April 2: Down to Earth (26 page)

"Thank you, but I really just want to be left alone, if I don't have some pressing problem. I'm planning on spending a few days with Adzusa Satos, who came down on the shuttle with me, so I don't wish to be separated from her. If you want to expedite her through Customs and Security, I'll walk through with her, but I'm really not subject to either, so no big process is needed. I pass USNA Security and Customs all the time on ISSII and New Las Vegas and it's no problem."

"We didn't know you would have a traveling companion. Your grandfather, when he inquired for an information contact didn't mention it."

"Probably because I didn't know it myself. We chatted on the flight down and she kindly offered to show me around, because she was basically raised on the islands. We've met before on Home, but never got to know each other on a friendly personal level. So if you want to walk her through please do so."

"I really need to go talk to some people first. Would you wait a few moments in our VIP lounge and we'll take care of your friend and bring her along?"

"No. I think I'll stay with her. I'm worried you might give her a hard time for associating with me and I think you need to call your bosses and tell them everything is not just what they thought it was and ask what to do. I'm leaving here and going where I please and I won't be
managed.
I don't want constant official hospitality hanging over me. So get out of the doorway and let us disembark. If we hadn't wasted all this time flapping our gums with you, we'd have all been off this shuttle by now."

"I'm sorry you feel that way. We thought you'd welcome a quiet official welcome. We can really be helpful in making things smoother."

"For whom? So far you're just ignoring my complaint, you are blocking the door. If you don't intend to let me off the plane, I guess I can keep my seat and wait for them to service it to lift again."

"Not at all," she said, touching the side of her hair briefly, like she was pushing her ear bud back in to hear something better. "Why don't you bring your friend and we'll expedite you together?" she said, backing down.

April gave Adzusa a questioning look and got a nod to move on. When the State Department lady saw the sophisticated video rig, riding on Adzusa's shoulder she looked unhappy. The public eye April wore had been enough trouble. April slung her small bag cross ways, strap over her right shoulder, hanging under her left arm. They walked down a long corridor that had waiting areas and counters. Everything was empty and there were no people. Even worse, their escort acted like nothing was unusual and didn't comment on why the place had  been stripped of people. When they fell in behind them, April keyed her spex to activate two small cameras, that looked backwards from above each ear. Her foreword vision was unobscured, but by glancing up slightly she had a rear-view - eyes in the back of her head.

"They evacuated the public from this whole section of the terminal," Adzusa said aloud to her, ignoring the fact the two walking behind them could hear what they were saying. "I have a bad feeling about this. Is there anything you can do? I'm afraid we're going to be hanging in ankle chains before dark, looking at the rats upside down."

"I have an aversion to Federal hospitality too, so I just primed our militia net on my spex. I can't keep us from being snatched, but I have the next ten satellites that pass this location primed to dump on it, if they jam my link and try to cut me off. They'll burn everything off down to the bedrock and Pearl Harbor will be a lot bigger.

"There's over a million people live on this island April. My
dad
lives on this island."

"Sorry, but if we go down, I intend to take an honor guard they won't forget. The island will still be here. At least some of it. Just not Honolulu, or much on this edge of the island. I could have targeted stuff on the mainland too. Crud, I forgot how bad it smells down here."

In her spex the agents behind them looked at each other and seemed tense. The lady very carefully, as if she were thinking about each word, spoke up so they'd hear. "Honest, ladies. We have no intent to detain you. We simply intend to escort you out, with as little fuss as possible."

When they got down to the security gates, they could see a crowd being held back by a portable barricade and a line of airport security. It was a little different than any crowd she had ever seen, because every one of them had a camera or a microphone. It was the press and they couldn't have looked any nastier, if they had pitchforks and flaming torches, instead of media gear.

"You see we were trying to protect you?" the lady from the State Department asked her. "Do you really want to walk out into that, or do you want us to sneak you out a side door or in a van?"

"Are they as creepy as they look?" April wondered, amazed.

"They'll be all over you, pawing and tugging like beggars in a Protectorate bazaar," she said.

"You really don't like them do you?" April asked, amused, but actually agreeing.

"With all due respect to Miss Satos here, because I realize she is a real journalist, this mob is the scum of the Earth."

"Well I'll give you a treat then. After Adzusa clears here, we're going to walk through that crowd and I suggest you call for a few ambulances right now, because if anyone lays their grubby little paws on me, I'm going to teach them some manners. If you want to take some video, your crowd control people might enjoy it later." That got no reply, but no objections either.

They got to Security and Adzusa walked through and was cleared. She didn't have any luggage. That was the surest way to not have any hassle. She had her com pad on her belt linked to her video and opened it up and showed them it was a working machine. April was right behind her and the guard in Homeland Security uniform objected. "She has a knife in her belt and the machine says that thing holstered is not a gun mechanically, but it appears to be a weapon and nothing that is a replica, or has the
appearance
of a weapon is permitted."

"It is a weapon," April informed him. "Your buddies working security in orbit see them all the time when we pass security. It's a Mark IV Singh laser pistol and you better get used to it, because if you have more of us come through from Home, some of them carry pretty crazy stuff. They carry long guns, around the station. Who knows what they'd want to feel safe down here."

The State Department lady, Caroline spoke up, "Miss Lewis is a citizen of Home, as you can see from her card. She is not subject to being stopped, or any restrictions on what she can carry into, or across USNA territory. You should have a country specific instruction sheet in your manual that details that."

"Yes, we did, but my boss tore it out and threw it away. That's not what he told me when he trained me."

"Then if you wish, you can join your boss on the sidewalk after you both are discharged." She pulled out her com pad and folded it open, saying, "Phone mode. Would you like the exceptional honor, of being fired by the President of the United States of North America herself?"

"The guard glared at her, but yielded. "No I'll pass. That way I'll have the satisfaction of still being here, after the election and that silly bitch is out of a job instead of me."

He didn't see it coming at all. The impeccably dressed, feminine lady in front of him, caught him flat footed and slapped him open handed, so hard he slid on his butt into the scanning machine and ended up back against it with both legs sprawled out straight. The crack of it was like a gun shot. His head was bent over so far, for a moment April thought she had broken his neck. Then after a pause he blinked and a flicker of awareness passed across his face and April realized he had been knocked senseless for a moment from a flat handed slap.

"No, you pushed past the limits there, even if you do let her pass. You are no longer a Federal employee. Turn your ID in and surrender your weapon and remove yourself from the security area. Come on," she said to April and Adzusa. "now Customs. Damn - I broke a nail on that jackass."

"You are having some internal dissent?" April asked her, confused. "But that was a Homeland Security man and you have another one of them with you."

For the first time the man spoke. "There's disagreement even within the agencies. And don't expect it to be any smoother with Customs," he warned.

The officer at Customs looked positively eager, which April didn't take as a good sign.

He asked Adzusa. "Anything to declare?" Giving her passport hardly a glance.

"No. I have no luggage and I'm not importing anything."

"Do you have the declaration form for your video equipment, showing you took it out of the country and didn't purchase it abroad?" Caroline tensed at that.

"Yes, here it is," she offered the document, "and the file number to check it against your copy in your database."

"Hmm," he looked at the camera which carried a serial number on its face, than asked to see a serial number for the pad she carried on her belt. He looked at her ears and hands and April realized he was looking for jewelry to argue about.

"Thank you, Ma'am. Enjoy your visit to the islands."

"I'm not a visitor, this is my home," she informed him, in precisely clipped angry speech.

"Anything to declare?" he asked April in exactly the same voice he used with Adzusa.

"I'm a citizen of Home and am not subject to duty or seizure, so by definition I can't have anything to declare. I frequently pass Customs on your orbital territories and extend them the courtesy of letting them know what we carry their emergency or fire services might want to know about. But it just a courtesy and I have nothing like that today."

"Then why are you wearing a foreigners pass around your neck, that doubles as a travel permit if you are not subject to USNA law?

April silently thanked Adzusa for making her think this through ahead.

"We've been doing so, again, as a courtesy. Just as you would take your shoes off, if you had rented a house to someone and it was their custom to take them off before entering. We did so even though we thought it a little rude. But when courtesy is withdrawn, it can't be extended in return, can it? So your lack of manners just spelled an end to our patience with the ID." She took her card off, flipped it on the floor and drew her laser, saying, "Set twenty percent power," and gave it a short burst. There was a buzzing flash with green tones and card was a melted puddle with an acrid stink and she reholstered her pistol.

The Customs man looked real hard at her shoulder bag.

"Would you like to push for a further deterioration in Home - USNA relations?" she asked. She had pointedly never taken her hand off her pistols grip, when she holstered it.

The man was fuming worse than the mess on the floor. There was a silent war of glances and glare, that traveled between him and her two escorts.

"Wrap it up before you get us all killed," the Homeland Security man with her told him.

"What's she going to do, kill all three of us and walk out the door?" he sneered.

"No fool. She's hot networked in their defense system with her spex and if somebody jams her, or if the net goes down while you're screwing around playing Mr. Big, the next ten sats in orbit are auto tasked to drop their weapons on us and the whole city is gone. Precisely because she was scared some jackass like you might arrest her."

The man had turned as white as anyone April had ever seen, like an albino. There was a sheen of cold sweat that seemed to have instantly popped out on his face.

"You should have taken the whole damn shuttle out when it was coming down, instead of letting her set foot on the ground!"

"You still don't get it," April informed him. "Then there's no telling what my friends might have done in response. It's entirely possible they would be angry enough to hit the North American continent. They couldn't make it disappear under the sea like this island, but I'm sure they'd strip anything resembling civilization away, before they felt they'd exacted retribution."

"Pass," was all he could say with a wave of his hand.

They walked up to the barrier and the Security man asked, "If we can't sneak you out, can I make a path for you through them? I'm willing to throw away my career if it will do any good. These people will abuse you if you try to shoulder through them." He looked worried.

"No." April said, gesturing over her shoulder with a thumb. "You've done more than enough dealing with those two for us. Adzusa, stay close behind and we'll walk out and get a car." April knew she should have thanked Caroline too, but she had disliked her so easily, she didn't have it in her to say it.

She squeezed between two of the airport security men and made a gesture at the closest couple newsies to move aside. They all shouted over each other, to where nothing was intelligible. The closest one over the tape shoved a camera across the barrier right in her face and set the flash off. April for the first time in public moved as fast as  her gene mod allowed her to now, slapping the camera straight down on the floor with a crash,  reached back across the security tape and poked a straight index finger right in the fellows eye, who had invaded her space. His hands were going up to grab at the injury, when she grabbed a handful of his amble hair and pulled his face down to meet her knee coming up. After the crunch she just pulled a little harder and side stepped, so he went flying face down behind her. The nearest other fellow to the left still had his camera up leaning forward with it eagerly, so April just straight armed it back into his face.

Even without her newly enhanced reflexes, the last year's Wednesday night workouts and martial arts training from Jon and Jeff was showing in her form.

By that time the crowd was starting to react and April pulled her pistol again, first shooting the man's camera laying on the pavement, even though it was probably junk already. She wanted the front rows to have some warning what was coming. Instead of backing off, the crowd was pressed forward from behind, to fill the hole made by the two stricken reporters. She carefully shot the toes, on four of the front newsies, before the crowd started to realize how badly things had suddenly gone wrong.