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Gordon’s three miles upriver in Central Vietnam, separated from TB4 and lost in the jungle, and Scott can’t get him to stop singing Happy Birthday to himself. It’s not Gordon’s birthday, but that’s the least of their problems at the moment.
There’d been a landslide, and it had dammed the river. Floodwaters were rising and threatening nearby villages, and Virgil and Gordon had answered the call. Straightforward grunt work, nothing too complicated. The river itself was the fastest passable route up to the site of the landslide, and after being dropped off, Gordon had taken TB4 upstream to start clearing the debris. The jungle around was too dense for access via pod, and Gordon had been left to deal with the cleanup himself. Virgil had been called away to help reinforce dykes outside the nearest of the villages.
Without Virgil for backup, it’s slow going. They’d been at it for nearly three days when Virgil had called Scott, concerned about Gordon. Readouts from his suit have him running a low-grade fever, though whether it’s illness or just the unremitting jungle heat, Virgil’s not sure. But Gordon’s been growing steadily less responsive via comm, and Virgil can’t leave the village as it is–waters are still rising, and he has to be prepared to evacuate the citizens to higher ground if things start to look bad.
By the time Scott gets there, Gordon’s communicator has gone entirely silent, and Virgil’s right on the edge of panic. Scott blames himself, because Scott always does, though reasonably there was no one else who could have taken Gordon’s place. Thunderbird 4′s highly specialized–but when it’s necessary it’s very, very necessary. Discovering Gordon’s ‘bird abandoned by the riverside with the landslide only have cleared had been a jarring, terrifying shock. Remote-activating Gordon’s GPS tracker and discovering him three miles upstream had been worse.
When he’d swooped in, the telltale sound of TB1′s engines reverberating through the jungle below, the holocomm in the cockpit had flared to life and–Gordon. Sort of.
“Heeeeyy, brother. Haha. Scotty. Hi, Scott. You found me. Peekaboo.”
His voice is high and thin and even via hologram he looks terrible. His face is pale and he’s undone the neck of his suit, and Scott can see sweat coating his brother’s face, his throat. He’s grinning, but not his usual cavalier smile–it’s a pained, manic rictus of a grin, and his eyes are bright, unfocused.
“Gordon. Gordon, what’s your status? Are you hurt?” Infection. Some sort of infection for sure, the water’s gotta be filthy and he’s never as careful as he should be. Typhoid, maybe cholera, if his vaccines aren’t up to date I’m going to shake him until his stupid head comes off. “Gordon?”
“Scotty. I’m lost in the park, again.” Slightly hysterical laughter, trailing off into broken sobbing. “Is mom there? Where’s mom? She said I wasn’t supposed to go too far, Scotty–” A long, shuddering sigh. “And it’s mybirthday.”
Scott winces. That had been a bad birthday, the one Gordon remembered best. It had been a family barbecue, and he’d wandered away from the picnic, and he’d only been six. They’d spent an hour looking for him and he’d been hysterical the way only six year olds can be, when they’d finally found him.
The fact that his little brother is sick enough to be delirious has Scott’s jaw clenched, his lips pressed in a grim line, and his brain rattling off a long list of every illness his brother could possibly have contracted in the dense Vietnamese jungle. “Hang on, Gordon. I’m coming to get you.”
The answer is just tremulous singing.
Thunderbird One is right on top of him, hovering. Scott can see his brother’s heat signature on infrared, but the jungle canopy is thick and dense, and he’s not sure if Gordon will be capable of reaching it if he drops a cable. He certainly isn’t sure he trusts him to hang on.
“Gordy. Gordon, kiddo. I need you to listen to me. Can you hear me, Gordon?”
“…Dad?”
Oh boy. “N-yeah. Yeah, Gordy. Can you get up?”
“Mmm. Mmhmm. I’m up.” Then a crash of foliage and a pained groan and more of that awful, disconnected laughter. “And I’m down!”
“Stay there,” Scott orders sternly, and keys in the commands for auto-pilot.
He’s careful, on the way down through the canopy, he takes the extra minute to saw through particularly hazardous branches. By the time he breaks through the lower boundary and spots the bright flash of blue and yellow, his heart’s in his throat with worry for Gordon.
Gordon, almost impossibly, looks worse in person. His toolbelt is gone, his wetsuit is torn open and a gash in his side is trickling blood. He’s bright-eyed and pale and glistening with sweat, but he stumbles to his feet and throws his arms wide when Scott gets close enough to jump down.
“Welcome to the party, Scott!” Gordon manages, before his big brother gets his arms around his torso, and he’s suddenly limp, sagging against Scott in exhaustion. “Too much cake,” he mumbles and then he’s out like a light, and his face against Scott’s fingers is blazing hot to the touch.
Some party, Scott thinks, heaving his little brother’s arm over his shoulder, and clipping a carabiner from the cable line onto his own belt, getting a secure hold on Gordon before he starts their ascent. Happy birthday, you moron.