February 19, 2056

Gordon's alarm rang sharply through his room at 4:30 a.m.  He groaned, tempted to roll over and snooze it, but the image of the olympic rings swam in his mind, same as every morning.  He sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and shut off the alarm.  If he wanted to make it to trials in a couple months, early morning workouts were the key. 

He changed into a loose t-shirt and shorts, before heading down to the small gym below the sleeping house.  Today was leg day for his dry-lands, and after about 45 minutes, he'd head to the pool to start his training before breakfast.

After descending into the mountain he walked down the hallway towards the gym and was surprised to find flashing red and blue lights and noise coming from it.  He approached curiously, wondering why on earth one of his brothers was up so early to do work with their self-defense dummy, recognizing the noises and lights.

Right as he looked in, the room announced "K.O." to the inhabitant and flashed red, before the normal lights came back on.  Standing by the dummy was not any of his brothers, instead, it was that new girl, Tanusha, that his father had brought home yesterday.

"Wow." Gordon announced his presence. "Nice hit.  It's so hard to knock out that dummy." He walked into the gym, heading over to the water machine.  He grabbed his bottle from the cabinet below it, before setting it below the spout.  The machine recognized its presence and began to fill it up.  Gordon leaned against the machine as he turned to look at Tanusha with a smile.  She stared at him blankly, before turning the dummy back on again, causing the lights to drop.

The voice filled the room again. "3, 2, 1, fight!"

Tanusha balled her fist, before sending it careening into the side of the dummy's head, her ponytail swaying as she shifted her weight into her fist.  The room flashed red and Gordon's jaw dropped.

"K.O."

The lights came back on and Tanusha put a hand on her hip, catching Gordon's gaze in a steel trap. "You were saying?" She spoke with a cool British accent.

The sound of the machine behind him shutting off cut through the silence between them.  Gordon capped his full water bottle, before turning back to her.

"That's seriously impressive." He walked over to the treadmills in a corner of the room. "So, fellow 15-year-old.  What are you doing up at 4:30 a.m.?"

"Aren't you the one who's in your own home and comfortable sleeping?  I should be asking you that question."

Gordon shrugged, honestly a little surprised she replied. "I'm an olympic athlete." He stepped onto the treadmill, placing his water in a holster on the wall as the holographic dash came to life from the projector in the wall next to the water holder.  He set a decent walking pace before starting.

The girl scoffed. "I figured you were the jokester, but that wasn't even funny."

Gordon chuckled. "Well, good, because it wasn't a joke.  I tell much better jokes than that."

Tanusha walked over to him. "You're not an olympic athlete."

"Not yet," he clarified. "I'm trying to make the U.S. team for this summer."

She shook her head. "That's ridiculous.  I thought everyone in your family was training to contribute to International Rescue."

"I've been given a pardon until after the summer olympics, or, if I don't make it, after my journey towards them comes to an end."

She shook her head, turning and walking back to the dummy. "That's crazy."

After a few moments of silence, Gordon turned to see what she was doing, but found the room was back to the state he expected to find it in: completely empty.

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"Why did John have to go back up to his spaceship, Dad?" Alan whined, "I wanted to show him a new move I learned in the video game he got me for Christmas!"

It was lunch time in the Tracy house, which meant many people in the kitchen and lots of noise.

"Are we really out of celery?  We can't be out of celery!"

"Add it to the list, Gordon..." Jeff sighed, already overwhelmed from his boys and trying to keep in contact with Tanusha all day.  He was planning to have a full meeting with Col. Casey regarding her in about an hour, and needed the young girl with him. "Where's Tanusha?" He asked, noticing she wasn't in the kitchen with the rest of them.

"Miss K.O.'s over there," Gordon nodded towards the glass walls, showing Tanusha sitting outside on the deck. "Probably avoiding the noise."

"Who?" Virgil asked, confused.

"Miss K.O."

Scott chimed in, curious. "What's that?"

"This morning I ran into her down in the gym." He continued in awe. "She can knock out the dummy down there in one punch."

"Whoa, really?" Alan asked, joining the conversation. "No way!  I wanna see!"

Jeff chuckled. "Maybe if you ask her nicely she'll show you."  This news surprised him as well, but given what he saw her do yesterday, he wasn't exactly shocked.

"Anyway," Alan continued, "what does that have to do with calling her Kayo?"

"K.O., Alan.  It stands for knock out.  It's what the dummy downstairs shouts if you win."

"Wow!  Let's go see if she can show us!" Alan took off towards the glass, the wall parting for him as he approached.  The others followed, also genuinely curious to see her skill.

Tanusha turned when she heard many footsteps behind her and observed the advancing group with her eyebrows knitted together.

"Hi!" Alan started, stopping a few feet in front of her. "Gordon says you can knock out the dummy in one hit!  That's so cool!  Can you show us?"

She looked at them all, before shrugging and walking back into the house.  The boys turned, watching her, before following her like ducklings as she descended down to the gym.  She led them into the room and they all lined up awkwardly by the wall as she switched on the simulation.

Just like that morning, the lights dimmed and the bot counted down.  And, just like that morning, she reeled back and stung the dummy's head with a powerful punch.  The room flashed red.

"K.O."

The boys' jaws dropped, all expect for Gordon, who crossed his arms with a proud smirk.

"Whoa!  That was awesome!" Alan jumped into the air in excitement.

Scott pipped in. "That was really cool.  None of us have been able to do anything like that.  Do you - do you think you could teach us?"

Tanusha looked at them all with wide eyes.  Gordon grinned and Virgil nodded in agreement.  Alan was buzzing by Scott's side, excitement alight in his eyes.  When she made eye contact with him he nodded eagerly.

The corner of her lips twitched up. "Uh, yeah, yeah, I think I could... give you guys some pointers."

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Jeff had been pleasantly surprised when his boys and Tanusha had descended the stairs together.  He was even more so when not a single one of them showed back up for the next forty-five minutes.  Now, he was walking down the hall to the gym, where he heard laughter and chatting.  When he looked in, he saw the young Briton chuckling and fixing Virgil's stance as he stood in front of the dummy.

"Alright, go for it." She told him, stepping back. 

Jeff watched, leaning against the door frame as his middle son took a shot at the dummy.  His fist connected with the head and sent the dummy reeling.  The room flickered from blue to red and then back to blue.

His other boys, lined against the wall, erupted, cheering and groaning as Virgil came the closest to knocking out the dummy on the first go.

When they died down, Tanusha looked to Virgil, grinning. "Almost."

Jeff knocked on the door frame and they all turned to him.  "Sorry, guys," he smiled sympathetically, "I need to pull Tanusha away." He made eye contact with her and she nodded, before walking out with him.

"Bye, Kayo!" Alan called after her, and she smiled while walking away with Jeff.  

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February 23rd, 2056

It was mid-afternoon on Tracy Island and Tanusha was sitting in the lounge, watching as Thunderbird 1 approached the island on her projector.  Soon, she could hear the jets through the walls, and turned her head to watch as it descended into the pool.  A few minutes later, Scott and Jeff arrived in the lounge.

"Hey, Tanusha," Jeff took a seat, followed by his son. "What are you up to?"

"Oh, just hacking into your defenses," she said, not looking up from the projector. "Your firewall sucks."

Jeff blinked and opened his mouth to reply, but no words came to mind.

Tanusha looked up at the silence with realization in her eyes, noticing how she just addressed the founder of International Rescue.

"Sorry, I meant-"

"Uh, guys?  Is something going on?  I can't get to the pool's system to get it to tell me my times." Gordon walked into the room, barefoot with a towel wrapped around his waist and holding a projector with an error message floating above it.

"Oh, um," Tanusha rubbed the back of her neck. "I kind of - I kind of blocked you from the pool's systems." She looked up at the blond, grinning.

"Is this a prank?  I think this is a prank war!  Oh, K.O., you're on!" Gordon dashed out of the room, his eyes alight.

She chuckled, before turning her attention back to Jeff. "Again, I'm sorry, I was just messing around, I didn't do any damage-"

"Can you make them better?"

"I - what?" She asked, curious.

Jeff repeated himself. "Can you make our defenses better?"

"Uh - yeah.  Yeah, I can..."

"Great." Jeff smiled. "I give you full permission to rebuild our defenses to make them as strong as you can.  You can work with Brains, he'll be your guide to our systems, not like you'll need it." He then stood up and said, "Scott?  How about some lunch?"

Scott chuckled. "Dad, it's three o'clock."

"No, I think you meant: lunch o'clock.  Come on." He stepped out of the lounge and headed downstairs.

Scott smiled, standing as well.  He gave Tanusha a high five, before leaving her smiling in awe and excitement in the lounge.