by Chewy Walrus
Chewy pushed the plane into a barrel roll, laughing as he heard the PPM's shrieks from coach.
"Hey!" the old man yelled. "What do you think you're doing?! Do you even know how to fly that thing? And putting me in coach! Do you know how filthy it is back here? Why, if I were in Mande--"
Chewy rolled his eyes and pushed the intercom. "Excuse me, all. This is Captain Walrus again, requesting that the presidential-parliamentary leaders who are to ungrateful to offer their thanks for their lives please shut up and DEAL WITH IT!"
The remainder of the flight was carried out in silence.
Daniel Elwyn O'Boyle walked around the airport. Not because he wanted to. Oh, no. He hated the crowds. He did it because his metaheroic alter-ego, Rhyme Guardian, needed any leads that he could get on the flight that was carrying the President-Prime Minister of whatsit.
"Never could remember that name," the Rhymer whispered under his breath. He slipped into a room reading "AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY!"
When the Rhymer walked in, he was almost sad that he did. The place was a frenzy, air traffic controllers crawling over themselves, hot coffee cups in their hands and their faces glued to various screens, listening to their respective headsets.
Dan walked up behind one controller, picking up a spare set of headphones, putting them on. A stray name tag reading "BOB" was soon pinned to his lapel.
"Hey, what's the deal here?" Dan said to the controller before him, a tall, skinny man with a nifty part and a trim mustache.
"Oh, hi," the man said, looking up. "We just lost a plane that landed from Chicago. The pilot just took off and kept on going."
"Where are they?"
"That's just it... we can't find them... they aren't on any of our scopes."
Crap, Dan thought. What am I dealing with now?
"Why aren't they following us?" the grumpy Fausk stammered as Chewy and the PPM got off the plane and walked into a secret concrete bunker about two-hundred feet underground.
"I have this little gift, Fauskie, old bean," Chewy said, flopping down in an overstuffed arm chair, motioning for Fausk to sit in the beanbag across from him. "Ever since I was a kid, I've been able to mentally communicate with technology. My Atari, Commodore 64, or television. I could talk with them and learn from them."
Fausk tilted his head to the side, glaring at Chewy with wide eyes. "How...?"
Chewy shrugged. "I dunno. Just sorta born that way I guess." Chewy kicked the recliner of his chair back, just to relax. "But, as I learned more and more, I learned how to reprogram certain tech. Now... I can pretty much reprogram anything with a thought or a touch."
"So, what happened on the plane?"
"Oh, that. I reprogrammed the stewardess button alarms to emit a sensor-blinding signal to call of all the air-traffic controllers."
"Is it still on?"
"Yep."
"You, Mr. Walrus, are a genius."
"That's what they tell me," he smirked, getting up and moving to a small refrigerator. "Wanna soder?"
Dan smacked himself in the forehead. How could he have been so ignorant? "Use the rhyme force!" Dan whispered to himself.
"What was that?" the man with the thin mustache asked.
"Nothing..." he replied. "I'll be right back."