Chapter 39 – Conversations on a Plane
Farnborough, England. 12:54pm, 9th November 2032.
None of Erin's friends left despite her best intentions, perhaps it was due to the modest story she told of the past few days, explaining what she was doing whilst they were caged. Like always, it captivated them, owing to the implausibility of all of the things that came out of her mouth. She wasn't at the wheel driving hastily through the night and maybe it was for the best as she was talking over everything for almost the entire journey, getting everyone back up to speed. Erin kept on receiving updates from Matt's end. The three of them arrived much earlier via helicopter and are just waiting for them to arrive. By the time they did, Alex and Matt were getting anxious with all of the waiting, knowing Rasmus was getting closer to doing whatever he was planning.
The six of them entered via the rear of a gleaming hangar that reflects all the light around, only stopping when it hit the stealth black paint of their ticket to the U.S.
"Are you sure this isn't an RAF base?" Sam asks, simply because the plane looks nothing like a civilian plane at all, especially by looking at the inside because the rear tailgate is down, displaying the raw insides that resemble a military plane. Nevertheless, they all run over to the inside, which only confirms this interpretation. As soon as they get on board, the tailgate starts to rise up for an immediate departure.
"There's a passenger compartment at the front." Penelope instructs via a PA system. "We're leaving now."
They quickly walk past all of the heavy-duty equipment, including the sobering presence of many heavy and high-powered weapons locked inside the compartment for no one on the outside to see. They push into the only part of the plane that resembles a civilian aircraft, a section of fairly conventional seating, the size of a business class cabin. They all sit down just as the plane starts to move out of the hangar.
"This is my brother Alex, and Matt." Erin introduces before immediately going to sit next to the window behind where Alex is sitting. The situation plays out that they all sit close by to each other. In this tiny game, Matt wants to sit next to Erin, but is boxed in by Elena, which causes him to say in his position diagonally northwest from Erin.
"Tyson's talked a lot about you." Sam says to Alex. "Did you really jump across a street?"
"Yeah." Alex says casually, not putting the question into the context of everyone else's abilities.
"What do you mean 'yeah'? He showed us the video." Sam replies.
"He's going through a difficult period at the moment." Erin buts in. "Besides, once we take off we should all go to sleep."
Everyone in the passenger cabin is in agreement with that fact. So as the plane turns around 180 degrees onto the runway and immediately takes off, they all recline the seats to the maximum and begin to relax in the heavily soundproofed cabin, making for an eerily quiet ride but a much easier one into slumber for most. Penelope still sits in the pilot's seat despite letting the autopilot do all of the boring work of navigating and staying steady for several hours. But inside the dimly lit cabin area, Matt still fiddles with his computer with the brightness turned down to the minimum in respect for others. He mainly keeps an eye on the position of Rasmus' location using his computer, more than 1500 kilometres ahead, as well as doing the slightly compulsive task of organising all of the files and deleting all of the junk. Nonetheless, even when he does this task, he can't help but look periodically across to Erin; even when she's sleeping she's so beautiful. It makes him get distracted from his task, eventually ignoring his computer all together and instead solely focusing on Erin, totally silent. A clicking noise breaks his focus, coming from the pilot's cabin; Penelope's opening the door.
"You can't stop staring." Penelope says before kneeling facing Matt on the upright seat in front of him.
"I wasn't." Matt defends quietly, directing his concentration towards his laptop. He briefly looks up but can only see Penelope staring right back at him. "Now you can't stop staring."
"I just want let you know something… very important." Penelope explains, going delving into what is the biggest mistake of her life by an infinite margin.
"Okay." Matt says, sensing that this is indeed as important as she makes it out to be.
"When I was as young as you…" Penelope begins, but emotion already takes a grip on her. "I'll just skip on to the important bit… I betrayed the one person I loved for money; I betrayed the Cooper gang, I betrayed their dad and I've been trying to make it up ever since. Whilst nothing I can do is ever going to do so, let me just warn you this. If you really love her, don't ever try to go against her, don't make her angry, don't do anything bad to her. Because… no matter how much you can convince yourself that you can, you can't. You can't outsmart them, you can't outrun, outgun or outlast them; the Cooper Gang is not to be messed with, especially her."
Penelope looks across to Erin, sleeping on the slightly inclined seat bed on her side.
"She's highly dangerous, no doubt she'll put fear into anyone that crosses her; you need to be especially careful to make sure that person is not you." Penelope warns.
"I'm not scared of her, if this is to try to scare me, it's not going to work." Matt defiantly replies.
"This is not scaring you, this is just a heads up, just to tell you what you're getting yourself into." Penelope replies.
"I appreciate it." Matt replies. "But I'm not going to betray her, not now, not in a few years, not ever. I mean, why would I?" Matt says in disbelief that he could ever do such a thing.
"Everyone has a point where they'll do anything for a price." Penelope responds. "I hope that number is going to be a lot bigger than what mine was."
"What was it?" Matt asks out of curiosity.
"Billions." Penelope answers. "More than I ever thought possible."
Penelope continues on down the aisle towards the toilet as Matt thinks about her words. He goes to the most obvious hypothetical he can think of; 40 billion in gold, or Erin. He realises that the hypothetical is much easier than the real and that the problem he just created is now choking his thoughts that keeps him further away from sleep. Quickly, he shuts his computer and tries to get to sleep, hoping that he can simply drift away into sleep. But no matter how much he tells himself to choose Erin, the gold will always remain tempting. He opens his eyes just to look at her again before inevitably falling asleep with the rest of them except for Penelope. She returns to the pilot's seat to activate the stealth measures once they are out of sight of anyone on the ground. Even though they are in the dark, she activates the active camouflage, using the same technology she put on herself. Once that is finished, she can get some sleep along with the rest of them.
4:30am
The vibration on her thigh wakes the raccoon up, ending the short stint of sleep. She drags it out of her pocket and looks at the caller ID without getting up. There is no name, but she recognises the number despite only seeing it a few times. Reluctantly, she answers the call.
"Listen." Jeremy begins. "I don't care what's gotten between us before, I need your help and I need it desperately. That filthy dog has taken all of my money! Ruined my plans! Everything down the toilet! I'm going to be nothing!"
"Calm down." Erin tiredly advises whilst turning from her side to lying on her back.
"You don't understand, without any money I can't pay off everyone; I'll be hunted down in a matter of days." Jeremy panics.
"What about that currency you invented, print some more." Erin says.
"I can't pay off people like that, they won't accept it." Jeremy replies. "Not everyone wants to deal in a currency like this and those are the type of people who are going to want my head!"
"What will we be getting in return?" Erin asks.
"Anything within reason." Jeremy replies.
"Anything?" Erin asks.
"Yes anything! Don't make this worse for me than it already is."
"You back off, don't you, or anyone else who works or will work for you, ever target us again. Next, no hidden surveillance, no cameras, no hacking and no GPS tracking. Most importantly, you owe an apology to Alex for what you did to him, in person." Erin demands.
"You're a hard bargainer." Jeremy replies, knowing that he has no choice but to accept and swallow his pride for the sake of a lasting existence. "But I agree."
"Perfect." Erin replies. "Can't you just call up some mercenaries to come and collect Rasmus when he lands?"
"First of all, he's already landed and secondly, I've already tried that and thirdly, no one wants to even be near him, do you know where he is?" Jeremy replies, trying to stress the difficulty of the task.
"Where?" Erin replies.
"He's at the White House. It's an impossible task and that's why I come to you."
"I'm not making any promises, I can't guarantee getting in there." Erin replies, even she is surprised by the answer but she's more surprised that he's doing something that's lowering his dignity.
"He's going to bail out the country out of it's debt problems." Jeremy replies. "If he succeeds then we're all screwed."
"We?" Erin replies.
"What do you think he's going to get in return?" Jeremy replies. "He'll get whatever he wants, just like I offered you, except he'll be able to do a lot more than what I can do."
"Hmm." Erin grunts casually in reply.
"Please, please. I beg you succeed, I am on my knees praying for your success." Jeremy replies.
"Didn't think you were religious." Erin responds.
"I'm not, but I'll take all the help I can get." Jeremy replies. "Please, good luck."
"You too." Erin replies automatically before hanging up the phone and replacing it back inside her pocket whilst staring at the ceiling, thinking about the conversation she just had. The most shocking factor, is that it happened at all, him grovelling at her, begging for his life like it was in her hands. She highly doubts that if he was as evil as his father, then he wouldn't put himself in this position; he would have never tried to help them out in the first place. In terms of the evil she knows, the past villains described in the Thievius Raccoonus, he isn't anywhere near the top but it's awkward for her to accept that he has changed or is no longer a threat. She weighs up the possibility that it's all just cheap talk; that he should win an Oscar for that performance and underneath it all he is just the same. However, how could she know that until he demonstrates something that supports that view? It quickly becomes a subject with no definitive answer; there is too much uncertainty.
She can't get back to sleep, but in any case they are close to landing within an hour. She stares out the window in the darkness and can't see anything; so she grabs her mask and puts it on, hoping that it automatically adjusts the lighting so she can see what's out there. Automatically it seems, the world turns to orange and blue; orange from the inside but blue on the outside as there's no heat to be found, but it makes everything a bit cartoony. It gets boring quickly so she takes it off and returns to thinking, mainly about how on earth are they going to break into one of the most secure places in the world. Considering the difficulty of the task, she gets up to seek some advice from the most experienced person on board. Erin slides open the unlocked pilots cabin door to find Penelope is awake as well, staring through the night.
"You're up." Penelope remarks as Erin comes and sits in the co pilot's seat.
"Yes, but I need to let you know something." Erin replies.
"Hit it."
"Rasmus is in the White House." Erin explains.
"No he isn't." Penelope answers immediately.
"He is." Erin rebuts. "Jeremy made a distressed phone call to me before. Saying that if we didn't stop him and get his money back then he'd be hunted down, promised anything in return as well."
"I'm not saying he's lying, he never lies, but he's ill conceived." Penelope replies. "He'll be in the guest house, which isn't even inside the white house grounds, it's a set of attached townhouses on a separate block. But either way, it's very close."
"So you are quite the genius." Erin replies.
"That's not genius, that's memory. Genius is different." Penelope says. "Recalling facts… anyone can do that; anyone can go on a computer and find virtually any information that they need. Genius is much more than that; it's about creativity, doing things in ways that no one has tried before. In that sense, I guess that makes your dad one too, even if no one ever talked about him like that."
"So you want us to do this creatively?" Erin asks.
"Not necessarily, all we have to do is enough; enough is enough." Penelope replies.
They both pause to think about what to do next.
"What could you think Rasmus is going to do?" Erin asks, wanting a different perspective.
"I won't play games this time. It's simple, he's going to bail out the country, it's all over the news; people claiming that the world is going to crash worse than in 2008. People will literally be running to the nearest ATM to get as much cash as they can carry, mass panic will ensue as their retirement funds disappear, investments are worth nothing. But Jeremy was going to bet against the market and make a killing too, but this… this is much more than what Jeremy planned for; and it happened right under his nose. He was so busy keeping his eyes on you that he forgot to watch the people he worked with." Penelope explains.
"If you know all of this, why can't you do something about it?" Erin asks.
"We're over the ocean." Penelope comments.
"I mean, call someone to get help." Erin asks.
"Help? Who could possibly help us? We can only help ourselves." Penelope answers. "Besides, it's not the facts he's there or that he stole a central bank's gold that I'm worried about; It's about what he's getting in return."
Erin considers the prospect and immediately finds the answer to be suffocating.
"Power." She answers.
"When you have a country like that by the scruff of their neck, he'll get whatever he wants. Probably getting rid of us, because we know the truth." Penelope replies.
"I guess I need a plan of how to get in there." Erin suggests.
"Simple, parachute in." Penelope says. "The plane's invisible from the outside, no one will see us."
"Invisible, only to radar though." Erin corrects based on her current knowledge of aircraft stealth technology.
"This technology has wide ranging applications." Penelope answers back, refering to the suit she's still wearing. "Anyway, there's a skylight you can use to get inside from the roof."
"That's all good, but what am I actually going to do in there? There's nothing to steal."
"I don't know, bug him, find out where he's hiding the gold. He's brought it here but we don't know where he's put it." Penelope says. "Then maybe we can take a portion for ourselves."
Erin pauses, having run out of things to say.
"Whatever happened with my dad, that's in the past. But with me, us; you've done more than enough." Erin comments, getting out of the seat and not getting the irony of her statement considering there was a time machine positioned inside this plane.
"Thanks, that means a lot."