Twenty Six

"I've got you now, my pretty,” Kandhi shouted at the little black box once she was safely inside her rental car. "And this time, you're not getting away."

She shoved it into the central chamber of her brand new carry-on and headed straight for the Phoenix airport. She didn't care about sleep. She didn't care about food. She had been driving and driving for so long now she felt just like a machine. Her You was still dormant and she wasn't missing the gadget one bit. She knew where she was going and she went straight there. This time it was all business. Returned the rental car without a hassle. Got through security, no sweat. Boarding pass, check. Wait for the flight, not a problem. Get to the gate, uh-oh. Trouble. National Security. Alert level raised. Apologies from the airline. No carry-ons allowed. All carry-ons must be checked at boarding. Not to worry. They will all be safely stowed below and returned upon arrival. No time to do anything about it. They were taking the carry-ons as you boarded, without warning, without time. She had to let it go.

“It'll be okay”, she told herself. “They'll take it straight to the hold and right back out again in San Francisco.”

That's what she told herself, but all throughout the flight she was worried. She nearly turned on the You again, but decided it wouldn't do any good. She didn't know about the proximity radio detector. Ginger hadn't told her about that back door contingency. It wasn't in the specs and nobody told her everything ever. How many times had she complained to Chris, to Tom. She needed to know. She needed to know every little thing. Griggsy! She'd never know what he'd put in there, what he'd done, what ridiculous, crazy, stupid, arrogant, pompous, jackass technology he'd gone right ahead and rammed into the thing's very registers, into its very fibers, into the permanent read-only fixtures of its central core.

Whatever it was, it was enough. Enough to put the notion into the head of a baggage handler that the brand new bright pink carry-on there, ostensibly marked for that very flight, was actually intended for a different airline entirely. The baggage handler felt such serious concern that he double checked the computer himself, and found it was true. The computer showed it was booked for a flight to Miami in twenty minutes time. The baggage handler hurried down the terminal hallway as fast as he could, so worried that the little carry-on would miss its flight and then be stranded there in Phoenix. Someone was going to miss it. He could make that person very happy and eternally grateful if only he just hurried it up. So he rushed. And he made it on time. And the last thing he saw was the cute little carry-on being flung into the belly of the jetliner that was destined to fly it straight into the glowing red sunset.