I'm honored to have 300+ views at this point. I'd like to appreciate everyone who's read this, whether you're from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the Philippines, or anywhere else! Everybody enjoying this means the world to me.
The title of this chapter comes from the David Bowie song by the same name. The topic is SOMEWHAT different, though. Enjoy the fourth chapter of Flight Risk!
Who could it be at this hour? The pizza man, coming back with a refund?
I shook my head. That was ridiculous. Maybe it was just one of those little kids from a different apartment who wanted nothing more than to annoy me to no end. That was at least a reason to ring the doorbell, even if (in my mind) it wasn't a very good one.
So I tried to tune the sound out, but it only happened again. In fact, this time, the guest must have been leaning on the doorbell for a good ten seconds, because that's how long it sounded for.
"Whatever" I muttered under my breath. "I guess I'll get it."
I opened the door, and guess what I saw?
It was the reporter from earlier today, the one who so resembled Buddy Holly. He was still dressed in the same clothes, but his face and chest were rather sparkly, as though he'd just run from the airport to my apartment without even taking the T.
"What are you doing here?" I snapped. Those words came out harsher than I'd meant them.
"That can be answered later," the Buddy Holly look-alike muttered. "What matters right now is that you're here."
I narrowed my eyes. "Do you not realize just how ominous that sounds? You sound like a gangster who's about to kidnap me."
The reporter grimaced. "Well, sorry. I'm just trying to get the latest scoop. Did I come at a bad time? You look like you just inhaled a large pizza."
Believe it or not, that was almost enough to make me laugh; that was what had happened, after all!
But I nodded. "Another time would be better." Really, no time would be ideal for an interview, not when I just wanted to live my life as best I could.
"Well, too bad" the reporter responded curtly. "You're going to talk to us - I mean, me - whether you like it or not."
Wow, what a Freudian slip!
"How the hell did you get my address?" I asked the reporter, this time not caring about decorum. I was irritated, and I was going to get my irritation across no matter how rude it might make me sound.
"It's simple," he replied. "Not only do we have the yellow pages, but there are so many websites where you can look up a person's information, including the voter rolls."
"That should be illegal," I remarked. "You shouldn't be able to get that info about a person just because you want it. That should be on a need-to-know basis, right?"
The reporter shifted his glasses with his finger and frowned. "As a journalist, Mr. McBride, I think I am entitled to that knowledge. I need to know, after all, in order to interview you."
"Well, Buddy Holly, I'm not sure I consent to being interviewed right now. This is my 'me' time, and I don't tend to let other people intrude on it."
"Please don't call me Buddy Holly."
"What else can I call you?" Indeed, he'd never told me his real name, so how was I supposed to know how to address him?
"I am allowed to tell you this," the reporter replied. "My name is Perry Brotherhood, and I'm a reporter for the local affiliate of WBUR."
"Oh wow, you work for the local news" I said, emphasizing the word local ironically. "How noble of you to prop up an industry that's declining."
Perry curled his lips, though not necessarily into a frown. "It's not like the fossil fuel industry, Mr. McBride. We don't want it to fail, because where will people get their news if it does?"
I shrugged. "I guess they'll get it from the Internet? That's where most people read about current events anyway."
"I don't know about you, Mr. McBride, but I call that a damn shame. Would you like me to go over the list of reasons why we need to support local journalism at all costs?"
When I said nothing, Perry continued. "I'm not going to belabor the point anymore. Just come with me, okay?"
"What if I don't want to?" I replied.
"Pardon me?" Perry asked, lifting his tone upward. The way he said that just made me mad, as though he were mocking me deliberately.
"I said, what if I'd rather stay here? I don't want to be part of history." What I really meant was, I don't want to be remembered as the airport employee who gave the first interview about the Pokémon plane.
"History will come for you whether you like it or not," Perry replied. "Those people who think that history is over…they're not to be listened to, because they're dead wrong!"
"But that means…".
"Some people have a choice, Mr. McBride. You do not. Please come with me."
I considered digging my heels in, putting my foot down, or whatever term you want to use. But I could just tell that Perry wasn't going to be dissuaded so easily. And even if I shooed him away today, he'd likely return tomorrow with backup.
No, the healthiest way to do this would be to rip the bandage off quickly so that it hurt for as little time as possible.
"Fine," I muttered. "I'll give you an interview, on one condition."
Perry raised an eyebrow. "You are not in a position to impose conditions upon us. But it depends on what you want to request. Go on?"
"I don't want to be filmed giving the interview. I would like the record of it to be solely the transcript."
Admittedly, part of the reason for this was because my voice always sounded odd on a recording. Though I couldn't place what was different, I knew the media would mock me for that on the basis of 'We're just asking questions' and all that jazz.
But also, I wasn't sure how comfortable I was having my face all over the newspapers. And of course, the tabloids. Those would be positively ruthless toward me, given that there were still pizza sauce stains on my cheeks. Even that could only pale in comparison to the effect of what I said.
"We'll see what we can do about that" Perry muttered, in a tone that suggested he'd thrown away my request just like you might chuck an empty bag in the garbage.
There was no arguing with him, so I followed Perry out of my apartment and down the four flights of stairs to the lobby. And, much to my chagrin, I discovered that the lobby was packed to the brim with reporters.
I mean, they were jammed together more tightly than sardines in a can. What seemed like half the city's media personnel had descended on this one South Boston apartment complex, and they had all been searching for one figure of interest.
Me.
I held my arms up in a gesture meant to combine surrender and confidence. I will not resist, because I have nothing to hide.
One of the reporters, a blonde lady with very long fingernails and copious amounts of Botox, held her microphone toward the ceiling. "Ladies and gentlemen, I am reporting live from Fox News, and I'm standing in the lobby of Paradise Towers here in South Boston!" she proclaimed, as though being a reporter was her main claim to fame, not the work she did in that capacity.
I wanted to keep a poker face, but believe me: My eyes kept darting around the room, and I could barely mask my annoyance at being stared at like an animal caged at the zoo. I must've been staring pretty hard at that blonde reporter, because she took a step back as I was led out the door to the outside world.
The fresh sea breeze did not feel liberating like it usually did, however. Rather, it was a stifling sense of heat that struck me. The sun wasn't particularly strong that day; something entirely different had trapped me.
"I'm only doing one interview today!" I exclaimed.
I half-expected the gaggle of reporters to crowd in on me, pinning me down until I had no option but to sink through the pavement and disappear. That would honestly be preferable to conducting even one interview.
But instead, one short, skinny lady with short red hair came to the front of the crowd right away. For such a disorganized mob, these reporters sure could agree on something when they needed to.
"I'll do it!" this woman said with a smile. "I hope you don't mind conducting this interview, Mr. McBride?"
It's a pretty stark asymmetry. I don't know the names of any of these paparazzi, but they (and probably most of Boston within the next couple hours) know exactly who I am.
"Fine," I sighed. "If the rest of you will leave me alone afterward."
"That depends on how this interview goes," she replied curtly. "Come right this way, Mr. McBride."
The reporter motioned for me to follow her onto the esplanade bordering the Castle Island beach. Again, the wind coming in from the ocean should have been refreshing, but instead reminded me of the vastness of this brave new world I found myself ensnared in. It was a spider web, and I was caught in the middle.
"So, Mr. McBride," the lady began, "are there any questions you have for me before we start this interview?"
"Two," I replied. "What's your name?"
The anchor frowned. "That's just one question."
"Whatever. What should I call you?"
She smiled, showing two rows of unnaturally white teeth. "I am Sarah Timecrawl, and I'm a reporter for the local Fox News affiliate here in South Boston. I take my job, including the standards of journalistic integrity, very seriously."
I'm sure you do, Sarah. I'm sure you do.
"My next question…what if there's something I don't want to answer?"
Sarah frowned. "Uh, why might you not want to answer?"
"Maybe it's something personal, or maybe it's something I don't want to talk about. What if I refuse to answer?"
"Well, this isn't a courtroom, Mr. McBride. You're free to leave whenever you'd like - it's not like you're under arrest."
"You're making this sound awfully official, Mrs. Timecrawl" I muttered.
As though answering another question for me, Sarah said this: "If you elect to leave this site prior to the conclusion of your interview, we have every right to pursue answers at all costs."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that we might keep asking these questions. The people of Boston, and indeed all of America, should be aware of what's happening in their country. If you don't have borders, you hardly have a country."
"What does this have to do with borders?" I inquired, clenching my hands into fists.
I cannot get physical. I just can't. But it sure as hell is tempting!
Sarah stared at me for a while, but evidently decided that she wouldn't accomplish anything further by refusing to answer. So this is what she said:
"We've already heard about the crisis on our southern border. Migrants come day and night, and we need to put a stop to it by any means necessary."
I frowned. "I'm not following."
"The point is, the current President already hasn't done enough to secure the border, and now we get an unidentified plane coming in from who knows where. It's full of migrants who might not have any other place to go!"
If we're taking in people - excuse me, Pokémon - who need shelter, what's so immoral about that? I think that's what we ought to be doing from a justice standpoint, no?
"Okay, just ask me a question" I muttered. "Otherwise you're just wasting my time."
"So your name is Blaine McBride. Please tell me what position you hold."
"I'm an air traffic controller at Boston Logan International Airport. Its IATA code is BOS, its ICAO code is KBOS."
"Describe what you do?" Sarah continued.
"I help arriving planes land at the correct runways, and I help departing planes leave on schedule. All of this is done to ensure the thousands of daily passengers here at Logan arrive at their destinations safely and without incident."
If all the questions are like this, I can handle the interview. I can get through this.
"And how long have you been working in this capacity?"
I tore one of my fingernails off. Supposedly this was an off-putting habit that wasn't the most polite way to cut one's nails, but I'd been doing it for as long as I could remember, so…
Oh, right. The question.
"Today was my first day on the job."
"What an eventful first day, then!" Sarah exclaimed. "I'm sure that you got more than you bargained for when you applied for the job!"
"Yeah, no kidding" I mumbled.
"So at about 1:40 PM, you saw the mysterious plane on the radar. How did you know something was amiss?"
I shuffled a bit on the ground, swaying back and forth like the wind might well blow me over. It took me a good five seconds to remember that I needed to answer Sarah's question.
"Well, airline codes are two letters. Sometimes they make sense with the airline's current name, other times they don't. Like the code for Finnair - AY - is based on the airline's former name. But then, they don't fly to Boston, so…".
Damn brain. You're not supposed to info-dump like that when you're given a direct prompt. Can't you be more professional than this?
"The code for the arriving flight?"
"It was PKMN1. According to my boss, Michael Fly - yes, that's his name - the plane had come from Saffron City. That's not a location that exists on Earth. The airport at Saffron City doesn't have a three-letter code associated with it."
Sarah shrugged, then pursed her lips together in an "angry smile", if such a thing even exists.
"When you saw this unidentified plane," she continued, "what did you do?"
Here we are. I'm sailing on some rough waters here.
"Well, I told Mr. Fly about the plane, and he suggested that it might be a NATO exercise. But why would they do such an exercise so close to a civilian airport?"
"So it wasn't a NATO exercise?"
"Clearly not, dipshit!" I exclaimed, blurting out the word dipshit before I could really appreciate what the consequences of saying that would be.
Sarah's "angry smile" only grew more intense. She looked like the sort of wicked witch who would kill you via poisoning your honey. She'd lure you in like a moth drawn to a flame, and you wouldn't know what had happened until it was far too late.
"Well, well, well. Blaine McBride here, using a naughty word! Didn't your parents teach you to have nicer manners than that?"
"My parents are irrelevant."
"Fair enough" Sarah snapped. "So tell me, Mr. McBride, what do you intend to do with this new knowledge that there are Pokémon in our midst?"
Forget "rough waters." These are now the sort of waters that have four-foot waves with white caps. One wrong step, and I'm screwed.
It took me a while to think of the best response. The whole time, I was acutely aware of Sarah Timecrawl's gaze. And I knew that time would indeed crawl until I gave my answer, and it would slow to a snail's pace once my interview was all over the evening news (not that anyone watched the evening news anymore.)
"Honestly?" I began eventually. "I think I'll just focus on living my life. I'm still a young man after all, and I have bigger Magikarp to fry. Like keeping my job, for one."
Sarah's smile was no longer one of frustration. Rather, it came with glowing eyes, and there was a word for this: Triumph.
"Are you concerned about what your boss will say about leaving work early on day one?"
Here we are. The question I've been dreading more than any other.
It was then that I took an action that's often frowned upon. The last President, after all, had been criticized for doing this just two weeks before losing reelection. But I wasn't as much of a public figure as the President of the United States - at least, not yet.
"I think we have enough of an interview here, Sarah."
Sarah snorted. "Pardon me?"
I lowered my eyebrows. "I'm not going to talk any more. My social stamina is running out - I need a break."
"You know, you will need lots of social stamina if you are to succeed…".
"Yeah, no thanks" I muttered, turning 180° and walking in the opposite direction. As I approached my apartment complex, I waved my hand around as though swatting flies away. "This interview is over!" I proclaimed.
To my relief, the reporters seemed to get the message. They were now no more welcome at Paradise Towers than the black flies that would plague northern New England each summer, particularly right after a downpour.
And to some extent, they never had been.
Even so, as I ascended the stairs back to my apartment, I knew that I'd only deferred the day of reckoning. I had not prevented it entirely.
No, I hadn't even delayed it. It was just like that British movie about cloned people who'd been raised specifically to donate their vital organs: There are no deferrals.
Once safely back in my kitchen, I glanced over at the nearby trash can. Given that my stomach was packed to the brim with piping-hot pizza, it occurred to me that I might not need to fake a vomiting episode this time. And that would be an excuse to skip work tomorrow, wouldn't it?
Maybe. Could I be so fortunate?