A young man once told himself to "never give up at any cost."

That man went on to be the Founder of International Rescue.

The Final Rite of Passage

An Original Series Story written by "mcj"

Dedicated to the memory of Rosie Alcott, "Boomercat," who passed away on 15 December 2017.

One

Three weeks after we moved to the island, Kyrano decided to immerse himself in a string of special projects. One of them was a "much-needed botany project"; at least that was how he explained the concept to me.

"I think you will find the results most therapeutic," was the message. "It will be something to help you feel at peace with your new life and one day may even prove to be the catalyst for your final rite of passage."

I had no idea what the man was talking about, so I just nodded and decided to leave him to it. Despite his assumption, I was already perfectly at peace with life away from my homeland, and with plans for International Rescue to commence operations in less than eight months, Brains and I still had work to do. Besides, history had already taught me more than once that if I started asking Kyrano questions, I'd be lying awake half the night pondering on the message behind the answers.

I couldn't afford to be distracted by anything right now.

International Rescue had been my passion, my dream and the goal for the last four years...

...and nothing was going to stop me from making it a reality.

So, over the next few weeks Kyrano spent most of his days working outside on my private balcony and in the area directly below it outside the villa. I was very aware that everything was still a mess after the major excavations to accommodate the silos but when it came to priority and what I wanted to achieve, beautification of the living arrangements was right at the bottom of the list. My whole focus was centered on the design of the roundhouse and its adequacy to camouflage the two-hundred-and-eighty-seven-foot rocket ship we'd just built. Brains was saying he thought there might be a problem with aerial security and I was keen to do whatever it took to get the matter resolved.

Two

On the first night of the fourth week of the botany project, Kyrano found me sitting alone out on my balcony watching the last throes of the Pacific winter sunset. I was tired and agitated when he handed me my drink, and my "thanks" was nothing more than a forced and preoccupied word. I knew he had to be tired too, but as it was with Kyrano, he didn't comment, and I knew better than to ask. He sat down beside me and remained completely silent until the final pink and orange rays disappeared below the horizon and the balcony was dark. After the day I'd had, the first swallow of single malt proved to be a welcome anesthetic. So, did its successor, despite the burning sensation down the back of my throat at the speed at which I caught myself downing it.

"Not a good day," he observed.

"No, it wasn't."

It was direct. It was sullen. It was also the only response I knew I could trust. Thunderbird One's control panel had malfunctioned that morning, Scott's discharge from the Air Force was going to take a lot longer than I thought and I'd just spent the last hour listening to Alan complaining that his accelerated astronaut training in Houston was starting to cause havoc with his racing calendar.

"Sometimes the barriers placed before us are designed to test more than just our commitment."

His expression didn't change. His eyes didn't move. He simply stared out over the ocean and threw out riddles, while I struggled with the frustration that was churning inside my gut. Did he mean it was better that we'd found out about the control panel before my eldest arrived and I gave him the freedom to start testing her? Or that if I wanted Scott to be my field commander I had to curb my impatience and accept that the Air Force had its protocols? Maybe he was saying I should consider what I was asking my youngest to do when he was only twenty years old and had just graduated from college?

Who knew with Kyrano, but I was sure he was alluding to something.

"Maybe," I heard myself grunt back. I wasn't just agitated now. I was downright perturbed. And as the silence between us continued, the reason for that became pretty apparent to me, too. This had nothing to do with Alan, the Air Force or what had happened with the control panel.

Hell, this was about the expectations I kept piling on myself!

Of course, I was glad Brains had picked up on the problem in Thunderbird One. Something like that had the potential to grind us to a halt before we'd even made a start. And no, I wasn't happy about the Air Force even though I was prepared to wait it out if it meant that I'd have Scott's experience at the helm. As for Alan … yes, I did know I was asking a lot from the boy when he'd only just graduated and was currently making a big name for himself in the racing business.

I was asking a lot from all of them.

Scott, Virgil, John, Gordon and Alan…

... my five sons.

Together they would form the backbone of International Rescue.

"How's that botany project of yours going, Kyrano?"

Diversion had always proven to be an excellent mood-breaker. Plus, I wanted to know what the heck he was doing to my balcony. Whatever he was up to, it wasn't proving to be very therapeutic. In fact, chaos was more the word I'd use for all the tangled wires and half-empty pots that greeted me in the mornings when I stepped outside to steal a few moments in the sun. There also wasn't any polite way to explain the impact the organic fertilizer he'd spread downstairs was having on the rest of the household, either. The stench of the stuff completely overwhelmed our senses every single time we took a breath!

"It goes slowly," he said, "as you have already observed."

I glanced sideways. Observed? What exactly was I supposed to have observed? Did he mean the wires, the pots, the fertilizer, or all three?

"Sometimes the barriers placed before us are designed to test more than just our commitment," he repeated.

What barriers? Whose commitment?

"If you ask me, it sounds like we both had a bad day," I ended up muttering, now too confused and exhausted to even argue.

"All will be well with both projects," was how he chose to end the conversation. Then he rose to his feet, picked up the empty glass and left me alone in the dark to reflect on what the heck he'd just said to me.

Three

Week six saw Virgil and John relocate their lives to the island; John first with his quiet, no-nonsense intensity and Virgil three days later, both boys eager to come to grips with the enormity of their new career choices.

"Wow, Dad! This is an amazing set-up!"

You have no idea how much Virgil's enthusiasm meant to me as he sauntered backwards and forwards, arms strategically folded, scrutinizing every layer of detail in the lounge.

"I'm taking it that you approve, then?"

"Oh yes, sir…. yes, I do," he breathed, pausing to admire his mother's old white baby grand.

But a few moments later, he turned back to look at me; eyes guarded and his expression serious.

"I honestly didn't believe that you and Brains would be able to pull this off."

"You mean you doubted me, son?"

I really made it sound like I was disappointed. For a minute I even managed to fake a frown. But the knowing smile I received in return soon reminded me just how easy it had always been for my second eldest to read the mood of the man behind the fatherly façade.

"I should have known better. Right?"

"That's exactly right, son."

After almost twenty-one years of clawing my way to the top of the multi-billion-dollar aerospace business, it was common knowledge that Jeff Tracy never gave up on anything just because it got a little hard. And what better way to make the point than to sit back and watch as the brother Virgil hadn't seen for over three months made his entrance from Thunderbird Three's Hangar via the couch situated in the middle of the lounge.

"You're kidding me!" was the reaction.

"Hiya, Virg!" John grinned back in response.

"Still having doubts about what your father is capable of?" I chided Virgil.

I didn't wait around to hear the answer.

They had a lot of catching up to do.

Four

The conversation in the lounge after supper that night was lively to say the least and the most entertaining it had been around here for the past few months. Kyrano had already excused himself to deal with a private matter involving his daughter's studies at Oxford University in England, and with Virgil tinkering away on the piano and a cognac in my right hand, I was more than happy to sit back and listen to Brains and John exchange technical opinions on the adequacy of the communication systems in our new satellite, Thunderbird Five.

I had to hand it to Brains for holding it together in the face of John's sometimes less than tactful observations. Brains was a man who embraced viable alternatives and he was no stranger when it came to criticism either; but whether my laser communications expert knew that or not, he wasn't wasting any time tiptoeing around.

"I know I'm making it sound like I'm skeptical about her translating capabilities, Brains." Once John got started on something he wasn't about to let up. "But surely you agree with me that unless she's capable of deciphering every single dialect, there's no guarantee we'll be able to respond to any call."

"Ah…ah, well, ah … you do have a valid point, ah… John." Brains had no hesitation whenever he was challenged." However, I'm afraid it's impossible for existing technology to accurately interpret …ah… all of them."

"He's right," came from the direction of Bach's 'Canon in D Major.' "There must be thousands of local dialects out there."

"I know all that Virgil," accompanied John's usual frown. "That's exactly my point. Languages evolve, and they will continue to evolve. That's why I'm saying that without some sort of universal translator there can't be any rock-solid guarantee."

"I, ah… do acknowledge it could prove problematic in certain situations, ah... John."

"Well, why not just agree that we need to build a universal translator?"

It was the first time Gordon had spoken since he'd limped into the lounge.

Gordon had been with us since we'd made the move from Kansas. Now discharged from WASP, he'd made a remarkable recovery from the injuries he'd sustained in the hydrofoil accident, even though his back still gave him trouble and his moods tended to be less than ideal at times. The boy was slowly coming to grips with the events that had led to his discharge and the loss of three of his friends who had died under his command. My door was always open, but he seemed to prefer spending most of his time talking to Kyrano, especially when it came to providing the additional manpower for the never-ending, "much-needed" botany project.

"Speaking of guarantees…" Keen to divert the conversation away from the communication issue, I swallowed the rest of my cognac and moved onto something else. "… I promised Kyrano that the three of you would make yourselves available to fly the corporate jet over to the States for him tomorrow. Story is, he's ordered a couple of things that are ready to be picked up in California."

"All of us, Father?" John frowned, looking in Gordon's direction. Gordon shrugged his shoulders, oblivious. Virgil did the same and the music came to a stop.

"That's what he said." Now I was the one who was doing all the shrugging. "And before you ask, I have no idea what he wants you to pick up, but knowing Kyrano, it'll have something to do with that botany project of his. I said it wouldn't be a problem, boys. We could do with a few more supplies around here, anyway."

After that, they all nodded. No one seemed to have any objections to what I'd just asked them to do.

"Thanks, boys. Kyrano can fill you in on the details. Now if you'll excuse me, it's late and I need to go over some insurance papers for your grandmother."

As I left them in the lounge, I couldn't help but laugh. They didn't even wait until I was out of earshot before the argument got started about who was going to be the one to fly the corporate jet to and from California. It almost made me wonder whether Kyrano had planned this whole thing on purpose.

They would always be competitive as brothers. What I needed was for them to know when to put that behind them and recognize when it was more important to be a team.

Five

I'd seen some things in my life that have rendered me speechless... the first time I saw the inside of a cockpit… the earth from the surface of the moon, feeling so close to the stars that all I wanted to do was to reach out and touch them…

But in all my years of involvement with aircraft and the rocket ships, I'd never seen anything quite as remarkable as this.

It all started when I followed Brains out of the service elevator into Thunderbird Two's hangar, fourteen hours after the boys had left the island for California. The two of us had spent the day at my desk poring over minor items of inventory and before calling it quits and winding down, I'd decided it would be a good idea to cross-check our work with a quick audit of one of the pods.

You can imagine the looks on our faces when we saw them. We were hundreds of feet under the villa surrounded by a sea of concrete, the last place anyone would expect to see a kaleidoscope of colour perched motionless on top of Two's massive green hull.

The only explanation Brains could come up with was a combination of coincidence and sheer bad luck. He guessed they'd been migrating and somehow had become disoriented around the exact same time the hangar had opened for the departure of the corporate jet.

"Other than that, I'm, ah… sorry, Mr. Tracy. I'm afraid I'm not all that familiar with their behavioral patterns."

"You're not the only one." I knew less than he did. "Where the hell's Kyrano? He really needs to come down here and see this."

Kyrano, of course, knew everything about butterflies and I'd never seen the man so delighted in my life.

They were of the Heliconius genus, he explained from beside me; a colorful and widespread species of long-winged butterflies that were scattered across the tropical and subtropical areas of the Pacific Region.

"They are generally unpalatable to predators because of the poisons they store feeding on passionflower vines as caterpillars." The nature lesson went on. "I have read that their bright wing patterns are designed to serve as a mutually beneficial warning to beware of them."

Then he delivered his own philosophy.

"It is very true when they say that nature is capable of finding its own way without the need for any words."

"What I want to know is how the heck we get them out of here." Nature wasn't the only one capable of finding a way without any words. "They're obviously not going to last long if they think Thunderbird Two is some sort of king-sized passionflower vine, Kyrano."

"Yes," he said. "I concur."

And with that, he bowed his head and shoved his hands into the bright blue satin sleeves of the robe he wore as if he was about to devise some radical action plan.

"We could always, ah, open the outer doors and try to create a disturbance," Brains offered. "It might, ah, work."

"No, Mister Brains!"

Kyrano's reaction made it clear that he was having nothing to do with what I was about to say sounded like a darned good suggestion.

"They rest here because they are weary," he cautioned; his voice no longer as calm and his features concerned. The ocean is wide and their migration long. It would not be a good thing to force them into unnatural flight without the most genuine of intentions."

"What are you saying we do, then?" I couldn't believe I was about to say this. "Turn off the lights and leave them down here to rest their wings for the night?"

"What we must do is be patient," he said.

And that was all he said.

Then he turned away and re-boarded the elevator, leaving both of us standing there open-mouthed, not sure what we were expected to do next.

"What in the blazes was all that supposed to mean?" I asked Brains.

For once Brains couldn't find the words to say anything.

Like me, he didn't have a clue.