The Thunder Rolls
By: Jake Boney
Chapter 4: Flight Plan
The agents were thankful for their Secret Service badges when they got to the airport. Their flight left in less than fifteen minutes, and their badges allowed them to slide right through all of the security points without any issues. They were just settling into their coach seats, Artie never sprung for first class no matter how much Pete begged, when Pete was hit with another pretty strong vibe. He couldn't exactly pinpoint the source of these vibes, but he could tell that something bad was going to happen on this assignment. He didn't want to bother Myka with another vibe now, he knew that she was already unsettled as it was. He got his iPod out, and stuck his earbuds in his ears, he would just have to find solace in his tunes for the time being. He would never tell anyone this, but his guilty pleasure was 90's pop music, particularly Christina Aguilera.
Myka was not very thrilled that their seats on the plane were so far from each other, about five rows, but there really wasn't anything she could do about it. She was planning on filling Pete in on what was in the file, but the plane was completely full, and she knew that when there were this many people in one area, there were always some ears listening and eyes prying. She decided to wait until they got to the hotel to give him the info. Besides, she knew Pete well, and he would be asleep less than twenty minutes into the flight. They had about three hours of flying ahead of them, and she decided that she would probably benefit from a nap as well. By the time the flight attendants came around with the drinks and peanuts, both of the agents were somewhere in dream land.
When Pete woke up, it took him a moment to figure out where he was. He just had a pretty rough nightmare, and the details were already fading pretty quick. Although the specifics were getting a little fuzzy, the one thing that stuck in his mind was that Myka had been in extreme danger. He figured that this had something to do with the vibes that he had been having, and decided that he was going to watch her like a hawk until they got back to the Warehouse. He decided that he should at least look over the file Artie had given him, if Myka had seen this, she would have been completely shocked. Once he was finished checking out the greatest hits, his worries only compounded. He hadn't realized just how dangerous this artifact was, he was glad that Myka was asleep, otherwise she would have seen the worry in his eyes. He asked the flight attendant how soon they'd be landing, and she told him that the plane would touch down within a half hour. He decided that he should wake Myka up, she always needed a few minutes to wake up, and he needed to use the restroom anyway.
Myka awoke to a gentle shake from her partner. "Waddyawhan? Whodat?" was all she was able to muster at the moment. He looked down at her and said, "The plane lands in thirty minutes, thought you might want to wake up fully before we deplane. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to tinkle." And with that, she lost sight of Pete. She hit the dinger button and asked the flight attendant that appeared for a drink, her mouth was very dry, she must have been sleeping with her mouth open again. By the time her drink arrived, the pilot was coming over the intercom to inform everyone that the plane was getting ready to go into it's descent.
The agents were packing their luggage into the grey tahoe that the local Secret Service field office had been nice enough to leave at the airport for them, and Pete was already trying to convince Myka that she should let him stop somewhere for a cheese steak sandwich. By the way he was talking, you would have thought he hadn't eaten in several days, but in truth it was more like several hours. She relented, because she knew that he would be insufferable to deal with. They had decided to wait until they got to the hotel before calling Artie on the Farnsworth. The decision was changed for them rather rapidly, when the Farnsworth started buzzing and clanging in that annoying way. Myka was concerned that something might be wrong, because Artie usually waited until they called the Warehouse when traveling through civilian channels, just in case someone might be a little too curious. When she opened the Farnsworth, she was surprised to see Claudia's face on the screen.
"The situation just got drastically worse," said Claudia, "the professional baseball stadium just got hit with about twenty lightning strikes in the last hour."