11.
Sienna
I wasn’t quite so happy a few hours later when I had to squeeze into the belly of a giant tin can that was going to be propelled through the sky by explosive jet fuel, but at least I got upgraded to first class. I found my seat by the window and stowed my carry-on bag, which had enough clothing to last me for a few days, plus a couple cycles of accidentally burning it off, a perpetual hazard of my job. I also had eight burner phones packed as well as some additional credit cards and a couple forms of ID, which probably made me look like a terrorist, but this was all standard traveling gear for me nowadays. Joining my new organization had made my life easier in most ways, but standing in line at security checkpoints while the TSA ran a wand over me was still a pain.
I was sitting in my seat, staring out the window at the workers tossing suitcases out of one of those luggage cars, when I heard someone step up next to me and start going through the standard traveler motions. Grunts and a low clearing of the throat told me this guy was about to hoist a carry-on bag up to put it in the overhead bin. He made kind of a big production of it, and I heard him say, “Excuse me,” to someone trying to get around him. He sounded way too peppy.
I kept my head riveted on the goings-on outside my window. I had some reading material for the flight, which was two hours from Minneapolis-St. Paul to LaGuardia in New York. I could have made the jump myself in about an hour or less if the stupid FAA hadn’t revoked my cross-country flight privileges when I left government service. I kept telling myself I had to take the good with the bad, but fortunately New York had given me blanket clearance to fly subsonic all over the state. I doubted I’d need to jet up to Poughkeepsie for any reason, but it was nice to have the option. Luckily Minnesota had already granted me the right of flight in-state, but I didn’t exercise it as much as I had before because I didn’t want to piss them off and risk them revoking it.
“Excuse me,” the guy next to me said as he grunted his way into his seat. He hadn’t touched or disturbed me, which made me wonder why he was excusing himself. I turned around and confirmed what I’d already suspected when I’d caught a glance at him out of the corner of my eye: he was a salesman, and he likely wanted to network or connect or something. I could tell by his grin.
“You are excused,” I said and turned back to the window. I cursed myself for even saying that much a moment later when he took it as a license to engage.
“Heck of a summer so far, isn’t it?” he asked, peppy, peppy and more peppy. I wondered idly if he’d guzzled ten Five Hour Energy shots before getting on the plane or if this was just his natural state.
“It’s all right,” I said, trying to skirt the line between being rude and giving him an opening. I’d had a great summer so far, not that he needed to know that.
“Hard to believe it’ll be Labor Day in a couple weeks,” he said with a low, fake chuckle. “It’s all gone so fast. We’ll be up to our eyeballs in snow here in just a few short months!”
“True statement,” I said, and turned to look at the guy. I held in a big sigh and watched as his eyes got big as he recognized me.
“You’re her!” he said, his enthusiasm impossibly bumping up a few levels. And I thought he’d already reached his ceiling.
This happened a lot; people were perpetually recognizing me, but then they couldn’t remember my name or called me by someone else’s. One time someone—some beautiful someone, who I will love forever—thought I was Anne Hathaway. That made my day, because I’ve looked in the mirror, and Anne Hathaway’s figure I do not have.
“I’m her,” I said, my own enthusiasm muted somewhat by the fact that this shit was old. Like, super old. Like Janus old.
“Did you see that thing that happened in New York this morning?” he asked, like I was just jetting to the Empire State for shits and giggles and maybe Hamilton. He lowered his voice like it was scandalous. “Things are getting crazy there, aren’t they? Two heroes now, just running through the streets all lawless—”
“New York City still has laws,” I said, shrugging. One of them was that I couldn’t bring a gun into their city, which annoyed me to no end because it forced me to rely on shooting bursts of flame at anyone who engaged me at a distance. They were a lot more likely to survive 9mm bullets, frankly, but whatever, I didn’t make the laws and I didn’t get to ignore them anymore, either.
“But, I mean, these people are vigilantes, aren’t they?” he asked, leaning in, which I found even more annoying. His breath smelled of spearmint Tic Tacs, and I feel about spearmint like Taylor Swift feels about Katy Perry.
“They’re giving the NYPD a helping hand,” I said, subtly backing off without making a horrid face. “I suspect if the city of New York decided it really didn’t want citizens helping them out, they’d make them stop.” At the point of a gun, probably, but it’d get done.
“Hmm,” he said, nodding, like I’d given him something to really think about. I could see by his eyes that he was just trying to formulate the next thing he was going to say, though. “I’ve watched some of your exploits, and I gotta say …” he chuckled again, like this was all part of one hilarious joke we were in on together, “your job is so dangerous—putting yourself out there fighting all these bad guys.” He shuddered, like it was twenty degrees in the airplane or something, and giggled like a little boy. “It sounds like the worst job in the world to me.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Worse than manscaper?”
That caught him off guard, and he scratched self-consciously at his chest in such a manner that I mentally cringed. “Well, at least that’s less dangerous,” he said lamely.
“Clearly you’ve never had to shave Chewbacca.”
“Hmmm,” he said, now suddenly preoccupied with his cell phone. He had it out and was typing away with his thumbs like a pro. I took this as a sign that he was done with me, blessedly, and put my head against the bulkhead. I didn’t intend to go to sleep, but I ended up drifting right off with the summer sun shining on my face through the window.
I woke up when the plane touched down, kind of astounded I’d slept through the flight but not at all displeased. I got antsy flying commercial, probably because I wasn’t in control and because I couldn’t feel the wind on my face. Also, I wasn’t the biggest fan of reading since I'd spent years doing it to kill time while trapped in my house, and while I had a few movies loaded on my iPad, I got twitchy watching them on flights. Also, I’d seen everything I had multiple times.
Thanks to being in first class, I was one of the first off the plane, and I drifted through the crowds at LaGuardia, ignoring the temptation to feed at one of the innumerable restaurants around me. I was saving myself for Shake Shack. I carried my bag snug on my shoulder as I left the security area and descended toward the baggage claim, where I was suddenly very regretful that I hadn’t travelled with sunglasses.
About a billion flashbulbs went off as I came down the escalator, blinding me and making me both sorry and grateful for New York handgun restrictions all in one. The paparazzi were waiting for me, with more cameras than I’d believed still existed in the US. Hadn’t everyone switched to phones already?
Apparently not, judging by the strobe light effect of the flashbulbs all around me. I got mobbed as I walked out of the security exit, barely able to see through the crowd to the double doors past the baggage claim and the bright daylight beyond. I heard about a hundred voices shout, “Ms. Nealon!” and I suddenly remembered that my super-peppy seat neighbor had texted right as we were taking off. Maybe it was innocent, or maybe he’d tipped off the jackals that I was coming to town. Either way, I was not disposed to think of him kindly.
“What brings you to New York, Ms. Nealon?”
“Hamilton,” I said, pushing my way through the crowd without committing felony assault. It was not easy.
“Does it have anything to do with the incident on Wall Street this morning?”
“Why, what happened on Wall Street this morning?” I asked, playing innocent. “Did somebody knock over a bank or something?”
“Ms. Nealon, what do you think of Captain Frost and Gravity Gal? Have they inspired you to come up with your own superhero name?”
That one evinced a scowl, though I was trying to keep my head down as I waited for my checked bag. Damn me for not squeezing everything into a carry-on. “Everything cool is already trademarked,” I said.
“What about Power Girl? Or Mega Girl—”
I spun on the crowd of reporters. “If anyone calls me ‘Fill-in-the-blank-Girl,’ I will slap them so hard in the balls that they’ll spit them out like watermelon seeds.” I scanned the crowd, which had fallen into a stunned silence. “I see you believe me. Good.” I caught movement on the conveyer out of the corner of my eye and scooped up my suitcase, which was, at Ariadne’s suggestion, adorned with a pink tassel. So I could recognize it, and, apparently, soften my image in front of the entire world since a boatload of paparazzi took about a thousand pictures of it. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go haggle with a scalper for theater tickets.” And I flew over their heads and shot out the door.
The hot, humid New York summer hit me full in the face. I landed on the pavement just as a black sedan screeched to a stop in front of me, the mob of reporters at my heels. Lieutenant Allyn Welch was waiting behind the wheel. “Get in,” he said.
“But the sign inside says not to trust rides from unlicensed cabbies—”
“Get in before the savages catch up with you,” he said, and I took heed, tossing my luggage over the seat into the back. I jumped in, and he tore away from the curb before I’d even closed the door, clearly as happy to get away from the damned press as I was.
“Good flight?” Welch said, the air from the open driver’s side window blowing through his thin hair, rendering his comb-over even more of a mess.
“Got a little bumpy at the end,” I said, watching the cluster of paparazzi that we were leaving in the dust. “I hope it’s not a sign of things to come.”