Unusual Heroes

"I n-never thought I'd b-be wearing this," Brains said as he slipped a finger inside his uniform's stiff collar.

"Well, there's a first time for everything," Scott said, grinning.

"Y-Yeah, I guess s-s-s... I agree."

Brains turned back to the laptop he'd brought along, trying to focus his mind on the problem at hand. Even though he wasn't considered an active operative, provisions had been made for him should he have to go out on a rescue. He owned uniforms with blue, green, red, and gold trim, one for each of the the Thunderbirds that he might have occasion to serve on. He'd worn the green and red ones at least once before, but not the blue or the gold. Though he had spent many hours on Five, it was as an engineer, not as space monitor. And, until today, he'd never been sent out with Scott in One to act as on-site consultant.

John had acquired and downloaded both the corrupted operating system, and the pristine versions for both the main control system, and the system that ran the train. They now lay in separate jump drives attached to the laptop, accessible to Brains with only a pointer's click, but isolated from both each other, and the computer's own operating system. Brains's goal was to determine how the virus worked and try to extrapolate what exactly it would corrupt in the train's guidance so he could build a "anti-viral injection", a program that would overwrite the virus, and keep overwriting it should the malware have some nasty, self-replicating surprises tucked away.

Whatever I do, it has to be something that will work fast enough to allow for the rebooting and reloading of the train's software, he thought as he compared one set of commands with its corrupted counterpart.

Scott glanced at him once as the genius fell silent, the only sounds the tapping of keys and an occasional whispered mutter, barely audible over the white-noise roar of Thunderbird One's engines. Then he turned back to flying his baby, and giving an update. "Base from Thunderbird One. ETA to Bloemfontein, 7:10 p.m., local time."

"F-A-B," Jeff replied.

"Thunderbird One from Thunderbird Five." John's concerned face popped up, splitting Scott's comm screen in half. "Bloemfontein station reported that a helicopter spotter says the train should be passing the station there within the next ten minutes."

"We'll b-be five minutes l-late," Brains said without looking up.

"How much more track until derailment?" Scott asked.

"213 miles," John replied. "At top speed, that's..."

"Less than an hour," Scott said sourly.

"Forty-seven point four minutes," Brains corrected automatically.

Scott glanced at Brains again, then back to John. "What's Virgil's ETA?"

John shook his head. "Still more than an hour behind you."

"Damn." Scott glanced over at Brains once more. "Looks like it's up to us."

Fermat was busy catching up with his pre-engineering homework. Because he'd been questioned again by the police after the first class hour was up Friday, he'd missed his second hour class entirely. Mr. Feng had been understanding and had emailed the assignment so that Fermat could work on it over the weekend. It was a tough review of the material they'd learned so far, something that most students who'd missed Friday's class would have difficulty doing with any precision. But the sophomore had an advantage over most students: his father, who had already taught him the practical applications of what he was studying.

He was roughly halfway through when an IM box popped up on his screen. The person on the other end was tagged as "TotallyCerebral", and Fermat rolled his eyes.

"Hey, son. Got a minute?" appeared in the box.

Fermat saved his work, and replied, typing, "Sure, Dad. What's up?"

"I need an extra pair of eyes on this, and there's a tight deadline." An file transfer was requested, and Brains warned, "Put it on a jump drive or something. Don't let it loose."

"OK." Fermat rummaged around in his desk drawer, finally coming up with the largest of his jump drives. He changed the default destination of the file transfer, then clicked "okay".

"What are you trying to do here?" he asked his father.

"Trying to stop a train. The controlling software is corrupted by a virus."

"Can't you wipe the operating system and reload?" Fermat asked.

"Not enough time. Plus, the command would have to be triggered from afar, and that computer's compromised, too."

"Hmm," Fermat said to himself as he looked over the programs. He made sure the IM box was mostly covered by his work window. He didn't exactly know what his father was working on, but since his father wasn't being open about it, he deduced it had something to do with IR. He highlighted a portion of the larger program, one that seemed to deal with the "stop" that his father mentioned.

"I think that a minimalist approach is called for here," Fermat finally typed. "Overwrite the OS with just enough code to get whatever it is to do what you want it to do: stop. Bypass the whole triggering business; write the actual command into the reboot. Or, if you've got to do any triggering, do it from the sky eye."

An emoticon came up; a smiley with glasses, one of Fermat's favorites. "That's what I thought, but I wanted confirmation. Great minds, eh? Thanks, son. Talk to you soon."

"Talk to you later, Dad," Fermat typed, smiling. "Glad to help out."

"Bye for now." The IM box signed off, and Fermat sighed.

"What's wrong?" A.J. said, coming out of the bathroom with his toiletries just in time to hear his roommate's sigh.

"N-Nothing," Fermat replied. "Just a c-c-c-c... talking to my d-dad online."

Jamal watched as three teenaged boys, two black and one white, came into the sports footwear shop, glancing around. The tallest one made a beeline for the running shoes; the blond and the shorter black boy followed. They stood in front of the display, talking, glancing over the types of shoes available. The tall one motioned over to where the cleats were on display, and the blond nodded. Jamal carefully scrutinized each teen, checking clothing, attitude, fitness, and basically trying to evaluate if they were going to be worth his time.

Hmm. They all look like they could be athletes, but none of them are wearing the big name brand clothes. Probably just some kids from town, checking out the latest shoes. I'll be surprised if I make a sale. Finally he approached the trio, and using a tone that implied he thought they were just browsing, he asked, "Can I help you, boys?"

To his surprise, the blond said, "Yeah, you can. I need some shoes for track." He pointed out three of the display shoes, glancing over at the tall black kid for confirmation. "These three to start with."

Jamal smiled a little; what the blond had chosen were some of the more expensive shoes. "Okay. Have a seat and let's see what size you take."

Both of the other boys excused themselves, telling the blond where in the mall they'd be. The blond bid them farewell, saying he'd catch up with them later.

Jamal looked up from where he was measuring the teen for size. "What's your name?"

"Alan. Alan Tracy."

"Okay, Alan. I'll go see if we have these shoes in your size."

And for the next hour and a half, that's what he did. Alan would try on a pair, walk around in it, then tell Jamal yes or no. At least three pairs in four were rejected, sending Jamal scurrying back to the stock room for another style, a different size, or another color. Boxes with shoes that had approval were stacked to one side. By the time the other two boys returned, Jamal had roped one of his fellow salesmen into helping him return the unwanted shoes, trying to speed up the decision-making process. He had the sneaking suspicion that after all this work, he wasn't going to make a sale at all.

"Hey, Alan," the taller boy said as he came up to them. "You said you wanted to be back by three. It's two-thirty now."

"Is it?" Alan glanced at his own watch. "Damn. I was hoping to check out some of the other stores." He looked at Jamal, then back at his friend, and sighed. "I guess I'd better finish up here if I want to get back to see Dom's folks."

He waved a hand at the six boxes that sat in an awkward stack beside him. "I guess I'll take them all."

Jamal's face lit up with delight. "All of them?"

Alan nodded. "Yeah. All of them."

"Okay," Jamal said, rising to his feet. He took three of the boxes, handing the other three off to his co-worker and the small group headed over to the cash register. As Jamal rang up the shoes, Alan pulled out his wallet, extracting a credit card and an ID card as well. He handed them over to Jamal, who glanced at them both and frowned. The credit card was a high limit one, and had Alan's name imprinted on it, but the ID card was his passport. "Do you have a local driver's license?"

Alan shook his head. "No. I don't live locally, except when I'm at school." He fished around in his jacket pocket, where he had stashed his Wharton ID, and handed that over, too.

All three of the identification cards had Alan's name and photo on them, so Jamal processed the transaction. "I'll need your thumb print before the computer will accept the card," he said, slightly apologetic. Watch. This guy has phony IDs and he won't give me the thumb print.

But the salesman was wrong. Alan said, "Sure. No problem," and pressed his right thumb up to the small scanner that Jamal held out. The computer seemed to think for a moment, then the word "approved" showed up on the screen, and Jamal smiled widely.

He handed over Alan's IDs and credit card, then held out a data pad and stylus. "Please sign here," he said, pointing to a box that had obviously used many times before. Alan signed his name, and the transaction was complete. .

Alan grinned. "Thanks for your help," he said, hefting the bags that held his purchases.

"You're welcome," Jamal replied. "Come again."

The three boys left, laden down with their purchases, Alan more so than the other two. Jamal folded his arms and smiled with satisfaction.

His co-worker nudged him. "I didn't think he'd buy anything, never mind as much as he did. Mostly these kids come in here and just eat up our time."

"Yeah, well, once in a while you get a surprise," Jamal replied.

"Th-Thunderbird Five from B-Brains."

"Go ahead, Brains," John replied.

"H-How high from the ground is the rail at its c-current terminus?" Brains was keying in the code for his stop-gap anti-viral as fast as he could, but he was afraid that they'd be too late.

"Let me find out," John replied. He shifted position to another screen, talking with someone that neither Brains nor Scott could see.

"There's the train," Scott said quietly. Indeed, the four cars moved steadily along the white concrete ribbon of rail. They had already passed Bloemfontein, and the time was pressing. Brains didn't even look up, didn't even respond when Scott dropped his speed to keep from overshooting the train.

"The rail is fifteen meters up at that point, with two supply pylons already built beyond it. The pylons are spaced at 25 meters apart at that point." John came back with his answer. "And before you ask, each section is 20 meters long."

"That means the first two sections would derail. There's a chance that the last two wouldn't," Scott said.

"The control center has already considered that, and have contacted the attendants by cell phone," John informed them. "They've moved as many passengers to the back two portions as they could, but they can't fit them all back there. And there are no seat belts, so even with the passengers at the back there are bound to be fatalities."

"There's no guarantee that all the cars won't go over the edge," Jeff said, his picture automatically enlarging to take up half the screen as he spoke. "The best thing for us to do is stop it before it gets to the end of the line."

Scott glanced back at Brains again. The genius's fingers were flying, and his eyes were glued to the screen of his laptop. The pilot looked back again at his commander and brother, and gave his head a little shake.

"Is there access to the train from the outside?" Brains suddenly asked, his stutter gone for the moment in his deep concentration. "Besides the regular doors?"

John checked a screen. The railway had been generous in their specifications. "Yes, each car has emergency hatches a quarter way toward the center from both the back and the front."

"Where is the onboard computer?"

"In the front." John read from a data pad in his hand. "There's a back up one located in what would be the rear of this train, but since the primary computer isn't actually down, the failsafe didn't transfer control."

"Where's Mr. Conductor when you need him?" Scott murmured. He glanced back at Brains again. "What's your plan?"

"One of us is going to have to get inside and manually reboot the computer." Brains was still concentrating hard, doing his best to get the program written in time. "I'm paring this down to a simple command: slow and stop. This should be uploaded during the reboot. It will override whatever the virus has commanded for as long as is needed to bring the train to a stop. Then, we cut power to the rail... if we haven't already reached the dead bit of track by then."

"How do we cut power?" Jeff asked. "We don't have access to the grid."

"John, I'm uploading a quick program that should restore control over the actual track." Brains had another window open. "Transfer it to the control center. They should be able to install it quickly and then cut power to the track down here. But it will have to be timed right. We have to have the train's system rebooted before they cut power."

"F-A-B," John said, moving to another screen and tapping a few keys. "I have the upload, Brains. Transferring to the control station now. "

Scott's eyebrows had climbed as he listened to Brains's plan. "Ooh-kay. Which one of us is going to do this reboot?"

Brains finally looked up at him, and sighed. "Y-You're b-better at flying this, uh, Bird. And T-Two won't g-get here in t-time. I g-guess I'm going."

Alan nearly tripped over the boxes outside his dorm room door. This doesn't look good. He put one of his bags down and held his hand up to the scanner. The door slid open, and three people looked up in surprise as he stood in the opening.

He smiled. "Hey," he said, stepping inside. Quickly dropping the bags next to his desk, he turned to the man, who had risen from the box he was about to lift. Putting out his hand, he said, "You must be Mr. Bertoli. I'm Alan Tracy."

Alan could see where Dom got his dark, curly hair, proud nose and olive-toned skin. Mr. Bertoli was definitely of Italian descent; he was short but well-muscled, with broad shoulders in proportion to the rest of his trim frame. He looked tanned and fit, with a wide white smile that flashed as he took Alan's hand firmly, and shook it once.

"Frank Bertoli. This is my wife, Helena."

Mrs. Bertoli was slim, like her son, and had the same soft face. She held out her hand. "Nice to meet you, Alan. Dominic has told us about you." She glanced down at her son, who sat on his bed, and gave Alan a pleading look as soon as her attention was turned from him.

"Likewise, ma'am," Alan said, shaking her hand. "I want to thank you for convincing Dom to let me move in with him. It got me out of a tough situation."

Mrs. Bertoli colored. "It was nothing, really. I just reminded Dominic about his own integrity, that's all."

"Seems she did it for nothing, too," said Mr. Bertoli with a thin smile, "since we're pulling Nick here out of Wharton." He gestured to Dominic, who glanced up at his father.

"Frank, I'm sure Alan will enjoy having a room to himself," Mrs. Bertoli replied, a touch too firmly, Alan thought.

Alan bounced up and down on the balls of his feet a little, his nervousness translating into familiar motion. He rubbed his hands together for a moment. "Uh, actually, sir, ma'am, I was really looking forward to Dom and me getting acquainted." He shrugged a little. "I'm used to having roommates; I've got four older brothers."

"Really?" Mr. Bertoli said, suddenly interested. "Dom tells us your father is Jeff Tracy, the retired astronaut."

"That's true, sir; he is." Alan pulled out his wallet and removed the picture he'd shown to his friends. He moved over to Mrs. Bertoli first. Mr. Bertoli joined them, and Dom got off the bed to view the picture. "See, there's my dad, and those are my older brothers. That's Fermat; he's my friend and goes to school here."

"He's awfully young," Mrs. Bertoli said, frowning slightly.

"Who's the girl?" Dom asked, finally breaking his silence.

"Her name's Tin-Tin," Alan said quickly. "Her mom and dad are our house and grounds keepers."

"Ah, I see." Mr. Bertoli smiled at Alan. "Nice family you've got there."

"Thank you, sir," Alan replied. He put the picture on his desk, and sat down, his feet still doing a slight tattoo on the floor.

"I understand that your father is letting you stay here at Wharton," Mr. Bertoli said, trying to sound casual. "Does he know what's going on?"

"Yes, sir, he does. He and I talked about it, and we decided together that I should stay here."

"Isn't he concerned?" Mrs. Bertoli asked.

Alan nodded. "Yeah, he is. In fact, he told me his first instinct was to come and get me. But he trusts me enough to ask my opinion." He paused to carefully consider his next words. "Y'see, if this had happened last year, I would have been jumping for joy and begging to go home. I really didn't like being here, so far from my family. But this year, things are different. There's so much more to do, more people to meet, more friends to make. I feel like..." His comment to Dom came to mind, and he smiled. "Like I'm my own person here. Not my dad's son, not the little brother. I'm Alan Tracy, and that's really cool."

There was a pause, then Mr. Bertoli said, "I think I like you, Alan. You've got a good head on your shoulders."

"Thank you, sir," Alan replied, looking sheepish and embarrassed. "Don't know that my brothers would agree..."

"It's very nice that your father is letting you stay, Alan," Mrs. Bertoli piped up. "But Dominic has a medical condition..."

"Mom!" Dom cried. Everyone's attention turned to him. "I'm not made of glass!" His voice dropped to a lower volume. "I won't... break."

Mrs. Bertoli stopped and glared at her son. "You were assaulted, Dominic, and it triggered an asthma attack that put you in the hospital."

"For a few hours, Mom. Only until I got it under control," Dominic shot back.

"And he bounced back, Mrs. Bertoli. Bounced back really fast," Alan added.

Mrs. Bertoli shot him a similar glare, then Mr. Bertoli stepped in. He stood up and took his wife gently by the upper arms, saying softly, "Lena, you know we've made this decision without even consulting Nick. He's getting older; he's nearly seventeen. It's long past time we included him in decisions that affect him." He smiled at her. "I know you're worried about him and his asthma, but he's right, you know. He's not made of glass. He knows how to deal with the asthma. But he'll never learn to live on his own if we don't give him a chance to... to be his own person."

The two teens glanced at each other as the adults talked quietly, and Alan winked at Dom. "Tracy charm," he mouthed. Dom snorted an inaudible laugh.

"Th-There!" Brains hit his last key with a decisive click. "N-Now to burn it to d-disk."

"We're running out of time here, Brains," Scott said tersely.

"I kn-know, Scott," Brains replied. "There! R-Ready to go." He glanced up at the pilot. "I h-hope you've figured out how to g-get me down there s-s-s... in one piece."

"Yes, I have. An attendant will open the emergency exit below us. I'll edge in, nose down so my VTOLs don't get in the way, and you'll have to transfer from the lower hatch, using line and harness. One's nose will provide some protection against gusts, but you'll have to be quick. The train is moving pretty fast, but I've got to slow way down to keep pace."

"F-A-B," Brains said. He tucked the disk in the pocket of his jumpsuit, and moved toward the lower hatch. "Let's d-d-do it."