"Are you sure we don't need...I don't know…" I heard Athan's complaining through the wooden panel. "...air?"

Fortunately the panel did not have any air holes in it, and as such, I was able to pass off his voice by coughing suddenly, drawing an odd glance from the people around us. Better than people wondering why my box was talking. I gave them a wan smile until they finished their staring and wandered away.

Once they were I punched the side of the box and growled at it. "We're in an airport, Athan. There are people here. Keep it down."

I heard a mumbled apology from inside the crate and it went quiet.

Which was good, because there were already too many moving parts to this plan. It'd seemed so simple at first, and just become more and more complicated as we'd encountered problem after problem.

In practice, the plan was simple. Looking over the XPCA laws and amendments, we'd discovered that goods declared under Section 13 weren't subject to inspection or having their contents declared. They'd just be moved, handled discreetly, under federal protection.

Which was both ironic and extremely helpful for our band of federal fugitives. Unable to go anywhere as ourselves, and quite probably a little too recognizable to rely on falsified IDs, being able to ship ourselves anywhere, no questions asked, when we needed to get from here to Japan sounded like a freaking miracle. The very loopholes that Idris had sewn into the XPCA, we'd be able to use to slip through their tight net and get right out from under them.

And just in time, too. Before we left, we saw an uptick in XPCA activity in the bay area, and whether that was for us or unrelated, I couldn't know, but was glad not to be in the middle of.

Instead, I was in the middle of this mess. Trying to get a box of my friends on a plane to Japan. I'd looked it up and done the legal bit, the box was fully declared and labelled, ready to be sent off. The hard part was getting it on a plane to begin with. Typically couriers tended to handle this kind of thing, and typically they also were commercial in nature and wouldn't know what the heck I even meant if I tried to declare the contents uninspectable by Section 13.

Never mind the mess that might arise if they began asking around what Section 13 was and the XPCA heard about it.

Which kinda left the 'normal' way of shipping it through military channels, which seemed suicidal, all things considered. Hence, the alternative DIY approach.

So we weren't in the public part of the San Francisco International airport, we were in a cargo building, basically a warehouse with attached offices, one side of which was an unloading area for trucks, the other side a loading area into specialized hull-shaped bins, which would then get packed into a VTOL.

And I wasn't in my normal attire, I was in work boots, a polo, jeans, and a hi-vis vest, pushing this crate around like I knew what I was doing with it. I hadn't worn pants in a while, and shoes in even longer, and I was rediscovering just how hot and constraining they could be, so Athan's occasional whimpering wasn't really helping.

Lia had volunteered for the job, and she might have even been qualified for it, if she didn't look like a fifteen-year-old. Athan and Karu were too recognizable, both having their face on the news plenty. And Saga…well, she might have passed as some other kind of inoffensive Asian, if she could stop screwing around. Even with her in there, every time I saw someone trip or run into a wall, I wasn't entirely sure it wasn't her.

Plus I was just not a fan of being locked in dark, small boxes anymore. We'd get there.

I checked the documents again, and then again, and then again, and verified this was the place to leave the box off. Correct section, box had the right labels on it...I just had to shelve it and when the flight was loaded, it'd go along for the ride.

So I was looking around furtively again while I figured out how to work the jack I'd borrowed to carry the box, when someone approached me.

"Hey there, haven't seen you around."

"Huh?" I asked, spinning on the guy. He was basically wearing my outfit, plus an easy smile. "Oh. Yeah. I'm uh, new."

"I can see that. Oversized has its own section by the gate. I'll show you. First rodeo?"

"Uh."

"Is this your first truck you're unloading?"

"Oh. Yeah. I mean, I...did something similar back east. Small company, never in an airport like this."

I wondered if it was a trick question. Maybe he was important here, and would know of any new logistics people. Or they had a mentoring program or the like, and he was wondering where my mentor was. My mind raced with possibilities but he didn't follow-up, just led me along until we reached larger racks, excessively huge, each shelf maybe twelve feet high, and only two of them to the roof.

"Well I knew you weren't a career cowgirl by the way you walked. You move too fast. Gotta relax, the truck ain't goin' anywhere." Again with that easy smile.

"Is not...the truck and the company waiting on us to unload promptly?" I asked.

And to that he just laughed, taking the handle of my jack and effortlessly steering the crate into the shelves, where he dismounted it with practiced ease.

"That's a good one," he said. "Come on, I'll help you with the rest of the load."

"There's no more, that was the last box."

"Well then," he said, backpedaling to read the box. "Looks like she's not going anywhere for a few hours. What say you join me on this two-six-six?"

He attempted to draw me in towards where the others were congregating. Three or four more people, again, seemingly identically attired, all loosely waiting near a gate where a VTOL was slowly pulling in, its turbofans strangely silent as it glided across the tarmac on wheels as large as me.

"Uh, yeah, no. Sorry I have...another thing, I just remembered."

I tried to break away from him but as soon as I turned, so did he. This was supposed to be a simple plan, and this guy was ruining it.

"What's the rush? We've got a few minutes before unloading. I just want to get to know you a little better. First days can be rough, right? Make some friends, it'll work out."

"Um, no thanks."

"Oh come on. Don't be shy. You've got body mods, right? I think they look great. You're probably used to getting all kinds of attention."

I blinked at the incoherence of his arguments and realized, he was probably just talking at me with whatever came to mind. I didn't know how people got through the day doing that kind of thing. The variance alone would kill me.

Not that I was having great success with my own current strategy. I just didn't understand what was making this guy tick. It was already strange he was going out of his way to help me so much, but to do so while not letting me go?

I looked at him again, and realized he was still smiling at me.

Oh, hell no.

It was time to bust out the big guns. I cranked up my systems to top specs as I could without overheating and ran simulations of how to get rid of him.

The most obvious solutions where physical in nature. Karu would have gone that route; disabling him temporarily, or even just enough threat of violence to provoke a fear reaction would work. Locking him up or putting him down would buy me the time I needed, but if he recovered or was recovered before the flight left, he might implicate my cargo. Maybe dropping him permanently was an option...and again, very much an option for Karu, but not anything I wanted to get into, except as a last resort.

I could appeal to his characteristics. Humans tended to have strong empathy, desire for honesty, justice, trust, and good, any one of which might bend him a little towards my current situation. Athan would do that, speaking honestly and trying to win the stranger over. But Athan also liked to put us in a lot of pretty shit situations because he wouldn't deal with problems before they were problems. Spilling my guts to the man might take more time than I had, and there was still no assurance that it'd work.

Which really left lies and deception, I thought. Sort of how Saga might handle it. Just trick the guy into going away, or coming up with some reason for me to stay and him to go. She had the mind advantage of course, which would let her do anything from make the most unconvincing lie apparently bulletproof...to just making the guy urgently need to poop his pants. I didn't have any real handy lies on hand, or else I might have used them already.

Kinda filed that away in the back of my mind like an irritating checkbox on a list to check on in the future that my first reaction was the same as Saga's. I needed to reevaluate some life choices, probably.

Of course, what I really wanted to know was what Lia would do. If I had a working simulation of her in my head, I'd be unstoppable, it felt like. Some of the more eclectic cases running were showing promising results, and I thought they might be the kind of thing she'd do.

Namely, just avoid the whole situation. Use words, yes, but instead of engaging, disengage with them. Sabotage his interest in me, or gaslight him, or make him think we had a complete misunderstanding he'd be too embarrassed to get over.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

I had a wicked idea and smiled internally as I got my thoughts in order. I turned to him and batted my eyelashes deliberately.

"You are...exceptionally awful," I informed him.

"Excuse me?"

"I saw a really ugly accident on the way over here. At least, I assumed he was an accident. Your parents would never have you on purpose, would they?"

He blinked at me politely, the smile clinging to his face while he puzzled through my words. He finally decided this was some kind of joke and laughed.

"Oh good, you're laughing at yourself. Now you've caught up to everyone else."

"Um, what just happened here? Are you okay?"

I thought maybe I was going a little too highbrow on him and brought it down a notch. "Your face looks like someone with a tiny dick fucked a lasagna."

"Okay, what the hell," he asked, his smile disappearing now. He'd gotten the memo to be offended at least. "There's no need for name-calling, and frankly, this is extremely unprofessional. I'm going to have to talk to Ken about this. What'd you say your name was?"

"Gwen."

"Gwen what?"

"G'wen fuck yourself," I giggled.

"All right, that's it. I'm reporting this right now. Then you can tell me who's Gwen."

I smiled as he stormed off, even blowing him a kiss when he turned back to stare at me for a moment.

Probably totally ruined his day, but I had to admit, it was pretty fun doing so. I really didn't want anyone crushing on me, like, ever, so crushing him back seemed kinda fitting.

Once he was out of sight, I skipped back to my crate and cracked open the top. Four people blinked back at me, adjusting from the lights of their mobiles in the padded container.

"What was all that?" Athan asked, scooting over as I let myself in and pulled the lid back securely shut.

"Oh, just flirting with the staff."

He glared at me, but Saga gave an uncharacteristic giggle.

"Was there...a reason for this flirting? Do we get to board with the premium cargo now or something?" Lia asked.

"And you never answered my question about air holes," Athan complained. I messed up his hair and gave him a kiss on the cheek, which he frowned and rubbed at. I had to conclude that after eviscerating that poor guy, I was still in a playful mood, which was something I hadn't been in a while.

"The cabin will be pressurized, and the crate's not airtight. It will be cold," I informed him. "Now shush before they open the box because it's talking. We've all got mobiles, chat in messenger if you need to say something."

With five of us in here now it was pretty cramped. The crate was big enough that we could all lie down or sit up comfortably, and we'd taken the effort to disassemble a couple of old couches and line the interior with their padding...I'd enlisted Whitney to ensure they didn't stink...but it was still five people in a box without holes or light…

Well, it was really nothing like I'd feared. I'd spent a long, long time underground and alone, and I thought that this might remind me of that and give me a panic attack, as had happened in the past. But as it turned out, my confinement had been alone in a big space, and here I was crowded in a small one, really nothing alike, and despite their efforts at silence, there was near-constant noise of people breathing or shuffling around or tapping on their devices.

In fact, cuddled between Athan and Saga, it was actually really nice in here. The tip-tap of mobiles in the dark reminded me of computer work. The people I was laying with reminded me of cuddles. It was warm with our collective body heat, comfy, it felt safe.

And I really, really didn't mind being pressed up against Athan like I was. I grinned to myself as I wondered how traumatized Lia might be if the whole box turned into a big twelve-hour orgy until we arrived. Probably a very bad idea, especially if there were live pilots within Saga's range. But a fun one, I filed away for later use.

"What are you beaming for?" Karu asked, visor glowing at me from Athan's other side. I was glad I wasn't bumping up against her armor, but Lia didn't seem to mind.

"Oh just...thinking of computer things," I told her.

"Sure you weren't thinking of that cowboy?" Saga whispered.

"Cowboy?"

"He called you a cowgirl. He referred to unloading the truck as a rodeo. You don't pick up on lingo very fast, do you?"

I rolled my eyes for her benefit, since I couldn't just think my annoyance at her. "No, I was not thinking of him."

"Y'know, if you wanted something really cutting, I could have hooked you up. I aim for the personal insecurities, myself. Tell him something like how his friends really only tolerate him. Or how sad it is that he's grown so far from his parents, because they actually really used to love him."

"Okay, what the heck happened out there?" Athan whispered back. "It can't be anything good if Saga is this engaged."

"There was a guy who wasn't letting me sneak into the box," I told him.

"So she let him sneak into her box--"

"Not helping, Saga," I told her, and she giggled again. Seriously, she was what, a hundred years old, and she had the mind of a high schooler. If she kept whispering and giggling, we were going to get in trouble and ruin this whole field trip.

"So you insulted him?" Athan asked, incredulous. Karu shushed him and he gave her a quick frown before turning back at me.

"It's a good move," Lia said. "People don't usually like talking to someone who's being a big ol' dingo to 'em."

"Thanks, I thought it was pretty good."

"Why didn't you just tell him...you needed to get in here for global security or something? We're only doing this to rescue someone and worry about political corruption and the corrosion of the XPCA by greedy corporations. Surely he would have resonated with some of that."

I sighed. I might have wished I had a simulation of Lia sometimes, but I could already get Athan spot-on without effort. I kinda wished he'd knock it off, because he was drying up my crate-orgy fantasy.

"Okay, seriously though," he began again, and this time we all shushed him. "Hey, I'm just saying--"

"Athan, here's a fun travel fact," I told him, barely whispering in his ear, and enjoying the cuddles too much to bother adjusting my glasses. "Did you know that the ancient predecessors to our digital media players, these big machines called gramophones back in the twentieth century, they had a big brass horn that music was piped out of, but no volume control? So if you wanted to dampen the sound, you'd literally put a sock in the horn, and that's where we got the idiom 'put a sock in it'."

He blinked at me a couple times, his brow working as he processed my words and tried to apply them to the situation. Finally he whisper-responded. "What does that have to do with anything?"

I smiled at him. "I thought it was relevant."

He opened his mouth to respond, but Saga reached across me and put her long fingers on his lips.

"Shush, doggy," she said, and I saw Karu twitch involuntarily. "They're coming to load the crate, and we want it to be the kind of crate that doesn't talk."

Athan bit back his retort and nodded. And sure enough, within a few minutes, I could feel the crate getting lifted and pulled, twisting one way and then another, and losing all sense of direction surprisingly quickly.

Although, I could obviously look it up on my compass or pull a map if I needed to, but that would kind of diminish the human experience here. And it wasn't like knowing where we were or facing was going to help. Once that box was closed, we were all in for a ride.

"...lasagna, but that a guy with a tiny dick had sex with," came a voice outside the box, and Saga and I both had to stifle a laugh. Her hands were up in an instant, tapping on her glowing mobile, and a moment later I got a message.

> He really massacred the delivery. Yours was much better.

"Are you sure? I heard there was a hiring freeze for the month. There shouldn't have been anyone new here today."

"She was here, I tell you. I wouldn't make it up."

"Sure. And none of the rest saw her, and she disappeared. And had red hair in pigtails down past her waist."

"It's true, it's all true."

"Especially the insults. Because that's what any new hire would do is show up, insult you, and disappear."

"Okay, you're just making this sound worse than it is, like I'm crazy."

"Look man, if you don't want to unload the two-six-six you just tell me."

We held our breath as their bickering continued, and the sound outside the box changed from the silent glide of the jack to the faint roar of the winds on the tarmac, and then the rumble of metal grating, as the box was loaded and stowed. And then the voices faded away, leaving us very much alone and very much in the dark belly of an empty VTOL.

It felt like whole minutes before we heard them back, banging around and talking, and more of them, as they moved more and more goods around us, sounding like we, as oversized goods, were loaded right into the middle of the vehicle.

For balance, I assumed. Not that I really knew. I never actually did get a pilot's license.

And then there was about an hour and a half of silence. Saga told us they'd left and we could resume our 'inane blathering if we desired, but nobody really had much else to say. We were all just proverbially buckled in and waiting to go. And waiting, and waiting.

Until, at long last, Saga again informed us that we had company, and a few minutes later, the turbofans of the VTOL came to life all around us, vibrating the entire vessel and our crate as they spun up.

"It will not, perhaps, be the most comfortable way I have flown. But not the least comfortable, by far," Karu said.

"In ten hours, we'll be in Haneda Airport," Lia said, checking her mobile. "Which is a pretty cool thing, first time leaving the country for me. Athan, too."

"Hmm. Kind of a weird state for me and Saga I think," I said. "When we were in Canada, it wasn't part of the US, but when we came back, it was. Does that count as being abroad?"

Everyone shrugged. I laughed.

"Well, it feels like an adventure?" I asked. Lia nodded, but Athan took longer to think it over.

"It's supposed to be a rescue mission," he said.

"Well it can be both, can't it? An adventure of a rescue mission. I think, whether you want it or not, there's going to be a lot of new experiences for you out there."

"But it's supposed to be a rescue mission."

"And it will be," I said, giving him another peck on the cheek. "Don't you worry, we'll find them and bring them home. Until then, you just try to get some sleep, and think about how many girls you've got snuggling up with you."

"Yeah, I'm trying not to."

"Please don't," Lia said, on his other side. "Dude, if you poke me with something, I'mma break it off."

"We could trade places?" Karu suggested. "I would not mind being poked."

"No, I won this spot in the rock-paper-scissors tournament in the car. Just don't turn it into something perverted, AEGIS. Karu."

I grinned apologetically at her. "Not my fault he's cute."

"Whatever. Let's just focus on the 'adventure' angle. Think about all the stuff we'll see and do. And the people we'll rescue, eh, bro?"

He nodded at the roof of the box, as though immune to the charms of visiting somewhere he'd never been, laser-focused on one goal, and one goal alone.

"Hang in there Moon, Tem. We're coming," he whispered.