As your cab gets back on the road, you are greeted to the sound of horns honking and people yelling various curses at the cab, to which your driver responds with a mouth that indicates he grew up in the ghetto and that he really wants that tip. As you head for the airport, you pray he is still remembering that an accident or a police stop means a delay and no tip. You quickly eliminate this hope as you see a red blur out the window that you think was a stop sign, and the lack of conversation leads you to believe he wants to concentrate on his driving. By some miracle, the cab doesn't get pulled over, and hopefully didn't get caught on any cameras that take a photo of a car when it runs a red light. He turns around and says, "Forty-three eighty," causing your face to drop when you remember your last filet mignon and lobster tail dinner cost less. Despite that, you live up to your word and give the driver an even sixty, even though this means you aren't buying food on this trip.
You walk into your terminal, and the first thing that catches your attention is the lack of people in here. You know that the price of tickets and lack of comfort are causing a decrease in customers, but there's more signs of life on Mars than in this airport. There is almost no one near the computerized stations, and only three people standing behind the counter, this, however, makes no real difference to you because you already printed out your tickets from one of those ticketing websites. Most people in a rubber mask who needs to avoid getting caught would be scared shitless of this place, fortunately, you're not most people, and we live in a wonderfully technological world. A hack here, an insert there, and the most advanced security systems are easily bypassed. But first things first: you need to change. Looking around momentarily, you find the closest men's room and walk in to find it empty. The lack of people sets the odds of you getting caught while changing very low, but the odds go down even more if you still use the "Out of Order" sign you prepared, so you post it on the door. You know this won't buy you a whole lot of time, but then again, you don't need a whole lot of time.
The first thing you do is strip down to your boxers, shoes, socks, gloves, and rubber mask and stuff the suit into the briefcase. Next, you enter the middle stall and, sure enough, find the vent. You take out a screwdriver, pull off the cover, and send a text to Mike saying, "I'm at the vent." In less than ten seconds, you get a return text that reads, "All clear for 5 minutes, unless you text otherwise," and climb in thinking, 'You'd think by now they'd either put some kind of uncorruptable security measure in or shrink the damn vents.'
With your cell phone opened to the map of the ventilation system Mike hacked from government files you crawl in the directions Mike outlined. After a few turns, slightly weakened areas causing a little too much noise, and blowing away a few rollie pollies, you reach another vent cover and look out it, confirming this is the men's room in the B gates and that you made it within the two minute time limit you set earlier. The look confirms that there is no sign of life in the room, making it all the easier to push off the cover and head back into the ventilation system. Now, even if they do realize someone tried to get passed security, they'll tighten security in the B gates instead of the A gates.
With a few more turns, you're now right above the men's room in the A gates in the remaining three minutes, and now it's time to seal in security's mind you went into the B gates. Confirming no one's around, you push off the cover, stripping the screws in the process, and step down into the stall while closing the door. You open up the briefcase and pull out the pliers and quick drying glue, and get ready to perform today's first illusion. You pull the screws out of the vent cover and cut the heads into nubs shorter than the first digit of your pinky and then glue the nubs to the cover. With the nubs glued on and secured, you glue the cover back onto the vent, letting anyone who only glances at it think it's securely screwed in, and by the time anyone would look thoroughly, you'd be long gone.
With the vent secured, you sprits yourself with a tiny bottle of deodorant and put the suit back on. You toss the pliers, the screw lengths, and the glue in the trash and now that you look like just another business man going away on business for a bit, you head off towards Gate A23 to await your boarding call. Looking at the monitor along the way, you notice that your flight is right on time and still in gate A23, leaving you a half an hour to kill before boarding. You complete the walk to A23, and notice that the seating arrangement creates four ways to kill time until boarding. One way is to review your plans for tonight while making it look like your just going over a presentation, the other three are women.
First off, a brunette dressed casually in a pair of blue "PINK" sweat pants, a white V-neck top, and sneakers. Her V-neck shows off a tiny bit of B-cup breasts, however her hair covers up that tiny bit. She hasn't noticed you yet, since her face is buried in a book, but that book will serve as quite the ice breaker. She's engrossed in "Arsène Lupin vs. Herlock Sholmes," and despite the fact you always thought Leblanc's new name for his detective after Conan Doyle threatened to sue was stupid, though understandable, you do know that book very well, as well as the preceding, "The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin: Gentleman Burglar." As long as you watch what you say, you should be able to carry a conversation quite nicely.
Second, a blonde with her hair back in a ponytail wearing a light pink sundress and white wedged heeled sandals. Her D-cup breasts are contained by a white bra, whose straps can be seen under the straps to her sundress. All she's doing now is drinking a water she bought from one of the kiosks and waiting for boarding to start, less creepy company would probably be appreciated at this point since she seems rather bored.
Third is. . . an interesting surprise, Inspector Dean, most likely heading out to protect the "Blood Tear" from you. Based on her blue denim skirt and black belly shirt, either she isn't on active duty yet or she's posing as a civilian, either way probably hoping to learn who you are on the flight, playing with the possibility you didn't already get there. Her gaze is focused on a piece of paper in her hand, which you suspect has copies of your warning notes printed on it. It may be risky, but this may be your chance to do the impossible feat and prove Cynthia wrong, not to mention get a step ahead of the police. |