The Skill Conspiracy Read online

  So, I’d gotten her some crap at a gift store, and she’d gone and picked out something extra nice at a high-end store for me. Awesome.

  “What did you find for me?” she asked brightly.

  “Uh, hold on,” I said, half to delay the look of disappointment she was bound to give me, but half to get us out of the middle of the sidewalk.

  We took a couple steps back toward the nearest building, and I said, “Here,” handing her the bag, intentionally not opening it up for inspection. I then gestured toward the fast-food place next to us and said, “You can go in there and change. I’ll just put my new shirt on out here.”

  I saw her peek down into the bag I’d just given her, and I immediately took a few steps away toward a small alley between the fast-food place and the office supply store next to it in order to get out of punching range. With a bit of side eye thrown my way, Annie walked over to the entrance to the fast-food place, leaving me in the alley to make my own quick change. The shirt I was wearing was an old, red, long-sleeve Henley with some stitching fraying around the collar. The shirt Annie had picked out for me was this light steel-blue button-down thing that looked like it was made out of silk, but instead of being soft and smooth was just stiff enough to jam up into my armpits and taper down to my waist, making me feel restricted, if not claustrophobic. I was just standing there for a couple of minutes trying to get used to the thing when I realized that I should probably tuck it into my jeans. I’m pretty sure that’s what Annie would want me to do. Halfway through the procedure, I looked up toward the entrance of the alley and saw Annie, wearing her new black sweats and hoodie, standing there glaring at me.

  “Hey,” I said sheepishly.

  She didn’t respond verbally, but the look she was giving me did a really excellent job of conveying her dissatisfaction at my choice of apparel.

  “I know. I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I just grabbed the first things I could find.”

  She kept staring at me.

  “And yes,” I continued, “I love the shirt you got me. It’s awesome. Thank you.”

  She shook her head and started to walk away. I took two steps in the other direction to throw the Trace bag with my old shirt in it into a trash can, then jogged a few steps to catch up to her. Fortunately, as soon as I caught up, I saw a yellow cab coming our way, so I stepped out into the street to try to wave it down.

  “Where to?” the cabbie asked as we were getting in.

  “LaGuardia-Kane,” I said.

  “What gate?” he asked.

  “Uh,” I hesitated. “Private jet? Is that a thing?”

  “Yeah, that’s a thing,” the driver said with a bit of a “you dumbass” tone to his voice. I saw him look up at the two of us in his rearview mirror. This was way more scrutiny than I was expecting out of a New York cab driver.

  “We’re just meeting someone there,” Annie said.

  “Uh-huh,” the driver replied and took off down Sixth.

  The TV embedded into the divider between us and the driver was out, which I was glad for. I didn’t exactly want to get into the cab and see that footage of me with the gun. The semi-reflective black surface of the screen showed me something else that was just as disconcerting, though. I hadn’t notice it until just now, when I saw the reflection of the two of us sitting side by side, but Annie and I sitting there with our cheap-ass generic Shadez did look a little bit conspicuous, if not just ridiculous. They were certainly helping to scramble all the facial recognition software in the city that was most definitely already looking for us, but any person with a normal pair of eyes in their head would look at us with our dopey glasses and think, What are those two goobers hiding from? Worse yet, they could maybe realize that the two goobers on TV who had just had a shoot-out at the Union Hall were also wearing those same Shadez. We had to get these things off fast, but we couldn’t do it so long as we were out in the open.

  “Actually, if you can just drop us off at the main gate,” I said to the driver. “I wanna pick up a couple things at the gift shops first.”

  “Sure,” the cabbie said, as Annie gave me a somewhat inquisitive look. I could tell she was dying to know why I had changed the plan, but she knew enough not to ask too many questions while we could be overheard.

  After slogging it out through only a mildly insane amount of New York City traffic, we arrived at the airport, and the cabbie dropped us off at Gate Number One. As soon as we got out of the car, I quickly explained to Annie that we needed to swap out our generic Shadez for some that were a little bit less conspicuous. Fortunately, the fourth store into the shops at the airport was a high-end jewelry store with a Shadez case near the register. I asked Annie to wait outside while I went in to pick out some new ones for the two of us, but she shot me down.

  “I think I’ll pick them out,” she said as she walked into the little shop, leaving me standing alone in the walkway area.

  A few minutes later she came out wearing a pair of thin silver-rimmed Shadez with clear, nonprescription lenses and handed me a case with my own new pair inside.

  “They’re photochromic,” she said. “The lenses get darker in bright light and stay clear when it’s darker.”

  “Cool,” I said. I’d kind of always wanted photochromic glasses. Damn, she had mad shopping skills.

  As I opened the case to take the new glasses out, I stopped myself mid-motion.

  “What?” Annie asked. “They’re cool,” she said defensively.

  “No. Not that,” I said. “How did you put on your new glasses?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?” she replied.

  “Like, did you just take off your old Shadez and then put the new ones on?”

  “Yeah,” she said, as if it were a really stupid question.

  “Oh no,” I said. “How long until our flight?”

  “Like fifteen minutes. Why?” She was sounding concerned now.

  “We gotta go, fast,” I said, as I turned and started to jog back outside the airport, turning to make sure she was following me.

  “Why?” she asked, running to catch up with me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Unless you made extra super sure to somehow hide your face from anywhere in that shop that might have had a little camera in it while you were changing out your Shadez, chances are pretty good that they’re gonna have you on surveillance in as little as thirty minutes but probably no more than an hour.”

  “What?” she asked with panic creeping into her voice. “I didn’t know that. You didn’t tell me.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, still jogging past all the commercial gates and running toward the private end of the airport. “I didn’t know either. Well, I did but I didn’t. Frank knew. I mean. It’s okay. We just gotta go fast.”

  12

  Halfway down the sidewalk outside the airport that ran parallel to all of the gates, Annie and I decided to reenter the building through the Sun Blue Airlines gate. It would have been faster for us to have just kept running straight down the sidewalk outside the building all the way to the private gates, but that would have made it way too easy for anyone tracking our movement via security cameras after locking onto us at the jewelry store.

  “We need to split up again, okay?” I said to Annie once we were back inside and amongst a small crowd of people.

  She looked at me with these pleading eyes that asked “Why” without having to actually form the word with her mouth.

  “I just need you to take the squirreliest path through as many people and as many crazy turns as you can make on your way to the private gates.”

  Her eyes still begged to know why, but she was too afraid to ask.

  “They’ve got cameras everywhere, Annie. With our Shadez on, they won’t be able to use the computers to track us, but they will be able to just look at the monitors and follow us visually, and I wanna make it as hard for them to do that as possible.”

  Understanding blossomed, and she stepped up onto her toes to give me a quick kiss.
/>   “I’m sorry, Alden,” she said, still obviously feeling guilty about having removed her glasses, which actually reminded me that I still had my generic Shades on.

  “Can I borrow your hoodie for a second?” I asked.

  She unzipped it and handed it to me. I put it over my head, and beneath it, I swapped out the generic Shadez for the new photochromics Annie had just bought me.

  “Love you,” I said, as I handed her back the hoodie.

  “Love you too. See you in a few minutes, right?”

  “Ten minutes. Set a timer.”

  I watched her grab her PCD to set a ten-minute timer, and I did the same. Then, we separated, and I did my best to find as many crowded places within the airport as I could, whilst still winding my way toward the far end of the airport. For the first couple of minutes I milled through a crowded food court. Another couple minutes were spent weaving in and out of a check-in line for an international flight. I spent a half minute each in three different bathrooms, one of which became the final resting place for my generic Shades, and then I did quick circuits within three of the busiest stores I could find. With just a minute to spare, I emerged at the end of the commercial gates to see the entrance to the private section of the airport. Once again, I seemed to have arrived first.

  The crowd at this end of the airport was really thin, so I felt like I would have been able to spot Annie coming from quite a distance, but there was no sign of her. I looked down at my PCD to check the time, and with just a few seconds to go before the ten-minute timer I’d set went off, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  “Ah!” I choked out loud, while taking one quick step away from the hand.

  I whirled around and saw with some embarrassment that it was Annie.

  “Where did you—oh.” I was about to ask her where she’d come from, but noticed that I had been standing right in front of the last ladies’ room in the commercial part of the airport.

  “I went into three others too,” she said, obviously trying hard not to look like she was going to laugh at me for almost jumping through the roof a moment earlier.

  “Good,” I said, then opened the door to let her walk ahead of me into the private section of the airport.

  “Passes,” an extremely tall man with a button-down shirt and slacks demanded as we entered through the door.

  I pulled my PCD out of my pocket and thought-commanded my ticket to appear on the screen. Mr. Tall waved his PCD over it and nodded.

  “Mr. Kline, your flight is just down there,” he said, pointing toward a gate nearby.

  “You do know this section of the airport has its own pick-up drop-off area, right?” Mr. Tall said, obviously having noticed that we had, for some reason, come from the public end of the airport.

  “I know,” I replied. “We just needed to buy a couple of things before the flight,” I said, gesturing to my little jewelry bag, which now contained nothing but the empty case of my new Shadez.

  “We also have shops here,” he said, pointing toward a number of storefronts I actually hadn’t noticed until just now.

  “Oh,” I said. “Thanks.”

  Annie pulled out her PCD, Mr. Tall scanned it, nodded, and bade us both a good trip.

  I grabbed Annie’s hand and walked over to the indicated gate, where a very attractive twenty-something flight attendant complete with a short skirt and form-fitting yet somehow somewhat professional-looking top greeted us.

  “Mr. Kline, Ms. Bowers,” Ms. Short Skirt said. “Are the two of you all set?”

  “Yup,” Annie replied as I nodded.

  “Do you have any luggage you’ll be checking?”

  You know what? I hadn’t thought of that. I decided we would just have to buy some new stuff when we arrived in Colombia. Hopefully, I would be able to find something without an “NYC” logo on it for Annie.

  “Nope. We’re traveling light,” Annie said.

  “All right, then. Come this way.”

  Ms. Short Skirt turned to lead us toward a door that opened up to a spot near the runways.

  “Is that our jet?” I asked as we followed her outside and saw that she was heading in the direction of the slick white jet no more than two hundred feet away.

  “It’s the one you’ll be flying in today,” she replied politely.

  “Cool,” I said, then, without thinking, I asked, “No security?”

  I immediately thought better of it, and not just because Annie gave me a why-the-hell-did-you-ask-that-you-dummy look.

  “No, sir,” came the reply from Ms. Short Skirt. “Is this your first time flying private?”

  “No,” I said, thinking that if I’d said “yes” she’d somehow know that the only reason I was flying private today is because I was on the run from the law and had to get out of the country.

  Unfortunately, Annie said, “Yes” at the exact same time.

  “Uh, mine, not his,” Annie said to Ms. Short Skirt, this time giving me a look that simply said, “You’re an idiot.” It might also have said, “Stop staring at Ms. Short Skirt’s short skirt.”

  I shut my mouth, kept my eyes locked on the jet, and walked up to the stairway that led into the little plane. As we approached, a man I assumed was the pilot came down out of the stairs and asked to confirm my identity. I pulled out my PCD, let him scan it, and returned the little unit to my front pocket.

  “Welcome aboard, Mr. Kline, Ms. Bowers,” the pilot said to us as we followed him up the short staircase. “My name is Captain George Antonopoulos, and I’ll be your pilot today.”

  I’d be calling him Captain George. No way I was going to be attempting to say that monstrosity of a last name out loud anytime soon.

  “Flight time today should be just about five hours,” Captain George said. “As soon as the two of you grab your seats and get comfortable, we can get on our way. You need anything at all, Jenny here will help you out. She’s also our co-pilot for the day.”

  Jenny was apparently the real name of Ms. Short Skirt, and as I took my seat, realizing that my face was now going to be ass level with her, I decided to look intently at my knees and responded in the negative when she asked if we wanted anything before we took off.

  Annie also declined her offer, then laughed. She nudged then punched my arm lightly.

  “You don’t have to avoid eye contact altogether,” she said with a smile, noticing the awkward ass-to-face height similarity I was trying so hard to avoid.

  I returned the smile and gave Annie a kiss.

  “If everyone is all set, we’re up next and will be taking off shortly,” came the voice of Captain George over the intercom.

  Jenny told us to push a little button over our heads if we needed anything and then disappeared up into the cockpit, closing the door behind her.

  I breathed. It felt like the first time I’d actually done that in a few hours. It felt good. On top of that, this jet was pretty cool. It was a little tight inside, but it actually had room for eight people. All the seats were plush white leather, and the carpet in the aisle was a deep blue with some silver threading weaved into it as accent. Annie and I were sitting side by side in two seats facing forward. On the other side of the little aisle was a mini-couch facing lengthwise. Behind that were a couple more seats around a small round table, and next to that were two more seats side by side just like the ones Annie and I were in. If I’d been thinking about it, I probably would have tried to sit on the little couch, but I’d been so conditioned over the years to just sit in a normal seat facing forward on a plane that I’d just walked right over to this one without thinking. Maybe I could switch over to the couch when the “fasten seat belts” light went off. Wait, did they even have that light on this plane? Oh, yeah. There it is.

  “What are you thinking about?” Annie said, interrupting my airplane reveries.

  “Nothing. I just . . . this is crazy.”

  “You think we’ll make it?” she asked.

  I put a finger to my mouth as if to say “quiet.” Then, I
pointed to my ear, then pointed all around the interior of the plane in one sweeping gesture. I was trying to tell her, “Don’t say anything because someone could be listening,” and I think she got it. She sat back in her seat and grabbed my hand as the plane’s engine came to life, moving us out onto the runway.

  13

  Heading to Colombia on a private jet, my girlfriend by my side, and a few million in my bank account, all sounded pretty good. The STU Corporation and my own STU Donor Union trying to kill me, along with a certain unknown faction of the United States government more likely than not being willing to help disappear me off of the planet Earth because of some information one of the founding fathers of modern STU technology had put into my head, well, that part sucked. I hadn’t bothered to move over to the little couch yet because, as it turns out, I was finding out that I was actually pretty good at dealing cards. Not sure if that had been Frank’s skill or Dr. K’s, but an hour into the flight Annie had dozed off, and I’d picked up a pack of playing cards that was in a little bin next to my seat by the window.

  I’d been playing with them on a little tray that flipped open from my armrest, but eventually I got up and moved over to one of the seats near the little table so I’d have more room to shuffle, cut, and deal the cards. I’m sure that there were other technical words for what I was doing, and I could probably use my PCD to look them up, but for now, I was just enjoying watching the cards fly from my fingers instead of thinking about all the crap that had been happening these past couple of weeks.

  Thinking about my PCD did remind me about something Frank had said to me while he was lying on the floor of the Union Hall, bleeding to death. He said the units were paired together. Everything I’d known about PCDs my entire life, and even all of my new skills with manipulating the units told me that was strange. I got up from my seat, gently woke Annie, and asked her to give me her PCD. She did, then managed to pass out again. All the excitement of the day had me completely wired. Seems like it had the opposite effect on her—she was completely zonked.