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the-orion-protocol · 8 years ago

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prologue / chapter 1 + 2

Prologue

People are going to die on Mars.

But then, they're supposed to.

It's almost arguable that that's the entire point of sending people to colonize the Red Planet---to make a new place for humans to live their lives to their ultimate conclusion; to create a foundation for generations to follow. The first pioneers, the people who will beget life on another planet; all of them are supposed to die on Mars.

By their bones buried or their ashes scattered, human lives, ended and spent, will be a measurement of the success of the colony's efforts. Earth is a planet rich in ghosts, where the dead outnumber the living tenfold. But the dead are not a native commodity on Mars, and the Red Planet has no ghosts of its own---until the day it does.

As of November 19th, 2061, there are just shy of ten billion people alive on Earth. There are 400 people alive on Mars.

There are meant to be 401.

"Astronauts don't murder people."

By the tone of Lady Penelope's answering sigh, Scott gets the idea that she's not really interested in treading over this particular patch of philosophical ground. He sees Penelope so often in hologram that it's easy to forget just how arrestingly pretty she is in person. She's no less so than usual today, today being a chilly English afternoon in late November. But it's possible that there might be the slightest hint of strain, tension, just around her eyes. And they narrow, just slightly. The way she lifts her teacup to her lips somehow makes it plain that it's an act of mercy that she does so.

His brother probably doesn't hear the whistle of a bullet, dodged, as Penelope takes a sip of lightly sweetened Earl Grey, instead of tearing John in half, conversationally, for the capital crime of interrupting her.

But then, John rarely sees anyone in person, so perhaps it's understandable that he wouldn't pick up on it. Penelope's got a particular subtlety about her when she's especially annoyed, and when John really gets riled up about something, he doesn't always realize when he's being annoying.

And he must be really riled up at this, because he's being especially annoying---almost belligerent---as he takes note of Penelope's frustrated sigh and Scott's deliberate lack of comment and insists again, "Well, they don't."

Scott reaches for the double espresso parked just beyond the edge of his plate, lately emptied of a dense and buttery scone, complete with clotted cream and jam. At his elbow, his brother still hasn't touched a flaky piece of pain au chocolat, nor his cup of Orange Pekoe, probably gone cold by this point. This might be down to the fact that what was meant to be a friendly rendezvous with Lady Penelope has instead turned into a secret meeting about a secret murder on Mars, and now into a moral debate about the likelihood of a specific subset of humanity to commit said murder.

Being the only astronaut at the table, John seems to feel as though he's obligated to mount a staunch defense of the character of his colleagues. Scott's inclined to think he's taking it a little personally.

But then, maybe that's understandable, too. Not seeing John in person nearly as often as he should, it's easy to forget that off the clock and on the ground, John's more than capable of a certain vehemence. Maybe the death of a fellow astronaut is just an item on the very short list of things John will take personally. Something that seems like just a shame to the rest of the world might be something more like a tragedy, for John.

The news is a few days old by now, and it's not like Scott hasn't heard about it. Everybody has; the first colonist to die on Mars, and only four months after the initial wave of settlers had arrived with the transport ship Helios. Details as reported Earthside are limited by the relatively narrow availability of communication with the Martian Colony. There've been memorials and tributes to the colonist in question, though the cause of his death hasn't publicly been described as anything other than the result of a technical mishap. Media speculation is predictably ugly and rampant, but it's still just speculation, and generally held to be in extremely poor taste. Lady Penelope's usually well above influence by such forces.

After all, strictly speaking, from over a hundred million miles away, there's no way to know that it was murder.

Or what it's got to do with International Rescue if it was.

The bottom of Penelope's teacup hits her saucer. Blue eyes lock with green across a windowside table in a quaint, charming little tea room in the nearest village to Creighton-Ward Manor. The fact that the place is virtually empty, Scott suspects, has more do with the secretive, knowing smile that Penelope had offered their hostess, and the heavy looking envelope she'd laid on the counter before they'd taken their seats. This is saying nothing of the fact that Parker stands outside, staunchly guarding the door. Aside from the initial service of tea and homemade sandwiches, scones and pastries and jam on cheerily mismatched china, the staff have been curiously remote, none of the usual hovering attention of waitstaff to their patrons. Scott gets the idea that this is an arrangement Penelope's made use of before.

And her voice is as sweet and smooth and chilled as the cream on the tea tray as she begins, "John, darling. For the sake of your apparently intractable sensibilities, I shall henceforth make the distinction that it was technically a colonist who's committed the act aforementioned, and not, if we're being strictly technical, an astronaut per se. Regardless, the facts of the matter remain, there has been a murder on Mars."

Before Scott can even raise an eyebrow at this, John's retrieved a slim silver tablet from his pocket and laid it atop the table, his fingers flickering across the surface to pull up relevant details. And he answers back, still waspish and defiant as he elucidates what he must think is a blindingly obvious truth, "People die in space. Space is dangerous. Accidents happen."

Scott watches his brother skip past a handful of news articles about the incident in question and then discard these in favour of something else. What he projects up into the air above the detritus of their afternoon tea is nothing like the sensational coverage that most of the media had been preoccupied by. What John's brought to bear on the argument at hand is the actual incident report, complete with the holographic WWSA encoded seal in the top corner. "And this was an accident," he asserts.

Penelope appears utterly unsurprised by the appearance of what are probably highly classified official documents from the World Wide Space Agency. Scott is slightly less than unsurprised, and can't help a groan in his brother's direction. "Are you supposed to have those?" he asks.

"I got curious. I called in a favour," John replies glibly, with the sort of easy avoidance of the question that doesn't actually get past his older brother, so much as it's temporarily permitted to slide. John taps a finger on his tablet again and pulls up a complex electrical schematic. "There was a technical failure of an airlock on one of their habitation pods, one engineer was killed by sudden depressurization. Personnel investigated and put it down to an isolated equipment malfunction. The appropriate steps were taken to verify that it was an individual fault and not a systemic problem." He glares at Penelope, plainly irritated with their London agent as he goes on, "It wasn't a murder, it was an accident. And it's an insult to every last person who undertook this mission---not to mention the man killed in its course---that you'd suggest otherwise. Maybe you've let yourself be taken in by the sensationalism in the media coverage, Penelope, but this is the actual report. And I thought better of you than to believe you'd settle for anything less."

Scott's been on the receiving end of enough of John's categorical shutdowns to feel like this must necessarily put an end to the matter. But Penelope hasn't even blinked and doesn't seem surprised in the least by the official version of events.

"That," she corrects, with an icy gleam in her eyes as she pulls out her own tablet and hands it across the table, "is the official statement as relayed to the WWSA via the World Wide Space Station. It is explicitly intended as a cover up. This is the report that was encrypted and embedded within the same, along with a missive from the Mission Commander---submitted to WWSA high command under the Orion Protocol."

Whatever this means to John is lost on Scott, but he doesn't miss the way his brother's eyes widen slightly. John takes the tablet and starts to skim through its contents. Scott watches as his younger brother sits back in his chair, lapsing into what seems like a fairly troubled silence as he reads the provided report. For lack of another likely opportunity, Scott takes advantage of the distraction to steal his brother's pastry. Penelope takes another sip of tea. And a long minute of silence creeps by, as John does what he does best.

While John assesses the situation, out of the corner of his eye, with his mouth full of puff pastry and French chocolate, Scott covertly assesses his brother.

Scott doesn't spend a lot of time in John's company. They talk to each other every day and some days it seems like every hour, but as far as time spent together---John's actual presence is a relatively scarce commodity in Scott's life. Still, he's known John for a quarter of a century and even in spite of their usual distance, in person, Scott's got an innate sense of when his brother's been rattled. And something about this is getting to him, though at first blush it's not entirely clear what or why.

For lack of information, Scott swallows, and clears his throat in a silence that's slowly growing awkward. There's an obvious question that needs asking and he feels a little dumb for being the only one who needs to ask it, "...what's the Orion Protocol?"

"Break glass in case of mutiny," John mutters absently in answer, not looking up from poring over the provided report.

Penelope sighs again and from the way she glares at John (and goes ignored), it's possible she considers this a rather shallow interpretation of the actual facts. "Essentially. The Commander has reason to believe there may be an extant threat to her command of the mission, and in this case a threat to her life. The Orion Protocol is a means to covertly request urgent intervention from those in authority."

"What's this got to do with you, though?" Scott asks, and refrains from asking what this has to do with him, by extension. He can probably guess what this has to do with him, because it's bright red, fifteen stories tall, and he's one of the few people in the world who know how to fly it. More importantly, it can reach the Red Planet within the span of twenty-four hours. "This is something that happened over a hundred million miles away, Lady P. Kinda seems like it must be out of your jurisdiction."

"I haven't got a jurisdiction." Lady Penelope's tone remains vaguely peevish as she corrects him on that point. "In this case, the WWSA reached out to the GDF, and the GDF reached out to me, to discreetly request your services. Not---and this is an important distinction---International Rescue's services. Not Thunderbirds One and Five. Your services, as Scott and John Tracy. This is an incredibly sensitive matter and it needs looking into. Therefore, this is a liaison. I'm liaising."

That's a new one. It might be the double espresso, but in spite of himself, Scott feels a flutter of something like anxiety. He glances at John, hoping to gauge his brother's read on the situation, but John's still transfixed by the information he's been provided. Scott clears his throat a little awkwardly. "Uh. Well, Virg and Gordon are a bit more on model for Frank and Joe Hardy, as far as mystery solving brotherly duos, but---I mean, it's not really what we do, Penelope. If somebody official needs a lift, we can try and hook them up, but I know for a fact that the WWSA has at least a couple spacecraft capable of making the trip at comparable speeds. We'd save them a day or two, maybe---or a week if it's the bureaucracy of an unplanned launch that's the holdup. I guess I'm not sure why you're talking to us at all. Why can't they sort it out themselves?"

John's capacity to pay attention to more than one thing at once is one of the reasons he's Thunderbird Five in the first place. He's apparently been listening well enough that he glances up at Scott's question, but he looks to Penelope as he answers, "Because they don't want to admit that it's happened. They can't. 'Murder on Mars' sounds great on the front of a tabloid, a hundred and forty-four million miles away, but on Mars, it's basically a nightmare scenario. A death this early in the colony's history---an accident is bad for morale as it is, but that's still just life in space. Accidents happen. But if that tiny pool of colonists has to contend with the notion that one of their community is a murderer?" John shakes his head and repeats himself for emphasis, "Nightmare."

Penelope's nod is brief, but there's no denying the triumph in her smile as John comes around to her view of the situation. If she were less than a lady, it might even be somewhat smug. "See? John understands. I knew you'd get there eventually, darling."

John's always been a big picture kind of guy. That's just another reason he's Thunderbird Five. In spite of the fact that it's a rather impersonal reading of the scenario, it's always been something Scott appreciates and admires about his brother; that John can see the whole of a situation, and doesn't let his heart rule his head.

Still. Sitting next to his brother, Scott's getting the distinct sensation that this scenario might present an exception to the rule. Nightmare is a strong sort of word, from John. Scott's curious why he'd use it.

If Penelope notices, she doesn't seem unduly diverted, and there's a certain intensity to her as she continues, "Someone's deliberately made this look like an accident, and it's too great a risk for Commander Travers to acknowledge it was anything but, even if her suspicions are otherwise. The implication inherent in the Orion Protocol is that there's someone within her command structure that she believes she cannot trust. If she were to force the issue, or if the WWSA turns up out of the blue to investigate, they risk panic amongst the colonists, and could potentially force this individual into taking drastic action. She needs help. And that, after all, is the essence of what you do. By several degrees of separation, on behalf of the citizens of Mars, I'm asking if you and John would be willing to look into the matter."

Well. There it is.

And if Scott's honest with himself, he can't pretend he doesn't feel a little flicker of excitement at the intrigue of the idea. There's no question that what's happened is a tragedy, but tragedy is more or less their family's bread and butter. His family's uniquely suited to tragedy. Penelope's not wrong---helping people is the essence of what they do---but more than that, this is a matter of a question to be answered, a problem to be solved. Both of these are things that John excels at. Big picture, there are plenty of reasons why he and his brother are perfect for this job, and they're starting to stack up at the back of Scott's mind; just the same as they must have stacked up for Penelope. And if the big picture is obvious to Scott, then it's gotta be obvious to John.

But before Scott can say so, John surprises him. He puts Penelope's tablet back down on the tabletop and gets abruptly to his feet, his chair scraping on the hardwood floor of the almost empty tea room. "No," he says, in a voice that's just a little too loud for the space that they're in, "That isn't what we do."

Then he pulls his coat off of the back of his chair and makes straight for the exit, without a further word.

It's not often that John wishes he knew less about a situation.

It's not often he completely shuts down someone asking for his help, either.

And especially not when that someone is Lady Penelope, but what's done is done and the fact remains; John's walking away from this one.

Literally, in this case.

Just to make sure his position is absolutely crystal clear.

He pushes through the front door of the tea room and out onto the high street of the small village. Parker doesn't stop him, apparently more concerned with keeping people out than keeping them in. Beneath grey skies, the day is cool and damp with the threat of rain. Nodding to Parker as he pulls on his coat, John picks a direction, and heads down the sidewalk at a brisk pace, before Scott can follow.

The breeze is chillier than what could strictly be considered bracing, but John still pretends he's only stepped outside because he needs a breath of fresh air.

He does, anyway. Need some air. And Scott won't follow him. Not right away, at least. They know each other better than that. John's aware that he's got time to walk this off. And he needs to walk this off.

The high street is narrow between tightly packed buildings, white walls beneath dusty red shingles, with one edifice or another occasionally framed in stark black timber. John's not really paying attention, and he walks quicker than he probably needs to. It's not like he's running away, or anything. It's just that he needs time and space in order to collect his thoughts. The road slopes gradually upward and curves away in a subtle arc. At the speed he walks, it's not long before the inner track of it takes him out of sight of the tea room.

He slows down slightly, then. Shortens his long-legged stride to half the length of the paving stones on the sidewalk, deliberately pacing himself. And then shivers in a way that has nothing to do with the cold.

John wishes he didn't know about the murder on Mars.

It's an ugly enough thought that it makes him feel a little bit sick inside, almost dizzy, like a sudden attack of vertigo. Although, in fairness, it's hard to say how much of that is down to the gravity of the situation, as opposed to just plain old, actual gravity, up to its usual malicious tricks. He's only been down for a couple days. The nausea might just be some latent jet lag, the result of jumping halfway across the world from the island, when Scott insisted they should to pay a visit to Penelope. Well, now he knows what that had been about. Really, he shouldn't be jet-lagged. TB5 runs on the same timezone as England, GMT, Coordinated Universal Time. Theoretically, this is his own timezone, but that doesn't seem to matter. Practically, he's been awake for something like a full twenty-four hours, and hasn't eaten much more than a chicken salad sandwich in the past eight of those. Realistically, there are plenty of reasons for the way he feels ill.

Instinctively, though, John thinks it's probably got to do with the murder.

John's always been capable of a certain personal detachment from the sort of work he does. It's part of the reason he excels at it. He's able to consider any number of objectively horrifying scenarios calmly and in the abstract, as questions to be answered and problems to be solved, objectives to be met. If they're the sorts of things that keep him up at night later on, that's just because he's only human. What matters is that in the moment, he's reliably capable of keeping a handle on everything.

This, though. This is something that drills down through all his hardwired composure and abstraction; breaks through to the bedrock of what he does---and a not insubstantial aspect of who he is---and leaves a great, gaping crack. And it exposes a deep, dark void of terror, something he's always known was there, but which he almost never taps into. He hadn't realized something like this could touch on such a fundamental fear.

This is something he needs to walk off. So he keeps walking.

There aren't many people out on the high street, between the weather and the time of day, he doesn't pass anyone on the sidewalk. His pace is growing brisk again; his anxiety tells in the way he walks a little too quickly, and he has to slow down. Not that there's anyone around to notice. Further up and on the other side of the narrow street there are a few cars parked, but for the most part, he's alone. John glances back as he stops to turn up the collar of his coat against the wind, blustering between the buildings as they start to space out a little bit---but he can't see anyone following him past the curve of the road behind him. Every passing minute increases the likelihood that FAB1 will come prowling down the street, and then he'll have to explain himself, but for the moment he's still alone with his thoughts, and he's not about to turn back. He keeps going and keeps thinking.

It's just that it's abhorrent, is what it is.

That's what makes his stomach twist and his chest tighten, what makes him have to swallow against the pressure in his throat---the sheer horror at the very thought of it. Murder. On Mars.

A tornado or an earthquake---or a Martian dust storm---that's just nature. The most important thing to know about natural disasters is that they're just natural. They just happen, there's nothing like discretion or discrimination in a tsunami or a mudslide. Industrial accidents, equipment failures, hell, even just plain old, run of the mill stupid bloody idiocy---those sorts of things are worse, in most ways, but they're usually still accidents. They're nothing like this.

This is cold-blooded, deliberate murder, with malice aforethought. John had read Dr. Sandra Travers' plea for help and felt cold starting to creep up his spine. He'd read her secret report of the truth of the incident, and then he'd read it again, and by the third time he'd expected to be able to detach himself from the feeling of numb horror, but he just couldn't quite shake it. The words still cut down to the bone, struck down to bedrock. Evidence of expert tampering. Something made to look like an accident. The sort of thing that would have passed for an accident, except some quintessential sixth sense had told her to look closer. Her suspicions were roused mostly on the grounds that the place where the airlock had failed had been a place where she was meant to be, and that it was instead an innocent and unlucky engineer who'd fallen victim to a trap, made all the more horrifying by its essential cleverness.

Caught up in his thoughts, which circle and spiral around words he'd read too many times, John stumbles a little on a crack in the sidewalk. He puts it down to a fifty-fifty split between vertigo and existential horror, and then looks up and back again, trying to work out how far he's come.

The buildings around him have turned from the prim white-paint exteriors of the main drag to the rusty reds of exposed bricks and mortar, a more residential part of town, already near to the outskirts. John slows down as he comes to a cross street, and realizes he's gone further than he meant to. He stops and, catching himself a little bit out of breath, sits down atop a low brick wall edging up on someone's front garden.

This is ridiculous.

He doesn't know how the hell they're supposed to "look into" a murder without anybody realizing it's a murder, anyway. He doesn't even know what Penelope wants, exactly, or why she's asking, or why this should be his problem, or his brother's. It's not what they do. It's just not. And they're not going to do it, anyway, so that's that. Someone else can deal with it, and he can go back to believing the cover up, and given time, perhaps he can convince himself that it's what's actually happened.

He's still trying to talk himself past the niggling little voice of his conscience, when Scott turns up about ten minutes later, and by then it's started to rain.

Scott's got an umbrella, a big black domed thing that looks like it'll stand up to whatever dolourous old England has to throw at it. Probably on loan from Parker. Probably John should've thought of that. Because raindrops patter stubbornly on black nylon, but Scott stays perfectly dry. By contrast, a drop of icy water falls squarely down the back of John's neck.

Scott's also got a scruffy old bomber jacket, formerly their father's. Rain would run off its smooth leather surface even without the umbrella. Its lining is plush and thick and fleecy, and thus Scott's turned up collar does substantially more against the cold and the wind than even John's good winter trench coat, in its navy blue cashmere.

And Scott just stands on the sidewalk, doesn't make a move to offer his umbrella, or join John where he sits on the low garden wall, because with a ratio of 4:1 vs John's 3:1, Scott's got him soundly beat as far as asshole-big-brother cred. That's just math. And whatever the scenario, John's always well-aware of the math. Eventually Scott clears his throat and breaks his silence.

"I told Penny you're probably just jet-lagged," Scott announces cheerfully, his voice just as warm and dry as he looks beneath his umbrella.

The way he feels isn't jet-lag. "Did she believe you?"

Scott grins, because they both know the answer. "Not even a little. So I said it was probably some astronaut thing, and that we'd both get some fresh air, walk it off, talk it over, take the rental car and meet her back at the manor."

It's starting to get clammy on the inside of John's collar and he shivers again; and this time it's because of the cold. "And you left the rental car ten minutes' back up the road because...?"

"John, if you wanted to sit and talk in the rental car, your melodramatic ass could've waited by the rental car."

"I wasn't about to ask for the keys."

"And ruin the high drama of your sudden and extremely rude little exit? No, of course not. You'd have had them in the first place if you hadn't let your driver's license expire."

Embarrassed now, John shrugs and pushes a hand through his hair, sweeps it off his forehead as the rain starts to weigh it down. "Yeah, maybe."

He doesn't know what else to say and so he doesn't say anything else.

Initially Scott just peers at him, and though he's broken the ice with the usual brotherly banter, he's plainly at least a little concerned. Probably with good reason. After a while he scuffs the toes of his boots on the sidewalk and then clears his throat a little awkwardly. "Hey. Uh, real talk for a minute, though, John---you okay?"

John deflects the question as a matter of reflex. "I'm wet and cold."

Scott rolls the handle of his umbrella lightly back and forth in the palm of his hand, the shaft of it resting against his shoulder, and his other hand tucked snugly in the pocket of his jacket. "Yeah, well. That's because when something rattles your cage, your standard M.O. is 'leave immediately and go as far away as possible.' You've been doing this since you were four. I'm just lucky gravity kept you from hauling your scrawny ass up a tree. C'mon, John, talk to me. I didn't know this would bother you so much."

John fidgets slightly and pushes his hands into his own pockets, mirroring Scott. His shoulders hunch a little bit against the rain and the cold, and he's aware that he must look miserable as he answers, "I guess I didn't either."

"What's wrong?"

What's wrong is the fact that John wants to wind his life backward by an hour, to before he'd been confronted with the notion that someone at the bleeding edge of humanity's best and furthest efforts into space exploration so far could be possessed of the will and the capacity and the desire to commit murder. That one of the best and brightest examples of humanity beyond Earth would willingly jeopardize the integrity of an entire colony, could be willing to take the life of a fellow colonist. John wants to pretend that it isn't true, and that if he doesn't acknowledge it, it just won't be.

But he can't exactly admit that to Scott.

"I don't think we should do this."

Scott scoffs and just about rolls his eyes clean out of his head. "Really? Funny, that hasn't been even remotely evident in the way you're carrying on. Not at all. Nope. Would not have guessed."

The sarcasm is what gets John's own natural defenses to kick in. In spite of himself he starts to dig his heels in a bit, starts to push back against Scott's probing. "Well, I don't. We're not...this just isn't what we do. We shouldn't be involved, we can't handle this. We've got no business---"

"See, I disagree with you there," Scott interjects, but he makes the charitable move of coming a little closer with his umbrella and holding it at such an angle so as to deflect the worst of the wind and rain. It also forces John to look up at him, as Scott goes on, "Someone needs our help. Penelope's right; that's what we do. Knowing someone needs us and knowing we're able do something about it, whatever the circumstances, I think we've got an obligation to get involved. And Penelope makes a pretty compelling case for why we might just be the only people who can handle this."

"We're not---"

Scott cuts him off again, "We're not WWSA. We're not GDF. If we're not Thunderbirds One and Five, then we're Scott and John Tracy: the two eldest sons of the first man to walk on Mars, surrogate nephews to Captain Lee Taylor, lately retired to the Red Planet, and known eccentric multi-billionaires. We've got the means and the motive, if you'll pardon my phrasing. The opportunity is just a question of 'we're richer than a small country; we do what we want'. We're the sort of people who would go see Mars. I'd argue that as far as people who could, we're kind of the best possible option."

John makes a minor hypocrite of himself as he says, "The WWSA are the best possible option."

Scott gives him a look. This is another hand-me-down from their father. John's very rarely on the receiving end, and gets the reminder of just how spooky it is---just how much Scott looks like Dad, in moments like these. "You were the one who laid out the reasons why they aren't, actually, so I know you know that's a lie. And you left before she could say so, but Lady P says if we don't do this, then the GDF wants her to reach out to Francoise Lemaire."

This is the sort of statement that brute forces John into a spontaneous revision of his assessment of "The Worst Things That Could Possibly Happen on Mars."

And "Murder of one Martian colonist by another Martian colonist" is just narrowly edged out by "Murder of one Martian colonist by another Martian colonist necessarily investigated by That Insipid Fucking Moron Who Tried to Land a Yacht On Haley's Comet".

Which is horrifying to the point that John doesn't want to believe that could ever happen, either.

So it might be he sounds a little more incredulous than he means to as he says, "You're not serious."

"Dead serious." Scott pauses to make sure John's been appropriately annoyed by the tastelessness of the pun, and then primly corrects himself, "I mean, if it makes you feel better, technically Penny'd be talking to Madeleine Lemaire---but husband and wife, you know, they're kind of a package deal. And you just know that the unfortunate other half of that partnership is gonna rock up to the Martian surface, park another big dumbass yacht on top of our dad's monument, and disembark wearing a deerstalker cap and brandishing a magnifying glass the size of his stupid face. He'll vlog the entire thing. Almost as good as being there yourself."

John glares at his brother, because by this point it's clear that Scott's being deliberately flippant in order to get a rise out of him. "This isn't funny."

Scott rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet and nods his agreement. The rain's let up, just a little, but the arrhythmia of raindrops on his umbrella still runs in counterpoint to their conversation. "No, it's really not. This is a very unfunny, shit-awful thing that's happened, and a hell of a complicated situation it's put these people into. But you're the smartest, unfunniest bastard I know, and so I can't imagine anyone better to help deal with it."

Dealing with it is the last thing John wants to do. But Scott's not going to let up, either. So he should probably at least try and explain the reasons. He's just not sure where to start.

Scott cedes the last bit of ground and takes a seat on the low stone wall, finally sharing his umbrella properly. It's too little too late, but the gesture still has its meaning. "I feel like you and me have faced up to worse things than this before, John. Hell, I know we have. I guess I just don't get why you're freaking out."

John still doesn't have an answer. He shifts uncomfortably where he sits and privately laments the fact that the hard edge of the brickwork coping is particularly painful when you're not someone who spends much time sitting down. The astronaut's equivalent of taking a load off is just drifting in neutral posture, floating in zero-G. He wants to make a remark to defuse some of the tension, some offhanded comment about how this is a literal pain in the ass, but it's an astronaut's joke, and it'll be lost on Scott.

It suddenly occurs to John that this might be the greatest part of the problem.

"...You told Penelope you figured this was 'probably some astronaut thing'?"

"Is it?"

John nods and scuffs the toes of his oxfords on the cement of the sidewalk at his feet. "Yeah. Probably more than you'd understand, since you're not---I mean, it's just how you aren't---like, you're space-rated, sure, but that's...I mean, that's just not---" he trails off, not sure if what he wants to say would be insulting, and despite Scott's occasional obnoxiousness, not actually wanting to insult his brother.

But Scott has him covered. "I moonlight," he supplies, with another situationally inappropriate grin. "I'm not a real astronaut."

"Right. And...there's just a lot to unpack, here. About all this, and the way it happened, and the fact that it happened at all. And the history of humanity on Mars, and the context...it's complicated. It's really complicated. It's bigger than it seems, it's more than just tabloid headlines that say 'Murder on Mars' and it's more than just the WWSA's reputation---it's...it's even more than the fact that one person's dead and that another person's in fear for their life. It's more than just a murder."

He's rambling, and Scott knows it, because there's the pressure of his elbow against John's ribs. It's not a reprimand so much as it is an acknowledgment that Scott's listening. He goes on to cough pointedly and affirm, "Yeah, I kinda got all that. Gimme some credit, John. I know this is a big problem, but we're not exactly strangers to big problems. You especially. So I guess I'm asking---what is this for you?"

John takes a deep breath, and does what he does best. He drills his way down to the bedrock, gets to the heart of the matter, and renders the situation into its fundamentals. "This scares me," he admits. "This really scares me."

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