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Scott stepped from the launch tube into the lounge, still in uniform. He’d only flown three rescues, counting the one he’d just returned from, since being given the green light to return to work after his injury in the Philippines; and the novelty of being allowed to have the suit and sash back on hadn’t worn off yet. Grandma would probably appear soon enough to scold him about tracking mud back into the house; but until then, he was making the most of it.
“Hey, Dad.”
Man alive, it was good to be back on duty with his father at the desk–like stepping through a time portal to when he was twenty-two.
Jeff Tracy looked up; he smiled briefly, but there was no amusement behind it. Instead, there was a Look in his eye. Not one of the fun Looks, either–this was the Scott’s in Trouble Face. Scott tensed reflexively. Well, that certainly added to the flashback effect.
He ran his mind back over the past five hours, but he couldn’t think of anything that his father could have objected to: the mission, the retrieval of a group of trapped miners, had gone like clockwork; and Scott himself had only been a standard, Dad-approved level of reckless.
“Hey, son. You got a minute?”
Yup. In trouble.
“Sure.” He walked around the curve above the couches and leaned against his father’s desk. “What’s up?”
Jeff looked up at him–and then chuckled. “Your face, kiddo. No, I’m not about to ream you out.”
Scott sighed theatrically. “Then why the eyebrows of doom?”
“Just something I figured was worth bringing up.” Jeff leaned back in his seat. “You might want to consider laying off of EOS.”
“I wasn’t aware that I was laying on her.”
“You avoid acknowledging her whenever possible. And when forced to actually address her, you’ve called her–” Jeff checked the (paper–he was old-fashioned, that way) scratch-pad on his desk. “Baby Virus, Digi-Brat, ‘HAL-9000’s little sister’, and Murderbot. On this mission alone.”
“Oh. Well, uh, those could be construed as affectionate banter?”
Jeff crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, fine, they’re insults.” Scott folded his arms in mirror of his father. “Are you saying I’m hurting her ‘feelings’?”
“I admit, I don’t know to what degree she’s genuinely self-aware. But John believes she is; so whether she’s truly sentient or not, it would be a kindness to him to show her some courtesy. I get that you and Brains had a run-in with her prior to her joining John on Five, but if Brains can let bygones be bygones, it seems a little petty for you to insist on holding a grudge.”
“Wait.” Scott stood up straight. “What?”
Jeff frowned. “Okay, let me rephrase that–I’m not calling you petty, I’m just saying–”
“Stop, Dad, hang on–” Scott raised a hand, mind whirling. “You think my issue with EOS is what she did on that train?”
“That’s what John told me.”
“Are you kidding? I’d forgotten about that within–did he maybe happen to mention her trying to kill him? Repeatedly?”
The furrow deepened further. “It … would seem that he omitted some key information.”
“You think?” Scott reached over and slapped the comms controls. “Jonathan!”
John’s hologram popped out life-size over the central console, red eyebrows lifted. “I’m not loving that tone, Scott.”
“And I’m not exactly thrilled about the fact that you lied to me! You told me that you’d explained everything about EOS to Dad!”
The eyebrows lowered. “I did.”
“Then why the heck is he under the impression that my primary beef with her is over that stupid runaway maglev?!”
And dropped even further, in apparently genuine confusion. “It isn’t?”
“Please tell me you’re not seri–”
“Boys,” Jeff snapped, and Scott shut his mouth. “John–” He hesitated. “Maybe you should come down here for this conversation.”
John glanced sideways for a moment, and Scott was willing to bet One’s primary engine that he was looking at that horrible little camera. Oh. That, in his anger, hadn’t occurred to him–the thought that they were having this confrontation while John was over fifty thousand kilometres away, with only a thin metal shell between him and vacuum, at the mercy of the exact same thing that had–
“I’m fine where I am, Dad, thanks.”
“Then can one of you explain–calmly–what I’m missing here?”
“There was a misunderstanding when EOS first arrived on Thunderbird Five,” John said, infuriatingly dispassionately. “It was quickly rectified, so I didn’t mention it.”
Scott was going to get in Three, fly up there, and strangle John himself.
“And what form, exactly, did this misunderstanding take, Jonathan?” Jeff’s voice was steady, but there was a dangerously no-nonsense edge to it.
“I’m really sorry–” an electronic voice put in meekly.
“Nope,” Scott bit out. “Humans talking.”
“Let me handle this, EOS,” John murmured, then resumed his normal volume. “I’d been trying to locate her since the train incident–I could tell she came from my code, like I told you before, and I wanted to understand. She thought I was hunting her, planning to destroy her. So she locked me out of Thunderbird Five.”
“You nearly suffocated!”
“Alan got to me in plenty of time,” John responded. (Not the way Scott remembered it.) “But once I got back into Five, we talked things out and came to an understanding.”
“An understanding?” Scott exploded. “She was going to crush you! And Alan!”
“She apologises for that on a semi-regular basis.”
“I have a timed schedule for it,” the AI piped up. “Biweekly on Tuesdays.”
“Dad, I promise–” John leaned forward. “I haven’t been irresponsible with International Rescue’s resources–she’s safe to have in the network, and on Five. I trust her with my life.”
And what little remained of Scott’s self-control evaporated entirely.
“That’s the problem!” he bellowed, stepping past the desk. “You took off your helmet and offered to let her fling you out the airlock! You were going to let her kill you, and we just had to sit there and watch! Have you got any idea how we’d have felt, seeing you die?”
For a moment, John was utterly motionless.
When he spoke, his voice was ice. “Wow, Scott, you’re right–I haven’t a clue. It’s not like I was up here, watching from tens of thousands of miles away, when the Zero-X disappeared. Or when Four was crushed with Gordon inside. Or when you got stabbed in the lung. Oh, wait–I was.” He inhaled sharply. “How the hell do you think I feel?!”
Then the hologram vanished.
Scott stared at the empty space, heartbeat thudding in his ears.
Finally, he managed to open his mouth. “Permission to launch Thunderbird Three?”
He turned to his father. Jeff’s face had drained completely of colour; and he swallowed hard before he nodded. “Permission granted.”
The trip up to Five was quick.
Docking with Five was not.
“Please, EOS–” Scott resisted the urge to bang his head against the controls. “I really need to talk to him. Let me in?”
“You called me a murderbot,” she said sulkily. “The HAL thing was funny. That wasn’t.”
He blew out a sigh. “Okay, I’m sorry I called you a murderbot. Can I come aboard now?”
“Are you going to yell at John again?”
“No! No, I–” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, EOS–I’m gonna level with you here. This isn’t about you. It was never about you. Yeah, I’ve enjoyed a good snark at your expense–but I think I must trust you, deep down. Because I know my awful temper, and if I didn’t actually secretly-even-to-myself believe you’ll take care of my brothers, I’d’ve figured out a way to fry your circuits a long time ago. John trusts you, and that’s apparently good enough for my gut, even if my head never quite got there. This is about–”
He stopped, words catching in his throat, struggling to voice the long-overdue epiphany that had hit him like a truck somewhere between Tracy Island and geosynchronous orbit. “This is about my baby brother not valuing his life enough, and that scaring the living daylights out of me. My problem isn’t with you, it’s with that. And now it’s also with the fact that he’s hurting, and it’s my fault.” He took a breath. “Please let me in?”
The docking port unlocked.
“Thanks,” he exhaled, engaging the clamps. “Can I ask a favour?”
“You’ve got a nerve, haven’t you?”
But the tone was reassuringly teasing, and he laughed shakily. “Can I talk to him alone? Without any cameras or mics listening in or anything? Please?”
A pause. “John has stressed the importance of maintaining boundaries and allowing humans privacy during potentially emotional conversations. I will do as you ask.”
“Thank you, EOS.”
“You’re welcome, Scott.”
John was on the outer edge of the toroid, sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and his knees pulled up, staring down towards the stars. He didn’t look up as Scott approached.
Scott sat down next to him, mimicking his posture, bumping his boot against John’s foot. He watched the planet below and the stars beyond for a few minutes as they rotated; and the tight knot in his chest loosened, came undone, and melted quietly away.
“I can see why you like it up here. It’s … peaceful.”
He looked back to John, just in time to see one side of his mouth quirk up ever so slightly. “Yeah.”
“But kind of a lonely place to have a breakdown.”
John’s eyes met his, glassy green-blue. “I’m okay, Scott.”
“Sure didn’t look it.”
John took a measured breath and looked back down. “I am. It's just … it’s really hard, sometimes. Not being able to do anything but watch.”
“I should have realised that.” Scott tapped their legs together gently. “I'm sorry. And I'm sorry I yelled.”
“I am, believe it or not, accustomed to the trademarked Scott Tracy Temper. And I'm sorry too. It genuinely hadn't occurred to me that you weren't just pissed about the train. I was cool with the whole space station hijacking thing, so I just assumed everyone else was as well.”
“I had kind of a heart-to-heart with Not-Murder-Bot about it at the front door.”
“I know.”
“Wait, you were listening?”
“You think she just lets people aboard without my say-so?”
“Should have seen that coming,” Scott muttered. “I just–it was–you were so calm about it, Johnny. Like you were just totally focused on figuring out and saving EOS that it didn’t matter to you if you lived or died–and I was so scared–not just in the moment, but of what it implied, and–”
“I’m not suicidal, Scott.”
“I’m not saying that. But I’m saying I saw me, in you, right then. And it terrified me.”
John stared at him for a moment, something approaching amusement lurking around his eyes. “What, you’re saying you’ve got a monopoly on self-sacrifice?”
“Ideally–yup.”
“You’re a worse hypocrite than Dad. And that’s saying something.”
Scott shook his head, grinning. “Sorry. I just want my little brothers safe. Preferably bubble-wrapped.”
John's smile echoed his. “Well, I hate to break it to you, but we are definitely in the wrong line of work for that.”
“I know, I know. I just … worry about you, up here alone.”
“I'm all right, Scooter. Yeah, sometimes I think you guys are gonna give me a coronary, but other than that–I have a job I love, easy access to all my favourite hobbies, and the best view imaginable. EOS takes good care of me–and I can come back down whenever I want if it ever feels like that's not enough. You don't need to worry about me. I'm okay. Really.”
Scott held up a hand. “Pinky promise?”
“You’re such a dork,” John laughed; but he hooked his little finger through his brother’s. “There. Happy?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Scott caught John's hand before he could withdraw it and pressed it. “Can you come home with me, please? Not for my benefit, for Dad. He was looking pretty freaked when I took off.”
“I should have told him the whole truth, shouldn’t I?”
“Yeah, probably.” And for the second time that day, the Semi-Truck of Psychological Insight hit Scott full-force in the chest. “I … don't think he's likely to be scared of EOS, not once you've explained properly. But what I think does scare him is just how much we ended up being like him.”
“Well. We are his children.”
“That we are.” Scott stood and pulled John to his feet. “Come on, let's go give the old man a hug.”
When they re-entered the lounge via Three's couch, Jeff was still at the desk, right where Scott had left him; and the relief in his expression as John came into view was almost heartbreaking. He stood and met John halfway, pulling him silently into an embrace; and John let it happen, eyes sinking shut as he visibly melted into his father's arms.
“You okay, son?” Jeff said gruffly.
“Yeah, Dad. I'm okay.”
Jeff looked over John's shoulder and made questioning eye contact with his eldest.
Scott nodded.
Jeff returned the gesture, very slightly; then closed his eyes, still not letting go.