If you missed my post last week, you may want to start with chapter one, Reflection.
Delay
Frank stood and stretched. His mouth cracked wide open in a yawn. The first class lounge made an excellent place to nap, with its deep, soft chairs and dim lighting. A nearby display panel informed him the transport was nearing its destination; he had slept for nearly six hours.
His stomach rumbled, so Frank wandered in search of a food dispenser. He found one nearby and began perusing the menu, searching for the perfect dish for his mood. As he was about to make his order, the dispenser’s display went blank, save for one phrase that flashed a few times before it, too, disappeared:
* * * USER NO LONGER PRESENT * * *
Odd, he thought. Perhaps the dispenser was damaged. He flagged down a crew member.
“I’m sorry, sir. We’ll have someone look at it. In the meantime, you can use the dispenser in the second-class lounge.” The crewman pointed the way as he spoke, and started walking off before he was finished talking.
Frank grunted. Wonderful service on these small transports. He headed in the direction the crewman had indicated. He shortly found himself in line behind a young boy; the dispenser was displaying child-appropriate selections, complete with colorful animations and sound effects. The boy walked away quite pleased with his meal — a rather unhealthy combination of ice cream and fried potato wedges. It reminded Frank of his own youth.
Chuckling, he stepped up to the dispenser, half-seriously considering getting the same meal as the boy.
Nothing happened.
Frank tasted bile in his throat. Most dispensers were active only in the presence of a GID; if they were not responding to his presence, then his GID must be malfunctioning.
He could not disembark without an active GID. That would cause numberless problems both for himself and for his company.
He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve and jogged to the compartment where he had stored his luggage. It wouldn’t open.
Of course. It’s tied to my GID too. He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. His own system was betraying him. He sat on the floor next to the compartment with his arms on his knees, and his head rested against the wall.
“Excuse me, sir?” The same crewman stood above him. “Are you alright?”
“Uh.. yes,” Frank replied, standing. “I seem to be having bad luck today. I can’t get my luggage compartment to recognize me.”
“Well, sir, I can open it for you if you can describe its contents to me. You should keep your belongings with you for the remainder of the flight.”
The compartment contained little more than a laptop, a small suitcase of clothes — so small it was almost a briefcase — and a jacket he had not felt like wearing. The crewman made Frank log on to the laptop as well, to prove it was his, before he released Frank’s belongings.
“Please find a seat now, sir. We’re almost there.”
Obediently, Frank went to the nearest chair and tucked his belongings underneath. His laptop he kept out — he had to determine the problem with his GID before he could leave the ship.
The GID appeared completely inactive. Frank wasn’t dead, as far as he was aware, and that ruled out the only thing that would cause the GID to shut itself down. He would need lab equipment to fix it, or at least something with better sensors than his laptop.
To buy himself some time, Frank put away his laptop and pretended to sleep. The crew probably would not wake him until the final call to disembark; he might come up with a solution before then.
He soon found himself being herded toward the exit by a pair of dull-eyed janitors. One walked behind him carrying his suitcase, and the other led the way, the two of them bracketing him in so he could not wander off unnoticed.
Once at the airlock, they handed him his suitcase and waited there for him to leave. They closed the door behind him; apparently he really was the last passenger to disembark. He headed slowly down the corridor toward the security lines.
He barely paid enough attention to his surroundings to avoid tripping over other people; mostly he tried to think of some way to get Farnsworth to meet him on this side of security, or to get him to the other side without having to go through the standard arrival process. Nothing in particular came to mind.
There was nowhere to sit; passengers were expected to wait patiently in the security lines in the order in which they arrived. He needed to stall for time.
As he was looking around for something he could use to create some sort of delay, he caught sight of a Navy uniform just on the other side of the security lines; a moment later, another break in the crowd showed Greg Farnsworth’s brown crew-cut hair. Greg must be impatient for their meeting if he was waiting in the open like that.
Frank smiled. He and Greg were in the same room; all he had to do was get Greg to cross over to this side of the checkpoint. But how? A plan formed in his mind whole, as if it had come out of hiding. It was risky, but then, his situation could hardly get any worse.
Frank waited until he was almost at the front of the line. When Greg was looking in his direction, he started yelling about how nobody should have to put up with such disgusting insults, then punched the red-shirted man in line ahead of him. When the man turned around, Frank punched him again. Red-shirt started to fight back, but it was not long before the other people in line pulled them apart. Most were looking at Frank as if he had gone insane.
Greg noticed, just as Frank had hoped. The Navy man wore a small frown; clearly he realized Frank needed help, but how would he choose to intervene? Greg walked through the security post, flanked by a pair of security guards.
Red-shirt recovered himself enough to ask what was going on, but Greg spared Frank from having to give an answer. “Come with me,” was all he said.
* * *
Ellis wanted to pull out his hair. Frank must have realized his GID was disabled. And how was Ellis supposed to know Farnsworth would have been waiting for Frank in plain sight? Their meetings were always covert!
The security cameras at this spaceport were just as copious as the last, and they allowed Ellis to track Frank from the security line to a detention room where Frank was put by himself. The red-shirted man Frank had attacked was led off to a separate room.
Ellis went to the kitchen for a drink. He had to wait just as long as Frank, but he did not intend to miss the meeting. He had never before been privy to one of Frank’s covert meetings.
When he returned, however, Frank was already having a lively conversation about fishing with Commander Farnsworth. Frank was describing the fishing trips he used to go on with his brother back on Earth; Farnsworth seemed to be engrossed in the tales. Ellis frowned — Frank had no siblings.
It was a code, then. If only Ellis could puzzle it out. There seemed to be no pattern to the topic; no numbers were mentioned, no specific locations discussed. They seemed to jump at random between discussing fly fishing technique and talking about which types of fish they most enjoyed freshly cooked in a campfire to what time of day was best to catch the fish while they were biting and in what weather. If they had not been sitting in a detention room, they would look like two old friends catching up on their favorite hobby — hardly the discrete sort of meeting Ellis had pictured.
A little light flashed on the desk in the detention room. At the same time, a message appeared on one of Ellis’ monitors, informing him that Frank’s GID had successfully restarted. The two men on his screen stood and shook hands, and Frank was escorted out of the detention area.
Ellis softly banged his head against his desk. All the time he had spent preparing that disruption, wasted. He would have to be more careful next time.
* * *
Frank hummed to himself. His improvised plan could not have gone better. The unfortunate victim of his attack would be receiving a sizeable sum in exchange for his assistance in an undercover military operation, or so he would be told. Frank put the man out of his mind.
Greg had had good news. They had finally located the actual group of renegades who had destroyed the Stargazer. Frank would finally have his revenge.
He pulled out his laptop and became Jim Hodgins, a retired ice cream tycoon from Pluto, and went in search of a store selling “his” product.