Arizona

There was a roadblock ahead. Pickles stopped the truck, got out and opened the hood. A voice boomed from the darkness, too distorted by amplification for me to distinguish what he was saying. Pickles ignored it; she  produced a frying pan and started cooking tomatoes, onions, peppers and mushrooms on the engine. There was a burst of gunfire from halfway up the hill to our right. Frans dragged a pair of assault rifles from behind the seat, and handed one to one of the little girls, Lulu. She pointed it out the driver's window, while Frans, grinning, aimed his at the hillside where the shots had come from. The other little girl, Lila, stayed in the floorboard, fiddling with her doll and singing to herself. Frans and Lulu suddenly started firing, and muzzle flashes lit up half a dozen spots across the hillsides as the ambushers returned fire. I concentrated on being small as bullets sparked off the hood, cab, and truck bed. I saw a guy in a black jumpsuit, hood, and goggles rush up to try to seize Pickles. She didn't bother to look around, just flipped the frying pan, backhanded the attacker with it, and caught  the food in the pan again. The firing died down. Pickles hoisted herself back into the truck, put it into Drive, and picked a way around the barricade. Once on the other side, she hit the gas and we accelerated down the open road and into the clean night.

Arizona

The plane landed at 1:56am. The monster-hunting accountant got off before I did, and was gone by the time I got down the ramp. When I got out to the curbside, I found that the taxis were also gone, and the hotel shuttles had stopped running. ; the night was dark and quiet. I shouldered my backpack and started walking. The night was quiet, the desert air clear. A little while later pickup pulled onto the shoulder in front of me. It was a Chevy, almost as old as I am, in a two-tone color scheme, white and primer. The driver is a cute Mexican lady named Pickles, maybe early forties. There's also her nephew, a pale blonde Finn named Frans, in his early twenties, and two little girls, Lulu and Lila, maybe eight and six. Names, ages and relationships are conjectural--Pickles rattled off Spanish at machinegun speed, and I don't speak Spanish anyway. Frans spoke a language I didn't recognize, and the girls burbled nonsense talk quite happily.

Trip to Arizona

   I don't notice anything strange when we land in DFW--but then again, it's DFW. With 150,000 travelers per day running to meet people, avoid meeting people, pick up luggage, or catch another plane, strange things are normal. When we get on the plane, though, it's hard not to notice the monster-sized guy in urban camo. He's so broad he has to turn sideways and shuffle back to our row, so tall that if he had hair, it would be brushing the ceiling. Over his shoulder is a duffel bag that's big enough to hold a couple of teenage girls, but when he stuffs it into the overhead compartment, I see gun muzzles. I don't recognize then at first, because this gun is not some dinky little pistol; we're talking about a weapon that would be suitable for knocking over a rabid tyrannosaurus,  and then polishing off a horde of zombies as an afterthought. The main barrel has a bore suitable for firing hypervelocity golf balls, with a 40mm grenade barrel above and a dinky twelve-gauge barrel slung below, where it can nurse an inferiority complex.
  Once he gets settled in across the aisle, I catch his eye. "Mind if I ask what you do?"
  "I'm an accountant."

 

Trip to Arizona

  I'm the first one to go through the line this morning, and the Irradiator hasn't warmed up yet. I step through the gate, and my eyes flash violet, my teeth buzz, the hairs on my left forearm stand up, my prostate tingles, and my toenails flex. Aside from that, everything appears normal.
   The TSA supervisor mutters something to his minion about adjusting the machine. The minion sighs heavily, in a dramatic manner intended to convey, without quite crossing into insubordination, that he is the most underpaid, over-supervised, under-appreciated minion of all time. Given that the supervisor has not said "And this is the price of failure", nor cackled evilly, nor torn the minion's heart out, I'm not believing it. Although it is, admittedly, early in the morning; perhaps the evil supervisor just needs to get warmed up. The minion jabs at the control panel and beckons at the next person in the queue. I sit down where I'll have a view of the gate, as I put my shoes, belt, wallet, keys, pen, phone, laptop, coins, and other artifacts back into place.
   The next one is a weightlifter with an artificially blond mullet and Fu Manchu mustache, yellow muscle shirt and purple-and-black leopard spotted pants. He glowers sullenly at the minion, and steps into the gate. He doesn't step out; rather, after a brief indigo flash and a crackle of static electricity he, or his remaining soot, drift gently to the floor. I envision the dozen people coming through and getting soot on the soles of their pantyhose, socks, and feet, leaving trails of sooty footprints which lead to the jetway gates before fading out.

Trip to Arizona

    I get up at 4:14am and, by automatic pilot, stumble into the bathroom where I shower and shave. Pushing a sharp blade around my face at 4:23am is not the brightest possible idea but I won't be awake enough to realize that; as it happens, nothing happens. Volumes of hot water get me semi-functional; I dress, eat something, and drag my carry-on and backpack to the car. I consider getting a little more shut-eye on the ride to the airport, but decide it would be ill-advised, since I'm the one driving. I get to the airport at 4:57am, wave to all my adoring fans here to see me off, then turn stride through glass wall right next to the door. Oh, well, it'll be a little more business for the glaziers.
   I've already gone through the online check-in, so all that remains is to march in, remove my shoes, belt, wallet, phone, pen, backpack, laptop, coins, keys, and all other metal except that actually implanted in my body. And then, fatefully, I go through the security gate. At this hour of the morning, I don't consider all the consequences of me passing through a radioactive search-o-tron....