Both the media and the paparazzi had been staked out in front of the Stewart residence for just about a week now, hoping to catch a glimpse of the pop-star-turned-pilot Miley Stewart, who had sort of regained some of her former fame as Hannah Montana thanks to her actions as pilot-in-command of Cash Airlines Flight 4892 saving the lives of most of the passengers and crew onboard her plane. Stewart had turned into a recluse following her release from the hospital just about two weeks ago; having declined to give a comment to anyone at all. The airline's legal representatives, but mostly Cornelius Baxter, had urged the media to give Captain Stewart some space, but the press and the paparazzi just couldn't resist the temptation of getting even one tiny glimpse of the pop-star-turned-pilot.
The paparazzi had been trying their very best to get a glimpse of Miley in her house, but the thick curtains had served as an effective deterrent to that. But they did know that one thing was certain: Miley Stewart was human, and like all humans, she had needs, and sooner or later she would have to go out of her house to get what she needed for herself. And when that time came, they would be waiting for her with their cameras and flashing lights. All they had to do was wait.
Meanwhile, in the back of the Stewart residence, another drama was unfolding. The back of the house was on beachfront property; private property of the Stewarts in fact. It meant that there was no one there who wasn't supposed to be there.
A man with dirty blonde hair peeked out of the back door of the Stewart residence. He looked around, saw that there was nobody there on the beach, and withdrew his head back into the house. A short time later, the door opened once again, and another figure stepped out of the house. This one was a woman, and she had frizzy blonde hair that was in dire need of the attention of a wet comb. She was wearing a black leather jacket over a simple white shirt and a pink pencil skirt. Her feet were in well-worn flip-flops. And despite the time of day—the sun had already set over much of the West Coast—she was wearing an outrageously big pair of horn-rimmed sunglasses that would be more at home in the Eighties than the New Tens. All in all, she looked like a certain pop star that had disappeared from the limelight so-and-so years ago.
"Hey, Miles," Jackson Stewart asked from behind the door, "are you sure that that disguise will work?"
"Of course it will work," Miley Stewart replied. "Nobody thought that I could possibly be Hannah Montana before, and anyway, by the time anyone realizes that Hannah is back in the living world, I'll be long gone by the time they've finished their double take."
"Just make sure of that, little sis," Jackson said. "Otherwise you're gonna be in some deep, deep shit. Anyway, where did Cory say he was gonna pick you up?"
"Just a few blocks down the road, over by the Harpers' place."
"All right. Good luck, Miles. And don't get seen!"
Miley began the slow and arduous journey from the back of her house to Cory Baxter's car. After he had told her that the NTSB had wanted to interview her in three days' time, Cory had come back to pick up some clothes and "girl stuff" to stash in the hotel room where Miley was going to be spending those three days leading up to the NTSB interview. They had agreed to that plan when she realized that she did not want to be carrying her stuff while trying to sneak her way past the media and the paparazzi.
Miley bent down to a crouch as she neared the edges of the spotlights that the media had erected on their house's front lawn while waiting for her to come out. She bent down behind a large berm of sandy soil. Miley eventually went down on her knees and began to crawl on the ground like a soldier. The farther she got from their property, the more nervous she became. Finally the lights bathing her house faded into the background, and she picked herself up off of the ground and brushed off the sand on her clothes and legs. Now all she had to worry about was one of her neighbors deciding to go out for a late-night swim.
The lights of the Harper residence finally appeared out of the murky gloom of the encroaching dark after five minutes of half-walking and half-crawling on the beach. She skirted down the boundary of the property until she finally found herself back on the street. It was deserted, save for a few parked cars here and there. Still, it was a definite improvement over the patch of road in front of her house, which was practically crowded with media people and their respective vehicles and equipment.
Miley looked around. There were actually quite a lot of Voodoos in this area. Either the people living here were all onanists, or Miley had somehow stumbled into the Jamaican part of town (Voodoos being associated with local Jamaican gangs along with compulsive masturbators in the public psyche). But once she noticed a distinct lack of white smoke hanging over the area like a creeping fog, she immediately scratched that particular theory.
Miley finally found a familiar dark purple Voodoo parked underneath a palm tree. There was a man standing beside the car, wearing some kind of long orange cotton shirt with a blue African tribal pattern on the bottom, worn-out denim jeans and what looked to be a leopardskin toque. All in all, he looked like a cheap knockoff of Mobutu Sese Seko.
The man got into the car as soon as he saw Miley walking towards him. She got into the passenger seat, removed the blonde wig and the sunglasses, turned to face the man and said, "This better be worth all of this effort, Cory."
"Oh, don't worry about it, Miles," Cory Baxter replied. "Trust me, it will be all worth it." And with that said, he turned on the engine and got on the road.
"Man, what kind of a silly disguise is that?" Miley asked as she stuffed her wig and sunglasses into a small plastic bag.
"What, oh, this?" Cory looked down on his clothes before turning back to the road. "Oh, this is my African immigrant's disguise. Someone may have already seen my homeless black man disguise earlier. And of course everyone knows my American businessman disguise."
"What if someone sees us in this car?"
"Like you said before, Miles, all people are gonna see driving this car is an onanist. They won't even notice that I've got a girl sitting beside me."
"Yeah, right," Miley muttered as they got onto the freeway. "Remind me why Brabant wants me to be stashed in some hotel room again."
"Well, aside from the obvious..."
"What the fuck is 'the obvious,' Cory?"
"We don't want the media to get their hands on you before the government does, Miles. Let's be honest about that."
"All right, I get that. Now what about those other reasons?"
"You'll find out soon enough."
They spent the rest of the drive in silence, with the occasional curse coming from Cory whenever he got cut off in traffic or something in his car failed to work the way it was supposed to work. Miley took the time and opportunity to absorb the views of Los Angeles on the ground level. It sure looked different down here than when she was up in the air, flying Boeings and Airbuses in and out of LAX. Up in the air, all she could see were the buildings and skyscrapers, but down on the ground, she could see the many people going in and out of the buildings on their way to work or home. Oh, what she would give just to be one of those normal and regular people.
"Here we are," Cory said, taking Miley from her reverie back to the real world. "This is the place."
Miley looked up at where Cory had stopped the car. The building's name was advertised on the front through bright and colorful neon lights. "Seriously?" she asked him. "That's its name?"
"I know," Cory said with a laugh. "Unbelievable, right?"
The joint's name was Hotel California, like the song. It was quite the combination of the old and the new: the building's facade was made to look like an old-fashioned courthouse that one might find in America's small towns. Behind the "courthouse" was a massive glass and steel skyscraper, which was where the hotel itself most probably was. Miley had no idea who had designed the place, but she felt confident that a lot of people shared her opinion that whoever had thought of the design for the place should never have graduated from wherever design school he or she had come from.
"Dear God in heaven," Miley said. "Who thought up of this place? And who owns it?"
"Apparently, it's the Big Boss himself, Cabot Dobson," Cory replied. "Our young recluse of an owner apparently also has a chain of hotels to his name, and he had this place built to be his flagship hotel. I think he wanted to go for a Back to the Future look; you know, the one where Biff takes over America and builds his hotel on top of the courthouse?"
"So that 's why it looks so familiar," Miley muttered. "But why name it Hotel California? I mean, it's just such a cliche."
"What can I say?" Cory shrugged. "Maybe the Big Boss likes the song. Hang on a minute for me, Miles. I gotta get out of this suit and into my real suit." That was just a matter of him taking off his orange shirt to reveal that he was actually wearing a business shirt underneath the orange shirt.
The two of them entered the lobby. Cory talked to the concierge, who looked at Miley at least three times during their conversation. Finally the concierge handed Cory an electronic keycard. "Glad that's over," he said to Miley once he was finished with the concierge. "Come on, your room's on the twenty-seventh floor."
Cory and Miley boarded an elevator that was "reserved" for "special" guests of the hotel, and Cory inserted a key—an actual key as opposed to the new cardlike keys favored today—in a slot beside the button marked P. Once he turned the key, the button lit up, and the elevator closed and brought them up to the twenty-seventh floor.
"Penthouse for me, huh?" Miley said. "Wonder which suite I'll be getting."
"I wouldn't exactly call it a suite," Cory replied. "But it's richly decorated, if you know what I mean."
The elevator dinged as they arrived at their destination floor. Miley yawned to clear the pressure building up in her eyes. Being in an elevator was kind of like being in a plane. Beside her, Cory did the same, and then they stepped out of the elevator. "So, where's my room?" Miley asked.
"It's not one of those newfangled Imperial Suites, I have to tell you that," Cory said. "But the Big Boss is willing to put you up in one of the Countess Suites. It should be down here." Cory walked over to a door marked 2720, inserted the keycard that the concierge gave him into the appropriate slot, waited for the light to turn green, and then opened the door. "Voila!" he said.
The room was definitely decked out in rich people's trappings, Miley admitted. But it still wasn't as richly decorated as some of the more expensive hotel suites she'd stayed in at times, but then she expected that when Cory had told her not to expect anything too lavish. "Is this it?" she asked.
"In all of its glory," Cory replied. "I already went ahead and put your stuff and clothes in the walk-in closet, and your girl stuff is in the bathroom. D'you like it?"
"Very nice," Miley muttered as she took in the place. "Wanna stay for a while, have a drink or something?"
"Well, I have to get back home soon, but what the hell? That can wait. Just nothing alcoholic for me, Miles. I'm driving."
"Got that, man." Miley walked over to the minibar and opened it. Inside were cans of soft drinks and iced coffee, and bottles of mineral water and iced tea. Miley grabbed a can of root beer for Cory, and then she began rooting around for the hard stuff. But, strangely, there wasn't any. Usually there were small bottles of alcoholic beverages ranging from tame options like champagne and gin tonic to the really strong stuff like scotch and vodka. But there were none of that inside this particular minibar. "Hey Cory, I can't find any alcoholic stuff in here," she said. "You might want to tell your concierge buddy about it." When he didn't immediately reply, she called out, "Cory, you still there?"
"Yep, still here," Cory replied. "Listen, about that... Brabant decided that it would be in everyone's best interests if you didn't have any alcohol in your room. You're already on a lot of people's shit lists when Tommy Bagration had your blood tests inadmissible as court evidence, and the company just can't have you drunk as an owl coming into the interview with NTSB."
"Well, they're risking a lot for nothing. I'm not gonna get drunk, Cory, I swear."
"Don't worry, Miley. Once the interview with NTSB's over, we're gonna turn you loose."
"But—"
"No buts, Miley. Brabant said so, and that's that. I'm just following orders."
"Yeah, that's what the Nazis said too."
"Don't go Godwin's Law on me, Miley Stewart. I'm not trying to harm you here. This is for your sake, and for the company's."
"Wow," Miley muttered after a few moments' thought. "So this is how the company takes care of its employees."
"Not my decision," Cory replied, spreading his arms in apology.
"Well, fuck me." Miley plopped down on the sofa and spread her arms wide as well. "Who am I to fight against that?"
"Just don't think about it, Miley," Cory replied. "Don't think about it, and it'll all be over in the blink of an eye."
"All right, fine," Miley said. She tossed the can of root beer to Cory. "Here you go, you bastard," she said.
Cory caught the can, but he immediately put it back down on the table. "No thanks," he said. "You need this more than I do. Anyway, I have to go now. I'll be back to pick you up in two days for the drive to NTSB."
"Yeah, whatever." Cory walked out of the room, leaving Miley alone to stew in her own thoughts. She allowed her mind to open up and throw obscenity upon obscenity on anyone and everyone she could think of that had gotten her in this situation: Theo Brabant, Cory Baxter, Cabot Dobson, Thomas Bagration, the Boeing Aircraft Company, Los Angeles International Airport, and even herself. Finally, the fires of anger died down within her, having eaten up everything within Miley. She sighed as a familiar feeling of emptiness washed over her, and then she finally reached for the can of root beer, opened it, and drank.