A New Road

By Sapphire

A sequel to 'Fork in the Road' – if you haven't read it, you might not be able to make any sense of that story here. But then, even if you have read it, you might not be able to make any sense of the story, either ;)

There will be three parts.

Disclaimer: Thunderbirds is still not mine. This universe however is (oh, wow, I never owned a universe before). I'm not 100 sure if Hiram Hackenbacker is really Brains' name. In the TV show it was used as an alias, but for convenience sake I used it for the story.

Part 1

Dr. Hiram Hackenbacker, Brains to the few friends he used to have, looked at the piece of paper in his hands, but the numbers on it didn't changed. Sighing deeply, he placed the paper back on the work desk. He took his blue rimmed glasses off, then folded his arms and laid his head on top of them.

It was over.

His dream, his hope.

Over.

For the last five years he had worked hard, spending evenings and weekends on designing and building his machines, only to find nobody willing to buy them. Too expensive, most said. Too restricted in their application said the others. And then there were those who said that the things he built wouldn't work anyway.

He had put every cent he had in his work and now he was broke. No bank was willing to give him any more money, and friends ... he had disappointed too many people to claim to have any left. His house, his company, his life. All gone.

He knew that if he had been willing to work for the government, building their damn weapons, he would have had no problems finding a job. There had been enough offers after he left university at the young age of twenty-three, already with a doctor title in his pocket. But he had not wanted to build something that would kill people, but something to save them.

He had started working in the free industry, only to discover that even there they had tried to take his dreams away and find more sinister applications for his designs.

Founding his own company had seemed to be the only solution and Hackenbacker Rescue Equipments was born. But without the funding and the resources of a larger company, he couldn't build as effective as he would have liked. He had spent too much money up front and had then been unable to pay the loans back in time. The interests were eating him up. Heavy hearted he had sold off his patents, but even that had only be a temporary band-aid.

And now he had it black on white.

By next week he would have nothing left.

"Brains." There was a call from the upstairs office and he looked up. It was Nancy Millers, his secretary/accountant. Brains didn't know why she was still here. He hadn't been able to pay her any salary for the last three months, but she still came in every morning like clockwork, helping him to search for potential buyers, for any way to get out of that quagmire his life has become.

'Don't worry,' she had said. 'I have some money left from my aunt's inheritance. We'll find a way out of this. I trust you.'

Another one he had disappointed.

"Brains," she said, "there's a call for you."

Brains considered ignoring it. Likely it was just another bank asking for their money back.

Nancy noticed his hesitation. "I think you should take this one."

Brains sighed once again then got up. "All right."

He walked up the stairs to the tiny office off the floor from the warehouse he had rented and picked up the handle.

"Hiram H-h-hackenbacker," he said.

"Dr. Hackenbacker, here's Jeff Tracy," a deep, cultured voice said on the other end.

Brains didn't recognize the name. Tracy was a fairly common name but he was sure that none of the bank managers who had deigned to call him the last couple of months was named 'Tracy'.

"W-w-what can I do for you?" Brains asked carefully, hiding his confusion behind the polite phrase.

There was a soft chuckle on the other end. "I believe there is something I can do for you, Dr. Hackenbacker."

For a moment, Brains was taken aback, but then he realized that there was only one explanation. Nancy must have slipped up and this call was nothing but a telemarketing ploy. He looked up at his secretary who had followed him into the office and frowned.

"I-I-I don't buy anything."

There was silence for a moment and Brains thought that he had fingered the man correctly. But then the voice spoke up again, sounding more serious now.

"Dr. Hackenbacker, I don't want to sell you anything. I want to offer you a job."

A job offer? He had been looking for a new job for weeks now, knowing that this was the only chance he had to ever pay off his debts. But with his record and his very well know aversion to allow his inventions out of his control, nobody had been willing to touch him with a ten-foot pole. The rejection letters filled a large box downstairs to the point of overflowing. He had fantasized about using them to burn down the building, but of course he would never seriously do something like this.

"W-w-what kind of j-j-job?" he asked carefully.

"I'm working on a little project and think your input would be invaluable."

The man sounded sincere, but Hackenbacker was still reluctant. He wished he'd had a vid-phone to see the other man's face, but in his effort to save money, he had gone with the bare necessity for his office equipment.

"How about we meet face to face, Dr. Hackenbacker."

Damn, he needed the money. Any money.

Meeting this Mr. Tracy wouldn't hurt. He could take a look at whatever that 'little project' was and if he didn't like it, he still could walk away.

"W-w-where? W-w-when?"

"As soon as possible. I'll fed-ex a ticket to Los Angeles to your office within the hour. My operative will pick you up at the airport and fly you to my island."

Had Mr. Tracy just said 'my island'?

Slightly overwhelmed, Brains accepted.

tbc