tube. A woman of her position and notoriety was often advised to not use public transportation where possible. But she wasn’t planning on riding any trains tonight.
She wore a knee-length black duster coat over the top of a standard black top and black jeans. A dark grey scarf was wrapped around her throat to help combat the chill in the autumn air, and her boots had been chosen to match. Her outfit was designed to be unseen, designed to be forgettable, and Penelope hoped that it was enough when she passed through the ticket barriers and continued her descent.
The smell of oil and fumes filled the air. Her nose crinkled. One would have thought that, by the year 2057, even the London Tube would have thrown away the diesel stock engines. Clearly someone found money far more interesting than they did the climate, or people’s health for that matter. She’d have to look into that, see if there was something to be done.
Penelope was about to step foot onto the escalators when a gloved hand grabbed her by the upper arm and tugged her back. She was about to turn and strike when she realised who it was.
She sighed. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that it was dangerous to grab a woman like that? I was two seconds away from stomping on your instep, Sam.”
Sam, who was also dressed in clothing that matched his jet black hair, grinned. “Good to see you too, Penny.” He nodded his head backwards. “Come on, there’s place for us to talk this way.”
His hand slipped down her arm to catch her hand. Her fingers curled around the soft leather of Sam’s glove and allowed his initiated soft informality—it wasn’t like he knew better.
Penelope followed Sam through the winding hallways that made up Westminster Station. She was fairly certain that he’d double-backed a few times, no doubt to ensure that no-one would be following them, before he eventually opened a creaky, old rusted gate. He ushered her inside and closed it behind them, leading them both further down the new hallway.
This one was far different to the rest they’d ventured down because, unlike the rest of the station that was open to the public, this one was clearly part of an abandoned part of the station. It was dark and dreary. The bare brick walls were covered in something wet that dripped from the arched ceilings. Sam lit a torch and then pressed on, Penelope following close behind.
“Where are we going?” She asked after a few more minutes of twisting tunnels in the dark.
Sam’s hand squeezed hers once, reassuringly. “You don’t trust me?”
“Should I?”
He smirked but said nothing.
After what seemed like an age of nothing but endless walking, Sam stopped in front of an old door. Penelope could tell that it had once been white from the chipped paint, but had since been covered with grey dust and soot. A poster that had faded with age warned of Danger Ahead. Penelope eyed the sign curiously.
“Don’t worry about it,” Sam explained. “I put it there to make sure no-one comes snooping.”
He unlocked the door.
“Who would want to come snooping down here?” She asked. “It’s positively ghastly.”
With a hand gesturing her forward, Sam grinned. “Ladies first.”
Penelope was in two minds to just bolt. There was still time for her to get out before she got too involved. At this point, her father wouldn’t even have to know. It wasn’t too late to leave. Crossing the door’s threshold changed that. Once she went inside, once she’d seen everything, there was no going back. There was no leaving. And her father would inevitably learn the truth about her midnight rendezvous and of her various trips to the city that had been increasing steadily over the last few months.
She inhaled deeply—regretting it terribly because the stench of an abandoned Underground tunnel was unbearable, it seemed—and decided to take that first step in.
Unlike the tunnels that had led them to the room, the room itself was lit up brightly by an overhanging light. Three folding chairs surrounded a large makeshift desk had been set up in the centre of what, Penelope quickly realised, was once a relatively large supply closet. Some of the shelving units were still present and were now holding boxes and boxes of documentation. On the far side of the room (which was not more than twenty paces from the only door, and thus the only exit) was a large cork-board. It was empty, save for only a few colourful pins stuck into the cork. The desk, too, was empty.
Sam had given her one last chance to turn back. To change her mind. He understood the steps she was taking (to some degree at least) and he’d wanted to give her that one last out, should she have needed it.
But Penelope’s mind was set.
She wanted to do this. She had to.
“I didn’t come all this way to look at an empty room, Sam,” she quipped.
Sam loitered for a moment in the doorway, examining Penelope was a look she was unable to pinpoint. Curiosity? Amusement? Pride? It only lasted a moment, and then he was closing the door behind him and crossing the room to the cork-board. With a single pull, he turned the board around to reveal many things pinned in place. Photographs, letters, confidential memos, handwritten sticky-notes.
Penelope unconsciously took a step forward, her eyes scanning the details. There was far too much for her to decipher in such a short amount of time, but that didn’t mean she stopped. Sam allowed her to look, busying himself with some of the boxes on the supply shelf. He took a couple down, placing them on the table, and then began pulling out various files. They were laid out across the metal of the table in a systemic order. When he was done with the boxes, he replaced them on the shelves behind him.
“Take a seat.” He offered with a wave of his hand.
It took Penelope a few seconds to tear her eyes off the board in front of her. She took the chair nearest to her. Sam pulled his closer, opening up the first file.
With no clock in the room it was hard to decipher exactly how long they’d been there. An hour, perhaps? Time passed by differently when one was tucked away in a secret hideout, looking through a whole host of secret information with a secret friend.
All Penelope knew was that the files that were in front of her contained far more details than she’d ever have expected.
Sam had chuckled when she’d voiced that naive opinion out loud. “Did you think we’d have no intel? Your father is very thorough.”
Her jaw tightened. “You know?”
He rolled his eyes. “Penny. Come on, what do you think I’m paid for? Sitting in a damp room on the Underground with loads of papers?”
“Maybe.” She allowed herself to smile.
“My whole thing is gathering intelligence. I’ve known who you were from the first time we met.”
“And my father? What does he know?”
Sam shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “He knows what he needs to know. Compartmentalisation is very important in our work.”
So, no. He didn’t. Penelope breathed a small sigh of relief. If her father knew where she was, what she was doing… He’d have a fit. Lord Hugh Creighton-Ward was a very progressive man, but Penelope wouldn't have put it past him to lock her up in her room in the manor if he was to find out what she was doing before it was too late to stop her.
“Did you want him to know?”
“No!” Penelope blurted out. She cursed herself. “I mean, it’s better for him to not know. For now, anyway. I’m sure he’ll find out soon enough.”
Sam nodded once. “So, what’s your opinion?” He shifted in his seat and waved towards the cork-board behind them. “Now that you’ve seen everything we have, what do you think is their big plan?”
It was a test, she realised. In fact, this whole evening had been a test. How far was she willing to go? How much did she trust her new partner? How long would she last before she ran away from the truth?
She hoped she’d passed with flying colours so far. She hoped she’d proved that she was willing to go all the way, that she trusted her new partner as much as she was supposed to in this job, and that she wasn’t about to go running out that door because the truth frightened her too much.
She was Penelope Creighton-Ward, and she was born for this job, whether her father agreed with her or not. She’d pass this test, too.
Once again, Penelope scrutinised the board, but only one answer seemed obvious.
“The City,” she answered confidently. “They’ll hit the City first. It’s big and bold, and whilst everyone is running around, trying to douse that fire, they’ll hit the smaller places. They’ll work their way down, until nobody is watching HQ.”
Sam’s brows furrowed. “I wouldn’t call HQ a small place, Pen.”
“Compared to the national tragedies they’ll be wreaking elsewhere? They’ll make sure that it will be seen that way.”
He nodded once again, his lips curling into that familiar shape Penelope had come to recognise as one of pride. “I’ll get on the phone with Wolf, let him know what our thinking is.”
As he stood, Penelope pulled one of the files towards herself, opening it up to reread the details. He barely made it to the door when she stated, “You already knew all of this.”
Sam stopped with one foot out of the threshold.
“You already knew but you were waiting for me to give you the answer.” Her eyes didn’t leave the papers she was flicking through, but Penelope could sense his hesitation.
“I wanted to know who I was going to be working with.”
“We’ve already worked three jobs—”
“Not officially,” he answered softly.
Penelope looked up at him then, her blue eyes piercing like ice. “I don’t need to be mollycoddled, you know.”
“This isn’t me mollycod—” Sam sighed. “I just wanted you to have the chance to prove you were meant to be here, Pen. This way, we can work it together.”
She bit back the urge to retort, to argue that she was able to prove her worth on her own.
“I didn’t mean… Listen, I know you’re capable. That’s why I’ve pushed for you to be here, Pen. I’ve only ever wanted what was best. You know this.”
Penelope didn’t answer. She glanced back at the papers in front of her, and allowed Sam to go make his call.
Listen, I wasn't going to do Day Two because I didn't have any ideas. Then I ended up with three. This one was the most compelling... and it ended up just not making sense. It got away from me and I'm not entirely happy with how it ended up being written. There is probably a better story to be told here, but this is just over 2,000 words so it's the best it can be.
All I can say is John is about to go on a very bumpy ride.
John Tracy gets to undertake a solo rescue mission. Destination? The new GDF space fort named the Castellum. Things quickly turn sour.
Words: 2,479
Rating: M
Universe: TAG
Triggers: Whump / Threats of Violence / Minor Violence
AO3 link here.
Other Days: 1
The relationship John Tracy had with venturing out into the field was two fold; part of him enjoyed his solitary work on Thunderbird Five and the idea of heading out into the Danger Zone would sometimes fill him with dread; but on the other hand, there were certain events that had him excited to jump head first into the action.
There were elements of his work that set him so far apart from the rest of his brothers that John often felt like the odd one out—when they were out there, boots on the ground, so to speak, and he was far way, thousands of miles up in orbit, alone and overseeing everything through his monitors and hologrammatic scans, it was hard not to feel singled out.
Balancing the two feelings was, for the most part, easy enough. John savoured his time on Thunderbird Five, and it often made him appreciate the few trips to the Danger Zone that he did take much more. He could come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t like his brothers, in the sense that he took pleasure in watching the world from space. None of his brothers could understand what drew him to that ‘life of solitude’, but that was okay. They didn’t need to understand it. They respected it and that was enough.
It had been five weeks since John had last taken part, hands-on, in a mission. Via the space elevator he had travelled back to the island for his usual monthly visit and had subsequently been caught up in a rescue involving an oil rig in the North Sea. For his brothers it was just another Tuesday. For John it had been exhilarating. There was a thrill to being in the middle of the action, and whilst his soul might not have called for it as often as his brothers’ did, when he was in the right mood for an operation, he couldn’t deny he enjoyed it… As far as one could enjoy a rescue, that is.
This time, at least, the situation was in his proverbial backyard.
The Castellum was a magnificent feat of engineering. It rivalled Brains’s own work on the Estrella Hotel, though John wouldn’t have openly said it. Brains had been extremely vocal about the main architect of the GDF’s new space fort, and his sour relationship with the man had been made extremely clear. When the rescue call had come through, and Brains’s hologram had joined the rest of the team, he’d made no point of hiding how he wasn’t surprised there’d been a disaster.
“S-Shoddy workmanship that would rival even Langstrom Fis-Fischler,” he remarked under his breath, though John had caught every word and had smirked.
Why the GDF had gone with Ezra Dodd rather than Brains, no-one knew. And, at that moment in time, it didn’t really matter. All that mattered was sorting out the disaster that had unfolded.
The plan was discussed: John would take the lead and head out to the Castellum first, and Alan would fly up in Three to join him. Everyone seemed happy with the plan.
John had strapped his exo-suit to his body, opened the airlock and had been whisked out into the inky blackness of space without hesitation.
A full, metal circle that was suspended in geostationary orbit was his destination. It was like an intergalactic ring, otherworldly and alien, the sun glinting silver off the bodywork whenever it caught; the sight was spectacular. John would have envied anyone who had the chance to work in the Castellum had he not been blessed with Thunderbird Five.
As he grew nearer, he tapped the comms unit on his wrist. “Castellum, this is John Tracy of International Rescue. I’m approaching airlock B.”
Static. Then, a few seconds later than he’d have liked, a response came. “Roger that, John Tracy of International Rescue. Airlock B will be open to you.”
It took a few more minutes before he was safely onboard the Castellum. Red lights accompanied intermittent sirens from the very first room he found himself in. John slid his helmet off, clicked it onto his belt, and was greeted by a rather tall man with shoulder length blonde hair.
He advanced towards John with an impossibly wide grin—pleased, no doubt, that help had finally come. “Mr Tracy?” A single blonde curl fell over his face, covering one eye. He tucked it behind his ear with one hand, whilst the other extended out towards John. “I’m Ezra Dodd.”
“The architect.”
Ezra nodded, his smile growing even wider at the recognition. “I was the only one on board when, well—” He gestured to the lights that were flashing wildly. “I didn’t know who else to call.”
“You were right to call us,” John reassured him.
Ezra gestured for him to follow as he began to lead him through the fort. Along the way, sparks flew out from various consoles dotted in some of the hallways.
“What exactly did happen?” John asked, following behind Ezra closely.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Ezra admittedly, a little meekly, “but I think it might have something to do with the work that I was carrying out.”
The Castellum was, thankfully, empty for the time being. According to the GDF, personnel were supposed to begin transferring next month. At least that narrowed down the possible casualties.
“Everything went kaput!” The architect explained, leading John down more winding hallways.
He figured, given the ring-like shape, that every hallway was somewhat winding.
“What work was it you were carrying out?”
“Last minute adjustments, spot checking, essential maintenance, that sort of thing. It wasn’t anything drastic.”
John wasn’t sure how certain Ezra was of that statement. The man bowed his head away from him as if in shame, but as Ezra led him into a large, central control room, John decided to drop any further questions. The answers would show themselves eventually.
A massive wall of glass covered one entire section of the new room. There was nothing beyond the window save for the infinite black of space beyond. The current positioning of the Castellum meant that neither Earth nor the Moon could be seen from this particular window, and John felt a peculiar feeling of homesickness.
It must have been visible on his face, as Ezra sidled up to him and asked, “You feeling alright?”
John hadn’t even realised he’d been staring out of the window until Ezra’s voice had broken him out of it. He cleared his throat, smiled, and replied, “Absolutely. Now, let’s take a look at these controls.”
Desks were stationed in a similar fashion to the old control centre at Houston. John had routinely trained in the space whilst gaining his space wings. Each desk controlled a different aspect of whatever mission was being handled. Here, in preparation for the GDF’s new STRIKE initiative, there were additional computers, all set up for different mission parameters.
His first station was the general engineer’s department. John tapped away, swiping through various system diagnostics. “So what is the problem exactly? Life support is nominal. The gravity is clearly working. There’s nothing on this that is sounding any alarms.”
The next station was one of the newly constructed STRIKE computers. Again, John typed and swiped, bypassing various firewalls in his attempt to get through and see if there was any damage.
“Is the STRIKE system operational yet?”
“Partly,” Ezra clarified. He’d taken a seat in a nearby swivel chair. His hands were up, behind his head. His legs stretched out and crossed at his ankles. He was still grinning. For a man who had called International Rescue, he seemed fairly unfazed by the situation.
It took John a few more minutes than he’d anticipated, but he’d eventually broken through the system’s defences. “Will it cause a problem if this place goes into meltdown?”
Ezra shook his head, but John could have sworn there was a glint that flashed in the man’s eyes. “I don’t think it’ll go into a meltdown.”
“You don’t even know what the problem is. How can you be so sure—?”
John had been too occupied searching the system to realise that Ezra had stood up. He’d been too focused to hear the footsteps advancing. The icy barrel of Ezra’s gun was shocking against John’s pale skin. He felt its presence before he heard it click. “I had been hoping for some more time to arrange things before you asked stupid questions, John Tracy, but alas.”
“What are you—?”
“Ah-ah-ah.” Ezra cut him off. “You’ve asked far too many questions already. Up.”
John rose steadily. With a gun pressed into his back, he didn’t have much of a choice.
“Hands up, too. Wouldn’t want you to make the mistake of calling your little brothers for help.”
He had to live in the hope that Ezra was unaware that one of his brothers was already on his way. Alan. Flying head-first into a trap. John contemplated warning Ezra. If he didn’t want to be disturbed, maybe he could convince him to send Alan away… but there was always the chance he wouldn’t. There was always the chance that he’d hurt him. John couldn’t allow that. Not Alan.
The secret remained as such.
“Dodd,” John tried to plead, “whatever it is that you think you’re going to accomplish by—”
“I don’t recall asking for your opinion,” Ezra snapped back. “One more unprompted word from you and I’ll blast your brains out, got it?”
Carefully, John nodded. He raised his hands as instructed and said nothing more.
Ezra nodded to the far side of the control room. “Over there. Now.”
He did as he was told, though his mind was already set ablaze with a thousand different avenues he could potentially take to try and stop whatever crazed plan Ezra Dodd had. He also sifted through the thousand different ways those ideas could go wrong, most of them ending up with him as a corpse. Without knowing exactly what Ezra Dodd had planned, John was powerless to countermove him.
For now, John figured, playing along was the best course of action.
“Sit.” Ezra commanded when John reached one of the chairs. He didn’t allow him to get comfortable before he restrained him. “There. Now, I’ll be taking this.” Ezra plucked the comms device off John’s wrist. “We’re a little early, all thanks to you and your stupid curiosity, but the fireworks should be starting soon!”
“Fireworks?” Despite the warnings, John couldn’t help himself. “What—”
The unnaturally wide smile Ezra had been wearing since John had docked was wiped off his face in an instant. Fury replaced it and John barely registered the butt of the gun before Ezra crashed it into the side of his face.
────୨ৎ────
Two minutes until launch.
John’s head hurt. At least his brains hadn’t been blown out, he supposed. He blinked his eyes open only to find a blurry scene before him: Ezra, who had now swapped the grey jumpsuit he’d been wearing for an exo-suit of his own, was running around different controls. He was fast, faster than what John’s bleary eyes could keep up with, but he hadn’t yet realised that John had come to.
That soon changed when John tested out the cuffs that were still keeping him locked to that chair.
Ezra’s head whipped around at the sound, that grin more sinister than before. “Our man of the hour awakens!”
Even if John had wanted to ask Ezra the millions of questions that swarmed his fuzzy head, he couldn’t. Tape covered his lips, restricting his ability to speak just as much as the cuffs were restricting his ability to move.
The crazed man in front of him seemed thrilled. “Before you ask: yes, this was all part of the plan, and no, your brothers have no idea what’s happening. One of them tried to call in, but I let it go to voicemail.”
One minute until launch.
It felt wrong to feel relief because, whilst Alan was safe for now, he would have worked out that something was wrong the second his comms went unanswered, and he’d be no doubt working with the rest of the team to try and discover what it was that had gone wrong.
Ezra continued to hop between consoles, flicking buttons and typing commands into the computers. And still, John tried to break himself free. He tried to protest, tried to question the architect who was so clearly off his rocker, but it was all so useless. Never before had he felt so powerless.
Only once Ezra was finished with the consoles did he venture over to John. He crouched in front of him, that wide smile on his lips once again. “Let me break it down for you. In less than a minute, STRIKE will be active for the very first time, only it won’t be working for the GDF as intended. It won’t be tracking down rogue criminals for them. It won’t be organising data and creating profiles—incredibly Draconian too, if you ask me. You see, John Tracy, STRIKE has always been my baby, and it will always work for me.”
John’s eyes must have flashed the confusion he was currently feeling, for Ezra chuckled, “It’s simple, really. I was the one who sold the idea of STRIKE to the GDF. I was the one who convinced them to build this Castellum, this fortified ring, in space, all for one single purpose.”
When John mumbled something behind the tape, Ezra rolled his eyes. He reached forward and pulled the tape off, leaving John with his lips red and sore and tingling.
He pushed past the pain. “You’re insane.”
“All geniuses are,” Ezra countered, unaffected by his insult.
“You won’t get away with it.”
“Oh, I think I will, because there won’t be any trace back to me. Aren’t you wondering why I called you out here?”
Ezra clicked a button on a palm-shaped device, and John’s likeness popped up in hologrammatic form on the large windows.
This is John Tracy of International Rescue, the hologrammatic figure said in a voice all too similar to John’s.
“I’ve been planning this for a very long time,” Ezra explained, standing to his full height. “Months and months have gone into this plan. Years, in fact.”
“Why?” John barely spluttered the question out.
Ezra shrugged. “I needed someone to take the blame. You were an easy target.”
Launch initiated.
The ground beneath them rumbled as missiles were blasted from the Castellum. Glee filled Ezra’s entire being, it radiated off the madman, but John’s eyes only glared at him.
“But I’m afraid it’s time for me to fly.” He began to head towards the exit, a mocking salute being offered towards John as he reached the doorway. “Send Brains my regards, won’t you? Though I suppose I’ll be seeing him before you do.”
