BWI Portalocity Lounge | Saturday Morning

[princessarcasm]

One of the very few perks of having a meteorologist for a mother was that Amy could almost always avoid weather-related flight delays by relying on her mom for information. That was usually very convenient, but today it meant that due to anticipated late morning storms in northern Texas, Amy had been forced to fly in at ass o'clock in the morning so that she wouldn't run the risk of missing the bus to school. So it looked like she was the first person to reach the Fandom High banner in the airport lounge, and while Amy had always had hopes of one day winning a race, this wasn't quite what she had had in mind.

Armed with an overstuffed duffel bag and her favorite pair of sweatpants (they were decorated with little cartoon strips of bacon!), Amy stifled a heavy yawn and parked herself in a distant corner of the lounge where she could wait for more people to show up.

Comments

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[seeks_truth]

"The United States?" What? Cassandra eyed the girl warily. "You mean the Free Marches, surely? How could I have been sent this far--?"

She had never heard of such magic before.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[princessarcasm]

That was weird to hear. Normally when Amy traveled, she had the opposite experience, where traveling what she thought was a short distance actually felt a lot longer.

"Where were you before?" she asked. "If you didn't mean to wind up here, I'm sure someone can help you out. There should be some teachers here soon. Or, oh, you could borrow my phone if you want to call your parents?"

She waved her iPhone in Cassandra's direction. Because technology was sure to help in this case.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[seeks_truth]

And there the scowl had evaporated from Cassandra's face just five seconds ago. Why did you have to go and ruin it, Amy?

"Put away the artifact," she said. "Now. I will assume it is not yours but that you found it, in which case it should be turned in to your Templars. It may be dangerous."

She was giving this one the benefit of the doubt - barely.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[princessarcasm]

Amy didn't like the scowling any more than Cassandra did! There didn't seem to be a huge divide between the scowl and the sword being held aloft, and Amy definitely didn't want the sword back up.

"It's not an 'artifact,' it's my cell phone," she explained hastily, taking a step or two back. "I guess they don't have iPhones where you're from? It's not dangerous, I promise." Assuming Cassandra wasn't about to snatch it away, Amy would just be opening her Google Maps app. "See, you can see where we are on this map, or you can call people and talk to them, or send texts to your friends. Good stuff. Not dangerous stuff. The wonders of science, am I right?"

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[seeks_truth]

"What is this?" Cassandra said. She was advancing again, sorry, Amy, but this time it was to inspect the device. "I did not know the Marches had created anything that could produce such luminescence."

It stung her in the eye, that was true, but she had already been on the receiving end of much brighter spells.

... and she completely missed the point of the maps, at least for now.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[princessarcasm]

"I think they're made in China, but they do get the most use here," Amy rambled. She was a little reluctant to hand her phone over to someone who seemed to be a bit on the destructive side, but maybe a gesture of goodwill would keep the sword down where it belonged?

Amy could dream, anyway. She handed it over.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[seeks_truth]

Cassandra had to sheathe her sword to take it properly, so perhaps that would be something of a relief. She held the device up above her head and squinted at it. "How does it work?" she said. "Is it dwarven?"

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[princessarcasm]

That was a relief. Maybe Amy and her phone would both make it out of this airport unscathed.

"I don't think so?" she ventured. "It works with this whole... network thing. It lets you access public data and connect to other people's phones and save your own information to come back to later. Kind of like a book that a lot of people can access remotely? But some things are private and some things, anyone can access."

Amy bit her lip, hoping she wasn't dumbing this down too much. Phones and the internet were a big enough part of her life that it was a challenge to try to explain them to a beginner.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[seeks_truth]

"Yes," Cassandra said impatiently, "But how does it glow?"

... baby steps. No, seriously, baby steps.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[princessarcasm]

"Ohhh." Yeah, Amy didn't actually know the answer to that. "I think it's called blue light? It's a kind of artificial illumination. It probably works the same way as those screens over there."

She pointed at a departure board across the lounge.

"You've never used a computer or anything like that?"