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The TSA agent looked Lirb in the eyes, then Tezro, growing more suspicious with each one. Finally, his gaze shifted to Argie. She was wearing the ski mask that the agent had watched her pull off some other person’s head about twenty seconds ago, and, assuming the worst, he reached for his gun and began to draw it. Just before it left the holster, she spotted him, glanced over, and then fired a sharp glare. The agent froze, glanced at his fellow agents, and then collapsed on the spot and hit the ‘gate open’ button with his head. The UTOPS watched him fall, and none of the other agents move, so (somewhat awkwardly) shuffled through and grabbed their bags.
“Sh- Should we go check he’s alright? That looked like a hard fall…” worried Tezro, ever the concerned medic.
“Nah. Maybe a broken nose and minor concussion at worst, he’ll be fine. Also, fuck the TSA.” Argie allayed his concerns with her usual grace.
“…should’ve just let you shoot me…” grumbled Lir, having been “recruited” (read: taken hostage) only a month earlier. “Still an option, if you really want it,” commented Argie, perhaps more cheerfully than was appropriate given the conversation and overall situation.
Scoot keyed up his radio, momentarily deafening the entire on-site group. “Guys, please don’t forget again: we’re here for that disk. Stevens isn’t a target.”
“Aw, I wanted to nail him in the face. He looked like a massive prick,” commented Argie.
The three strolled through the concourse as Scoot complained about the camera systems being slow to respond. Eventually, he came back over the radio (this time fixing his microphone volume) and reported the situation: Alan Stevens was waiting at gate C8 for his 12:02 flight to Moscow on November 20th, 2004.
“Scoot I swear to god, next time, if you don’t give us more than five minutes to make it across an airport, you’re going to be wishing you were in Lir’s position.” Argie broke into a run, while Tezro and Lir were still staring at the ceiling shouting “FUCK.”
Somewhere around the B concourse, the two caught up to Argie in the tunnel. That flight was leaving in two minutes, and they had about a kilometer to go plus time to actually find the guy and pickpocket the disk. They kept up, Scoot continuously informing them of Stevens shifting his seating position. And then:
“Hey, uh, guys? Stevens just got up to board. Are you at the gate? It’s now or never.”

Argie immediately peeled off from the rest of the group and towards the nearest emergency door. Tezro automatically followed, knowing he’d probably have to cut the power to it lest Argie trigger the alarm and ground the entire airport.

Lir, in his mostly panicked state, kept running, somewhat to get to the gate but also as a way to get away from Argie for a bit.

Argie hurriedly waited as Tezro fiddled with the trigger circuit, eventually getting it disconnected. Argie nearly elbowed him out of the way and slammed the door open, sprinting out onto the concrete and towards the plane. Tezro stood back, panting, and started to pull out his medical kit.

Lir sprinted up the stairs to the gates, breathing harder than he probably ever had in his life. He looked down the hall, took a deep breath, and started sprinting. Everything else became a blur and a drone as he ran towards the gate. The boarding agent got up from her desk, and started walking over to close the door. Before she got the chance, Lir sprinted through the door, down the jetway, into the cabin.

“Kids these days. Never show up on time to anything, I swear.” The stewardess closed the cabin door and turned the latch as the engines spun up and they pushed back. Lir stumbled down the cabin, hyperventilating yet still barely breathing. He checked each seat in first class, only to find there was nobody even close to Stevens. He lapped back to check again only to find it devoid of his target. The stewardess asked him to take his seat, but he didn’t parse anything, and with a hint of concern, he kept walking down, into business, and then economy.
No Stevens. Lir paced up and down the aisles once or twice more, eventually realizing he was now alone on a flight to Moscow. In a daze, he found an open seat and sat down. The flight attendants returned to their seats, satisfied that he’d finally stopped pacing. Lir watched out the window as the engines spun up, roaring, drowning out his thoughts and words and those of everyone around him. He probably felt the acceleration push him back, but it didn’t fire anything in his mind. At this point, there wasn’t really anything firing in his mind. Just a heart beating and lungs breathing. The plane pitched up, soaring into the sky and the unknown future.

Lir felt his mind slowly return to him. His breathing slowed, and he started to hear the chattering of the people around him. He checked his radio, to no avail. He didn’t know any of the crew’s phone numbers, so he wouldn’t be able to find them. They’d taken his cards, so he coudn’t buy a ticket back or even get a payphone to ring one of his colleagues. Really, he was mostly… well, fucked. Pretty badly, actually. At this point though, there wasn’t much to do but sit back and watch the Pacific.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m your captain for this flight. Unfortunately we’re having some mechanical troubles in the landing gear assembly, so we’re going to have to circle back to the airport and change aircraft. I’m very sorry for the trouble. We’ve just reached our cruise altitude, so it will probably be about 20 minutes till we land. Thank you for your patience.” Lir listened to the announcement with one of the greatest senses of relief he’d ever felt. The plane banked sharply to the right, and began dropping almost concerningly quickly.

Tezro walked into the C concourse that Lir had ended up in earlier. Scoot had been watching as Lir boarded, and Tezro spotted with a drop in his stomach that the plane wasn’t at the gate. Rather, there was a Delta aircraft on initial climb out of the airport. The only Delta plane at the airport, in fact. The one with Stevens and Lir on it. He slowly walked towards the gate, Scoot waiting in silence for the first time since they got out of the car. He started walking over to one of the nearby phone booths to breath for a minute when he heard shouting around him.
“THAT’S HIM, GO GO GO GO GO! DON’T LET HIM GET AWAY!” shouted some military character, holding a large rifle pointed at Tezro. His hands shot up, and he got down. The agents swarmed in on him.
And then they went about four feet to his side. They pointed their small arsenal at the phonebox, kicked in the glass, and grabbed the now incredibly cut-up Stevens and dragged him out, never moving their guns from his head.
“SIR, YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR ATTEMPTING TO TRANSPORT A RESTRICTED ITEM THROUGH A TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION CHECKPOINT! SURRENDER ALL BELONGINGS IMMEDIATELY. You attempted to transport through, according to Charlie at the checkpoint, a 103mL plastic container of clear, odorless liquid the density and viscosity of dihydrogen monoxide.” Stevens stared at the agents, to which they responded by grabbing him and beginning to pull all of his belongings out of his pockets. Tezro watched in shock as they pulled out a notebook, an organizer, a strange sort of cassette, a calculator, and some financial records. The cassette! Tezro slowly walked up behind them and slid the tape away from the pile. Looking at the label, it was exactly what they needed:
“TOP SECRET: ‘FLAPPING BIRD’ PROGRAM”
“Got the disk. Or rather, cassette.” Tezro breathed a momentary sigh of relief as he started back to the main entrance.
“That explains a lot of weird terminology used in the messages. It’s literally a tape.” Scoot responded, sounding satisfied.
“And, bonus, we got that Lir guy sorted out. Doubt the Ruskies will be happy to see a Wall Street trader showing up. Is a shame though; he was starting to grow on me, somehow.”
“I’m just concerned about Argie. I can’t see her on the airfield, where’d she get off to?”
“Probably fine. She’s not dead yet, and she’s probably done worse than this…”
“Still. Would’ve expected her to at least chime back in.”
“That is… mildly concerning, but also she probably forgot where the talk button is. Or is ignoring us.”
“Also very possible.”

Argie looked at the hydraulic fluid drenching her plate carrier, and holstered her gun. She hooked another arm around the landing gear strut, and grunted as she dragged herself higher into the landing gear bay while the wheels slowly fell down as they lost hydraulic pressure. The bullet holes in the cylinder were still hot, and the fluid sizzled as it trickled out.
After she’d made it mostly out of the rush of air, she looked down and saw the plane banking sharply and descending back towards the airport. Still clutching to the airframe, she swung her pack around and pulled out a massive bottle of Jack Daniel’s. She unscrewed it, took a long swig, and then smashed the glass on the landing gear and let it fall.
“About time I got to actually drink some of it before it gets smashed. Still can’t break tradition too much by… not wasting 130$ of liquor…”
She continuing grumbling about the waste of good alcohol as the plane descended, and was jolted back to reality when they made contact with the ground.

“Hey, Scoot?” asked Tezro as he slouched in the hard airport chairs.
“Yeah?”
“Are there any Delta flights scheduled to be landing right now?”
“No, not on the schedule… I’ve not heard about any approved diversions, either.”
“There’s a Delta flight landing right now and… is that… fucking hell, hang on,” he said, as he stood up and strode over to the window.
“Scoot, that’s the same registration number! The flight got brought back! Argie might still be on there! And for that matter, Lir!”
“Wh- what?! Why would they possibly have diverted- oh. I see why Argie got on from the bottom and not up here.”
“‘course the lady could make a 747 divert. To be fair, I’d do the same if I heard she was on a flight I was piloting.”
“I’d feel bad for the gate agent trying to handle her wrath.”
“Whatever. Where do you think they’re going to unload the passengers?”
“I dunno. Try following where it’s heading.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
“…I’m lower ranked than you.”
“Shut up. That’s an order.”

After the plane stopped and passengers were unloading, Argie dropped out from the gear’s bay and onto the ground, confidently strutting over to the line of very disgruntled people unloading from the aircraft. Someone tapped her on the shoulder, and she spun around, ready to light somebody up like a christmas tree.
“Wow, you got here fast! Delta really does have the best maintenance staff!”
“W- Huh? Oh- Oh, yeah- they sent techs- me- out here pretty fast.” She looked back at the airplane, with the front gear a solid three feet lower than the rear, pouring a steaming black fluid. “Should be all good to go now, I got in there and tightened some bolts. Y’know, just usual wear and tear.”
“Oh, fantastic to hear! I’ll tell the pilots they can taxi themselves back to the hangars for inspection.”
“Yeah… yeah, of course.” Argie hurriedly got back to following the crowd, looking for Lir among them.
“Hey, Lir!” she called out. He snapped over, and ducked out of the line to get over.
“Howdy, tuxedo-boy. Enjoy your flight?”
“Yeah. Was great until I thought we were going to die.”
“I had to unload half a magazine into the hot hydraulic system until we started descending. I don’t want to hear you bitching,” Argie said as she started off towards the perimeter fence.
“Yeah, and I was- wait you shot at the plane?!”
“If you have a problem, you haven’t shot it enough.”
“…why did I agree to this?”
“Because you were a problem at that point.”
“Right!”
“Anyway, don’t lie to me. You enjoyed the thrill. You had that look in your eye,” Argie stopped at the emergency exit door and waited for Lir to catch up from a few feet behind.
“Maybe, doesn’t mean you aren’t a dickhead. Still a little pissed about the whole kidnapping thing.”
“Aren’t you the Wall Street asshole? Don’t be calling me a dickhead.”
Lir grumbled about the “damn commies” and shoved the emergency exit open. Alarms rang out from behind them and they started walking again.
Their radios crackled and Tezro came on, somewhat panicked. “Where the hell did y’all go?! Why did the plane land!? Did you trigger the alarms?”
Lir went to key up before Argie elbowed him. “You’re the one who joined the communist revolution. Can’t be calling us the commies.”
“Again, you had a gun to my head.”
Argie ignored him and clicked the talk button on her radio. “Let’s just say I’m going to need to explain an empty magazine to command. And some more Jack Daniels.”
Scoot came back next. “Argie, you’re not in a movie. Just tell us what you did. And why you keep bringing hard liquor on these missions.”
“I can’t yell at you properly over the radio. I’ll see you back at the vehicle, then we can actually fight over this.”

Tezro walked up to the bike and saw Scoot, Lir, and Argie all clustered around it, discussing Argie’s maneuver to get the plane landed.
“Okay, but I’m still not entirely clear why you used 8 rounds to puncture a single aluminum hydraulic line. Those cartridges are like, $12 a piece.”
“Hey team!” Tezro interrupted their argument and walked over.
“Oh hi Tez!” Scoot excitedly responded, ready to be done with the impossible Argieument. dude. what. do you not like my new addition to the language.
“Ready to head back to base now?” asked Lir.
The other three quickly agreed, and all four of them piled onto the 1993 Honda CBR300R. The bike nearly touched the ground with all of them stacked on top of it, but nonetheless started and, with great trouble, got them out onto the highway.
“So! I think Lir is starting to take a liking to the job!” Argie shouted over the wind in her face.
“Really now! Surprised he’s gotten over us forcing him into a revolutionary special operative unit! I’d be pissed,” replied Scoot.
“Oh, I’m pissed. But… the special operative shit is pretty fun,” Lir fired back, albeit now moreso excited than angry. “You just might have me voluntarily going on the next mission.”
Tezro jumped in for the last word before Argie had a chance to throw snark at Lir. “Well! We got the objective and character growth! Can’t ask for much more out of this one, can we?”