02-29-2020, 10:53 PM
2/28/2020 6:45 AM Eternity International Airport
Dawn Marcourt-DeFarge wasn’t feeling at all well. All day yesterday, she had had a constant unquenchable thirst and this morning her throat was beginning to feel swollen. She was fighting chills all over, and it was more than just the cold wet winters the Eternity Bay Area was known for. Her stomach was uneasy, and try as she might to rationalize, it was more than garden-variety anxiety. She was popping CBD cough drops every thirty minutes and slurping herbal tea by the hour with no noticeable effect. Nevertheless, Dawn had one final mission to accomplish, and she knew she couldn’t let some stupid cold get in the way. She just had to make it on board her flight and the rest would be a walk in the park.
As her High Speed Train emerged from the Emerald Tunnel and began its gradual deceleration, she began to form a backup plan in her mind. Recent events like the Ferry Bombing, daily protests to remove the president, and now this new Bat Pox outbreak had made Gardavasque a significantly less stable, albeit more lucrative, business environment for the trading of political secrets. She had some extremely valuable kompromat with her that could help bring down Gardavasque’s corrupt ruling party; Dawn held, expertly stitched into the lining of her designer handbag, paper originals of bank notes, signed by President Snollygoster himself, that proved his purported wealth was all a grand illusion, that he was in fact a simple tool of a foreign dictator, and that cynical journalists possessed this evidence, but killed the story because it was more valuable as a kept secret. And now, unfortunately for everyone, there was a Bat Pox epidemic rapidly making its way around the globe. Not only was the disease itself dangerous, macroeconomists were blaming the sudden free-fall of world stocks on worldwide loss of confidence in international trade.
If she could just get through security without coughing.
It was a little late in the operation to change any of her contingencies, but the health screenings had only started this week. She had a 48-hour mandate to return to Kerlile at all costs. The combination of these two factors meant that aborting her trip would not be an option. She needed a contingency plan for getting out of the country if she couldn’t make her flight. As she walked past the pharmacy she picked up a pregnancy test and an Ekie Diet Cola. Faking morning sickness would be a dubious explanation for her symptoms, but she calculated a 70% chance the Federal Police Officer would be young and male and obviously eager to avoid getting too much detail about her medical issues. It could explain fatigue, slightly elevated temperature (if she had one), and of course irritability which she was fully prepared to demonstrate if the situation called. She just couldn’t cough.
Dawn knew she had a to create an optimal window of about ten minutes where she would almost late to catch her flight; it would put extra pressure on anyone scrutinizing her to get it over with quickly so she could catch her flight. This meant she had to time her getting into the security line just right. As she eventually came to the line, she noticed it was longer than usual. That was not a good sign, it could indicate the news reports of tighter scrutiny of passengers at the airport we true. There were posted signs explaining that extra medical screenings were taking place due to the Bat Pox outbreak; passengers with any health symptoms were required to notify the Federal Police and report for screening which included temperature-taking.
She brought up her electronic boarding pass on her PearPhone and got out her Sentinel Pass and her Photo ID. The Sentinel Pass was new under the current Administration, it allowed her to skip most of the line and present directly to the Screening Agent, for a hefty fee of course. She drew in a slow breath on a count of ten, held it ten, and released it slowly on a count of ten, just as Hester Perel had practiced with her. What luck, the agent was a pale-faced young guy whose uniform hung off his lanky shoulders, giving him the appearance of being undernourished.
“Have you traveled to Shen in the past 30 days?” The agent asked.
“No.” Dawn replied.
“Have you have any flu-like symptoms in the past two weeks?”
“No.” Dawn replied, this time she could feel a slightest bit of irritation in the back of her throat, a cough, wanting to come forth. Oh Goddess, not now she thought.
The agent looked at her and narrowed his eyes. Here was an obvious business traveler, well-dressed, with a round trip flight to Kerlile, a somewhat unfriendly country with a history of spying on Gardavasque, but he was now looking out for Vulkarian terrorists and passengers potentially infected with bat pox.
“What is your reason for travel?” The agent needed to hear speak with a Gardavascan accent, so he asked Dawn an open-ended question.
“International business. I own a winery in Loyalty.” She replied, smiling slightly and making sure he heard the twang of elongated vowels in her regional speech. Something that she had learned generally helped working people feel more at ease with her.
She knew the standard was to ask three questions and move on. So it surprised her when he didn’t flag her on right away.
“And how many traveling in your party today?”
This question stunned Dawn, because it was somewhat unexpected, but not completely out of order. She began to calculate percentages in her head.
“Just me… My husband will be joining me in Grapevale tomorrow. We will be petitioning the Council of Kerlile for a license to export wines.” This was of course a major lie made up on the spot, something that she knew would be difficult but not impossible to verify. Her husband Jordan was in fact still at home sleeping in. He didn’t know she had left, or where she was, or who she really was for that matter. Eventually when he learned the truth, maybe later today maybe tomorrow, it would be too late. The woman known as Dawn Marcourt-DeFarge would be dead forever, and she would return home to take up an identity she hadn’t known since she left Kerlile Her actions rematriating today was going to break his little heart. She became acutely aware of the fake smile plastered on her face, and had to remember to slowly relax her muscles in her cheeks and forehead. The cough she felt a second ago was tickling again. She needed water to stifle it right away.
“And you said you’re traveling for business?” The agent was growing more suspicious of her, although he had no evidence she wasn’t who she said she was.
“That’s right.” Dawn breathed in slowly for a count of ten as the skinny agent scrutinized her documents one more time. Just at that moment, someone somewhere in the middle of the line sneezed! People turned to look, there was a noticeable pause of background chatter as the person sneezing drew attention.
“Excuse me, but my flight is boarding. Can I go please?” Dawn asked in respectful but firm tone. He noticed she wore a gold lapel pin of the Conservative Christian Capitalists, Gardavasque’s ruling party. It lended her credibility. She was obviously rich, and making life difficult for rich people was a good way for a Federal agent to collect grievances against him.
The agent’s attention had be successfully drawn away. “Have a nice flight, ma’am.” He said flatly returned her documents, making no further eye contact with her.
She was in the clear. As she hurried toward the gate to catch her flight, she exhaled slowly. Life in Kerlile was going to be different, but she hoped simpler and more honest. As she reached the gate, she stopped for some water and another CBD cough drop. She imagined these would probably still be banned in Kerlile. She had had a taste of another life as Dawn Marcourt for 37 years, and now it was time to return to her native Kerlile. To be among her people once again. She looked forward to going to Church of the Goddess and trying some Kerlian soda bread you couldn’t get in Gardavasque. As she bordered the flight and took her seat, she closed her eyes said silent goodbyes to Jordan, to Saint Antoine, and to Dawn. Now should would once again be “Donna, Kerlian Citizen ID 22025946.”
Dawn Marcourt-DeFarge wasn’t feeling at all well. All day yesterday, she had had a constant unquenchable thirst and this morning her throat was beginning to feel swollen. She was fighting chills all over, and it was more than just the cold wet winters the Eternity Bay Area was known for. Her stomach was uneasy, and try as she might to rationalize, it was more than garden-variety anxiety. She was popping CBD cough drops every thirty minutes and slurping herbal tea by the hour with no noticeable effect. Nevertheless, Dawn had one final mission to accomplish, and she knew she couldn’t let some stupid cold get in the way. She just had to make it on board her flight and the rest would be a walk in the park.
As her High Speed Train emerged from the Emerald Tunnel and began its gradual deceleration, she began to form a backup plan in her mind. Recent events like the Ferry Bombing, daily protests to remove the president, and now this new Bat Pox outbreak had made Gardavasque a significantly less stable, albeit more lucrative, business environment for the trading of political secrets. She had some extremely valuable kompromat with her that could help bring down Gardavasque’s corrupt ruling party; Dawn held, expertly stitched into the lining of her designer handbag, paper originals of bank notes, signed by President Snollygoster himself, that proved his purported wealth was all a grand illusion, that he was in fact a simple tool of a foreign dictator, and that cynical journalists possessed this evidence, but killed the story because it was more valuable as a kept secret. And now, unfortunately for everyone, there was a Bat Pox epidemic rapidly making its way around the globe. Not only was the disease itself dangerous, macroeconomists were blaming the sudden free-fall of world stocks on worldwide loss of confidence in international trade.
If she could just get through security without coughing.
It was a little late in the operation to change any of her contingencies, but the health screenings had only started this week. She had a 48-hour mandate to return to Kerlile at all costs. The combination of these two factors meant that aborting her trip would not be an option. She needed a contingency plan for getting out of the country if she couldn’t make her flight. As she walked past the pharmacy she picked up a pregnancy test and an Ekie Diet Cola. Faking morning sickness would be a dubious explanation for her symptoms, but she calculated a 70% chance the Federal Police Officer would be young and male and obviously eager to avoid getting too much detail about her medical issues. It could explain fatigue, slightly elevated temperature (if she had one), and of course irritability which she was fully prepared to demonstrate if the situation called. She just couldn’t cough.
Dawn knew she had a to create an optimal window of about ten minutes where she would almost late to catch her flight; it would put extra pressure on anyone scrutinizing her to get it over with quickly so she could catch her flight. This meant she had to time her getting into the security line just right. As she eventually came to the line, she noticed it was longer than usual. That was not a good sign, it could indicate the news reports of tighter scrutiny of passengers at the airport we true. There were posted signs explaining that extra medical screenings were taking place due to the Bat Pox outbreak; passengers with any health symptoms were required to notify the Federal Police and report for screening which included temperature-taking.
She brought up her electronic boarding pass on her PearPhone and got out her Sentinel Pass and her Photo ID. The Sentinel Pass was new under the current Administration, it allowed her to skip most of the line and present directly to the Screening Agent, for a hefty fee of course. She drew in a slow breath on a count of ten, held it ten, and released it slowly on a count of ten, just as Hester Perel had practiced with her. What luck, the agent was a pale-faced young guy whose uniform hung off his lanky shoulders, giving him the appearance of being undernourished.
“Have you traveled to Shen in the past 30 days?” The agent asked.
“No.” Dawn replied.
“Have you have any flu-like symptoms in the past two weeks?”
“No.” Dawn replied, this time she could feel a slightest bit of irritation in the back of her throat, a cough, wanting to come forth. Oh Goddess, not now she thought.
The agent looked at her and narrowed his eyes. Here was an obvious business traveler, well-dressed, with a round trip flight to Kerlile, a somewhat unfriendly country with a history of spying on Gardavasque, but he was now looking out for Vulkarian terrorists and passengers potentially infected with bat pox.
“What is your reason for travel?” The agent needed to hear speak with a Gardavascan accent, so he asked Dawn an open-ended question.
“International business. I own a winery in Loyalty.” She replied, smiling slightly and making sure he heard the twang of elongated vowels in her regional speech. Something that she had learned generally helped working people feel more at ease with her.
She knew the standard was to ask three questions and move on. So it surprised her when he didn’t flag her on right away.
“And how many traveling in your party today?”
This question stunned Dawn, because it was somewhat unexpected, but not completely out of order. She began to calculate percentages in her head.
“Just me… My husband will be joining me in Grapevale tomorrow. We will be petitioning the Council of Kerlile for a license to export wines.” This was of course a major lie made up on the spot, something that she knew would be difficult but not impossible to verify. Her husband Jordan was in fact still at home sleeping in. He didn’t know she had left, or where she was, or who she really was for that matter. Eventually when he learned the truth, maybe later today maybe tomorrow, it would be too late. The woman known as Dawn Marcourt-DeFarge would be dead forever, and she would return home to take up an identity she hadn’t known since she left Kerlile Her actions rematriating today was going to break his little heart. She became acutely aware of the fake smile plastered on her face, and had to remember to slowly relax her muscles in her cheeks and forehead. The cough she felt a second ago was tickling again. She needed water to stifle it right away.
“And you said you’re traveling for business?” The agent was growing more suspicious of her, although he had no evidence she wasn’t who she said she was.
“That’s right.” Dawn breathed in slowly for a count of ten as the skinny agent scrutinized her documents one more time. Just at that moment, someone somewhere in the middle of the line sneezed! People turned to look, there was a noticeable pause of background chatter as the person sneezing drew attention.
“Excuse me, but my flight is boarding. Can I go please?” Dawn asked in respectful but firm tone. He noticed she wore a gold lapel pin of the Conservative Christian Capitalists, Gardavasque’s ruling party. It lended her credibility. She was obviously rich, and making life difficult for rich people was a good way for a Federal agent to collect grievances against him.
The agent’s attention had be successfully drawn away. “Have a nice flight, ma’am.” He said flatly returned her documents, making no further eye contact with her.
She was in the clear. As she hurried toward the gate to catch her flight, she exhaled slowly. Life in Kerlile was going to be different, but she hoped simpler and more honest. As she reached the gate, she stopped for some water and another CBD cough drop. She imagined these would probably still be banned in Kerlile. She had had a taste of another life as Dawn Marcourt for 37 years, and now it was time to return to her native Kerlile. To be among her people once again. She looked forward to going to Church of the Goddess and trying some Kerlian soda bread you couldn’t get in Gardavasque. As she bordered the flight and took her seat, she closed her eyes said silent goodbyes to Jordan, to Saint Antoine, and to Dawn. Now should would once again be “Donna, Kerlian Citizen ID 22025946.”
<t>Our Noblest Motive is the Public Good </t>