"Well, at least you didn't tell Gordon about that," Scott said. "I wouldn't ever have heard the end of it – getting stuck under a house while rescuing a dog!"

"Oh, no, I told him," Virgil said calmly. "I mean, your arm was in a sling for a week – of course he wanted to know what had happened."

Scott's eyebrows rose. "Then why hasn't he ever given me a hard time about it?"

Virgil shrugged. "Who knows? He's probably saving it for blackmail, or something. But now that you know that he knows, but he doesn't know that you know that he knows, maybe you can turn things around on him."

Scott blinked. "Whoa, Virg…"

Just then, John's hologram blinked to life in the middle of the tiny janitor's closet, casting a faint blue glow over the mops and buckets and rows of spare toilet paper rolls. "How are you guys holding up?" he asked, sounding much calmer than he had a little while earlier.

"We're good," Virgil said. "Just chilling and telling stories to pass the time."

"But we still want out," Scott clarified, concerned that Virgil had sounded a little too relaxed.

"Don't worry – I've got Gordon and Alan headed your way now. It'll take them about fifteen minutes to reach your position."

"Hey, perfect!" Virgil exclaimed. "Just enough time for another story. John, did you ever tell Scott about the time you got stuck in–"

"Virgil, no!" John snapped. "I have not told anyone about that – ever – and with very good reason. That was humiliating, and I try not to even think about it!"

"Aw, come on, Johnny – we're suffering in here! It's been a long day, and we're tired, and we just want to get home…and you're telling us you won't even help us out a little?"

Scott watched with a smirk as Virgil turned the full force of his puppy-dog chocolate-brown eyes on John – and, to Scott's amazement, it worked.

John hemmed and hawed, then said, very grudgingly, "Okay, fine. But then we forget about it again, okay? No more mention of it from this day forward."

"Deal," Virgil said promptly.

"So, this was, what, like, a year ago? Anyway, I had gone on a rescue with Virgil, and I realized late that night that I had left my personal computer on Two..."

Chute

John grumbled under his breath as he looked under the couch cushions, on the countertop, and in the reading nook. He couldn't find his computer anywhere – and he had been right in the middle of a fascinating chapter on a new approach to helioseismology when the rescue call had come in.

He stood in the middle of the lounge and tried to mentally retrace his footsteps from quite a few hours earlier. They had received the call, and he had stood up…but what had he done with his computer?

Oh, right – he had tucked it under his arm. And, having forgotten that he was still holding onto it, he had carried it with him onto Two. Now he remembered tucking it into one of the lockers on the big ship.

He waffled, trying to decide just how badly he wanted to finish that chapter – it was a bit of a hike all the way down into the hangar.

But what if he could take a shorter journey? He turned his gaze toward the painting of a rocket over by the reading nook. That would shorten the trip, and – he allowed himself a quick, mischievous smile – it would also be a lot more fun than taking the elevator or the stairs.

Decision made, he headed for the painting. There was a discreet switch next to it that he flicked to the "off" position – the last thing he needed was a robotic system trying to stuff his long limbs into Virgil's uniform.

He stepped onto the base of the painting, and grinned at the odd sensation of tipping backwards. He slid down into place under the shoulder pieces – which he suspected fit Virgil quite a bit more snugly – and the platform started rolling, zipping downhill on its narrow track.

Wow, this is fast, he thought, somewhere between thrilled and alarmed.

He couldn't quite figure out where to put his hands, though – they seemed to overhang the spot they ought to go. As he tried to wiggle into place, something suddenly grabbed the loose sleeve of his button-up shirt and yanked his arm violently down toward the track.

Startled, he fought the pull; there was a sharp ripping sound, and the sleeve tore all the way up his arm, the fabric of the seam tightening around his shoulder. With a harsh judder, the platform jerked to a halt, throwing John painfully back against the metal framework.

The lights in the chute flickered once, twice, and then faded to their dim emergency settings.

John lay still for a minute and blinked, trying to catch his breath and figure out what could have possibly gone wrong. Finally, he turned his head to the side and groaned when he realized what had happened – somehow, the sleeve of his shirt had gotten caught between the platform and the track, jamming it. The sleeve had torn – and thank goodness for that, otherwise John's arm might have gotten pulled under the platform as well.

He seemed to have engaged some sort of automatic shutoff mode as well, hence the emergency lighting.

Hmm. How was he supposed to get back to the top?

He tugged experimentally at his sleeve, but it was definitely stuck fast – and it was pinning his shoulder to the platform, too, that one seam apparently much stronger than the rest of the sleeve. In fact, it had a bit of a death grip on his shoulder, and he was already beginning to feel some tingles in his fingertips.

Okay. Time to use his highly refined sense of order to set some priorities.

Priority number one: remove arm from remnants of sleeve.

A minute later, he decided that this was easier said than done. He'd first tried pulling the material apart, but it refused to yield.

Serves me right for refusing to buy anything other than high-quality clothing, he thought.

Next he searched his pockets for anything he could use to cut the material, but he came up empty-handed – he really wasn't the type to carry a pocket knife or a multi-tool. Ask any of his brothers for a knife, and their faces would light up. They'd fish around in a pocket for a second, then whip out a huge pocket knife, opening it for John, as if he wasn't qualified to do so himself. "Careful," they'd say. "It's sharp."

Unfortunately, none of his brothers was trapped with him in his ridiculous predicament, so there would be no offers of excessively large blades.

He lay back on the platform with a huff and held perfectly still for a full minute, just thinking. And the longer he thought, the angrier he became.

"Okay," he snapped. "This is stupid. You are a fit, strong man. You spend your days – and plenty of your nights – organizing the rescue of dozens of people all across the globe. You are disciplined and you have phenomenal self control. You can break a silly piece of cloth with your bare hands."

He twisted back up into a semi-sitting up position, grabbed the fabric with his left hand, and pulled with all of his strength. And he pulled…and he pulled.

And then he fell back with a growl of frustration.

"No," he said, his despair complete. "I can't do it." He flopped his left arm over his face. "I am never going to live this down." Hey, there was kind of an echo in the chute. "Ever," he said loudly, listening to the word reverberate down the long tunnel.

Then he shook himself and pulled his focus back to the matter at hand. Right. Working on getting out so that Virgil's crazy roller-coaster of a chute didn't become his tomb.

He could just picture the archaeologists, a thousand years in the future, poking at his desiccated carcass, making note of the cause of death and clucking their tongues sadly. "Young, healthy male," they'd say. "He's trapped, but it seems odd that he wasn't able to pull himself free. Poor kid starved to death right here."

John's stomach rumbled at that moment, and he remembered that he'd been planning to get a snack to eat while reading the rest of that chapter. Hmm, his book…he wished he had it now – if he was going to be stuck for a while, it'd be nice to have something to read.

Okay.

Refocusing – again.

All right, so he had thoroughly established that he was unable to complete his number one priority, namely that of extricating himself from his shirt, so…wait. Wait. Hold everything, as Gordon would say.

There was one thing that John hadn't tried.

And suddenly he was very glad that he was alone in the chute, with no knife-brandishing brothers in sight as he unbuttoned his shirt and slipped out of it.

It still took a little tugging to get his arm out of the damaged sleeve, but in a matter of seconds, he had rendered his entire struggle up to that point null and void.

He sat up, feeling the pull of gravity in his abs because of the awkward angle of the platform. He glanced up, and figured he was probably about halfway down the chute. It crossed his mind that he didn't even know whether the painting of the rocket opened from this side, so perhaps he should try to go down the chute instead of up.

But…what would happen when he got to the bottom? Without the platform, the loading arm into Thunderbird Two probably wouldn't engage, so John would end up stranded high above the hangar floor.

Okay…number two priority: figure out whether to go up or down.

He sighed. All he wanted was his computer and a snack, and here he was, in the guts of the chute system, hopelessly stuck.

"Hey, John?"

John glanced down at his wrist, a distant part of his mind noting that Virgil's voice echoed nicely in the chute too.

Aha. He had his communicator watch on. He briefly debated telling Virgil about his problem, but quickly decided that he'd rather see if he could somehow avoid getting teased for the rest of his life.

"Yes, Virgil?" he replied casually. Keep it cool. Don't let on that anything's wrong. "Can I help you?"

"What's wrong with you?" Virgil demanded.

John tried to sound surprised. "What do you mean?"

"You're using your 'Nothing's Wrong' voice, which means that something's very wrong. And did I hear an echo? Where are you?"

"Nowhere," John said quickly. "I mean, uh, I'm somewhere that echoes. Like, uh, my bathroom. Yeah, I'm in my bathroom, so if you could give me a little privacy here, I'd appreciate it."

"Uh, yeeaah, sure," Virgil replied. "Right. I'll call you back later, then, since you're in your bathroom."

"Oh, wait…Virgil?"

"Yes, John?"

"Hypothetically speaking, does your chute entrance open from the inside? Not that that has any relevance whatsoever to me, in any way, shape or form. It just…uh, crossed my mind at some point today, and I thought I'd ask you the next time I talked to you."

"Uh, yeah, it does, actually. You know Brains – builds everything with safety in mind."

"Thanks, Virg. You've been a huge help – uh, I mean, that really takes a load off my mind. In case you were ever to get stuck down here-there, I mean. Down there. In your chute. Like, say, if something jammed in the track and your platform stopped moving. It's nice to know that you could get back out again. Anyway, I'm in my bathroom, so I'd better go now." John ended the connection before Virgil could reply.

Good grief – you sounded like Alan, he told himself.

Okay. So he could climb up the chute and get out.

But…what about the platform? What if they got another rescue tonight and Virgil needed it? He could even get hurt if the painting of the rocket tipped him over and the platform wasn't there to catch him.

And whenever Virgil crawled down here to fix the platform, John's tattered shirt tangled in the track would be a bit of a giveaway as to who was responsible.

John cautiously stepped off the platform onto the curved floor of the chute and crouched down to peer at the way the shirt sleeve was attached. Hmm…it looked like if he could just lift the platform up a bit and pull, then…yes! He had successfully removed the shirt.

He set the platform back down onto its track – and then leaped forward to catch it when it started to trundle away down toward the hangar. It was heavy enough that it dragged him a few feet, bouncing him painfully over the ridges on the floor, but he eventually pulled it to a stop.

Panting, he maneuvered himself around to the front of the platform so that he could brace it with all of his body weight.

He stood there for a full five minutes, wondering how he was possibly going to solve everything with his dignity intact. Finally, though, with slumped shoulders, he activated his watch. "Hey, Virg?" he said quietly.

"Yeah, Johnny, what's up?"

"Uh, well, so, I'm not actually in my bathroom," he said guiltily. "I'm in your chute, and I could use a hand."

There was a click at the top of the chute, and suddenly all the lights turned back on. He could hear Virgil's voice echoing down from above and through his watch as his brother clumped his way down the narrow passage.

"I know, John," Virgil said. "You may be a genius, but you're no good at subterfuge."

He appeared around the curve, a slight smirk on his face – a smirk that faded to a frown as he bent over to pick up the mangled shirt. He glanced at the ripped sleeve and then looked over at John's arm. "You okay?"

John nodded. "Miraculously, yes."

Virgil didn't say anything else; he just came around to the bottom end of the platform and helped John push it all the way up to the top, where it clicked neatly into place.

John squeezed gratefully out into the lounge, taking a long, deep breath. Somehow the air seemed fresher and sweeter out here.

Virgil followed him out, an interesting mix of expressions covering his face.

He still hadn't said anything else – perhaps because there simply were no words, John thought morosely.

The painting snapped shut behind Virgil, and suddenly John remembered the reason for his ordeal.

"My computer!" he said. "I left it in Two earlier." He eyed the chute entrance warily. If he left the shirt in the lounge…

Virgil held up a hand. "Allow me," he said, stepping onto the bottom of the painting.

Conclusion

They could hear Gordon and Alan working on breaking down the door into the janitor's closet by the time John finished speaking.

John heard them too; he gave a gasp and disappeared.

He reappeared just as quickly to say, "Tell them, and I'm taking over Autopilot on both of your Birds during the next test flight!"

And then his hologram blipped out of sight again.

Scott and Virgil looked at each other.

"We really shouldn't laugh," Scott said reasonably, even as a grin spread slowly across his face. "Poor John could have really been hurt…" By the end of the sentence, he knew it was hopeless.

And when Gordon and Alan finally broke through into the closet a couple minutes later, they found their older brothers limp and helpless with laughter.

"The fumes getting to you or something?" Gordon demanded, half amused and half concerned.

"No," Scott gasped. "It was the – the…" He dissolved into laughter again.

Virgil finished the sentence for him, between deep chuckles. "It was the tight spaces," he said.

Gordon and Alan exchanged a confused glance, then shrugged.