LA X (Open to Anyone and Everyone)

[Angelika Kiselowa]

Angelika Kiselowa hadn’t been to college in some years now, those had been probably the best years of her life. She had finally done what she wanted without having to hide or feel bad about it, she studied what she wanted and she had let math behind her a long time ago, she had made great friends, she had dated. They had been definitely been the better years, now four years after her graduation she was struggling to pay her debts, doing what she loved but struggling never the less.

The flight she found herself in today was a Seattle- Los Angeles flight, which wasn’t very long, however all the people she was traveling with were soundly asleep. It was her dancing company, they were coming back home after a show up north. But Angie, like always wasn’t able to sleep very much, she truly envied people that could sleep easily.

She could go see a doctor about her problem, but well, right now, the money she was using to pay for her student loans was the one that came from her paintings, she could only paint in the late hours of night. So even if she had the money to go see a specialist about her problem, she would end up without her secondary money income, so she was pretty much stuck with the problem until she was in a better place financially speaking.

The flight attendant had passed across the hall several times and each time Angie had been tempted to ask for vodka, willing to take the risk of getting completely hammered after the small drink. Though she didn’t want to get drunk on a plane it didn’t sound nice at all.

She looked through the window wishing the flight to be over and then closed her eyes for a few minutes, she wasn’t going to fall asleep but it always felt nice to pretend. She wondered if there were any experimental treatments to get rid of insomnia that she could take part in, some universities even paid for test subjects, she could deal with two problems at the same time.

She wondered if the person next to her could relate to the sleeping problems that she had, probably not. For most people sleeping was something they did and didn’t give much thought to, they didn’t know how lucky they were to be able to lie down for five minutes and fall asleep. She would like to see how people would react to barely being able to sleep a couple of hours a night. Yeah, the person next to her, in her opinion, was a lucky S. o. B.

Even though she flew regularly across America, and even some times to Canada or even Europe, she still felt really nervous each time a plane took off or when they encountered turbulence. Strangely enough she didn’t care about landings even though in proportion she knew that most accidents regarding planes occur during the landing.

Admittedly she didn’t watch much television, though a girl she was close with at the show made her watch the beginning of the first season of Lost with her during a trip and she had became obsessed with it, since she was away months at a time sometimes, she had the entire series downloaded on an iPod that she had got some Christmas ago from a friend from college that was doing way better than her financially. She had to admit though, that watching the first episode of Lost while in a plane hadn’t been the greatest idea ever.

Turbulence started and she just waited to see the plane torn in two pieces and landing somewhere in the middle of the Ocean, even if they weren’t above the Ocean at the moment. The subconscious was a funny thing, filled with things that Angie couldn’t understand. She just hoped she would be arriving in LA X soon, where her feet were securely attached to the ground.

[Marcus Rodgers]

Marcus Rodgers and Mira Velásquez
Somewhere between Seattle and LA

The flight had been uneventful so far. Mira was curled up in the window seat, reading a book of some sort, probably one of her usual mystery novels. Apparently a decade of being a private investigator had not soured her view on detective fiction. The actual job was nothing like what most authors portrayed for the sake of making a quick buck, the type of stuff with lots of sex and murder. For Marcus, it was usually just a good deal of tracking and hacking.

That just illustrated the differences between Marcus and Mira. She could examine the scene of a violent crime, or go undercover to bust a people-trafficking circuit, and come out of it with her faith in humanity completely intact. She had some sort of talent or trait that Marcus was missing. Not that he regretted not having whatever trait that was- he was perfectly fine with his way of handling the stress and trauma of the job, which was to detach himself from it completely. Still, her affinity for hope was admirable, though it was just one of the things about Mira that he could not help respecting.

As Mira read, Marcus tapped away at a laptop, which had been placed upon the fold-out tray. He was between assignments at the moment, which was actually just a nice way of saying that he had not received a new assignment since his last one. That happened occasionally; he and Mira had more than enough money to support themselves during a dry spell. Their biggest concern usually ended up being finding some way to keep themselves entertained.

This concern had led to their current trip to Los Angeles. Marcus had wanted to make the visit on his own, but, due to a few complications regarding their last job, he had decided not to leave Mira alone. The woman was able to handle herself well, usually, but taking down one assailant was relatively simple. Facing however many goons a multibillion-dollar corporation decided to hire to exact their revenge would have been something else entirely.

They had just finished what must have been their twelfth or thirteenth extraction. Ever since Mira had first gotten interested in the idea of dream infiltration, they had taken on as many jobs as they thought they could handle. There was something appealing, almost addicting, about entering someone's mind and interacting with their psyche via their dreams. It was like investigating, but usually happened in a much smaller frame of time, and took more quick-thinking and creativity.

Mira, an actress with plenty of experience applying those skills in the real world by going deep undercover on her assignments, had proven to be a talented forger, and Marcus had transferred his technical prowess and investigative expertise into researching his targets and conning them out of their secrets. Together, they made a nigh unbeatable team, and could accomplish the more simple extractions on their own. For more difficult cases, they sought out chemists and occasionally additional teammates, but in general, they preferred to work by themselves. Others were not as trustworthy, and splitting the money in two was better than splitting it in three or four.

For the moment, Marcus had chosen to keep himself busy by hacking into the airplane's entertainment processor. He had done it before, plenty of times; all of the intranets used by the major commercial airliners were more or less the same. The proper changes and connections were made quickly, after which he sat back and waited. The video on the small screens overhead switched from an informative safety program to an enjoyable Rick Astley tune. Mira turned and narrowed her eyes at Marcus. "Again?"

He responded with a smirk. "You know I aim to please."

[Margot DeSilva]

The thought of leaving Seattle never bother her much. In reality, Margot was quite used to being transient, having traveled since she was a kid.

One thing that did bother her was leaving Issabella behind. She was having a neighbor/acquaintance take care of the little darling while she was gone. Margot didnt necessarily trust havin strangers in her home, so instead, she gave the old woman Issabella's case and food and let it go from there.

Margot's precious little darling sweetheart was in safe hands now, so she need not worry. Though that didnt necessarily prevent her from doing so.

Margot was fussing with her hair tie when suddenly "Never Gonna Give You Up" started to play. She paused a moment, listening intently before both hands fell in her lap and her hair fell around her shoulders in an askew mess.

What the hell was this shite? Somebody probably though they were cute or the airline was run by a good handful of nutters. A brief exchange behind her conformed the former.

She turned, looking quite perturbed, expecting to find a coy face or two, followed by, "Did you do it?" "No, did you?".

Or maybe that was just her.

Margot began to fuss with her hair again and gave the two behind her a rather annoyed look. "You must have quite the sense of humor." She said coolly, her her accent clearly shining through her tone.

[Angelika Kiselowa]

Her mind-babbling-non-sense was cut short when the screens the flight had for on board entertainment started playing a Rick Astley tune, interrupting what everyone else was watching. She heard some people complain, some guy behind her had been very emotionally invested in the movie he was watching and was really angry now.

"Hey, what's the matter? I was watching that movie. This flight sucks, I'm never flying Southwest again. Could you tell whoever is in charge to get the movie back on? I mean..." said the guy as he began to be really loud but he was interrupted by Angie.

"Yeah well, people are trying to sleep, I'm sure they are enjoying your screaming though, so please keep on doing it" said Angelika with the best of her sarcastic tone.

The guy stopped talking and though Angie was sure she had hear a faint "bitch" she decided to not pick a fight and simply smiled, one thing was not being able to sleep, another thing was to stay awake and listen to Customer of the month ramble and ramble.

She then heard a girl two rows in front of her telling the couple in front of her that they had quite a sense of humor. What was that supposed to mean?

She shrugged it off and decided to look at one of the magazines that the flight had to offer, she opened it up and saw a small politics paragraph that included her father, it was about the conflict the European Union had with Ukraine about the passage of the natural gas from Russia to Europe and pressure from Ukraine to be allowed into the European Union.

Her father was the designated speaker for Ukraine on the UN talks they were having about this energetic crisis of natural gas. She read the article mostly out of good memories of her father, she hadn't spoken to her family in a while, since Christmas. They only called each other once or twice a year, her parents weren't that happy with her.

She feared that if her father didn't reach an agreement soon, it could escalate into a conflict like the one in Georgia or Chechnya. But well that was his problem now, not hers. All she had to concern herself about was making enough money to eat this month, not all those wold peace silly things.

She looked behind her, the other girls were so deeply asleep that one of them was even drooling a little. She turned the pages of the magazine, not wishing to read more about politics and found an article on the Los Angeles College of Oneirology. They had many experiments on dreaming going on and Angie made a mental note about going there, if they knew a lot about dreams they may know a thing or two about how to get asleep, it was worth the shot. It looked really interesting, she loved Lucid dreaming even if she didn't get to do a whole lot of it.

[Marcus Rodgers]

The little rickroll had earned exactly the reaction Marcus had expected. People were hardly ever unpredictable, at least to him. There had been one flight, a Delta one if his memory served him accurately, wherein the flight attendants, after recovering from the initial shock of the song change, had begun to dance, possibly in an effort to calm the confused and mildly infuriated passengers. A similar effect had occurred on the last Qantas flight he had taken. You had to love those Aussies.

Marcus usually flew Delta, but Delta flights had an annoying habit of always routing through Atlanta. Always. That seldom posed a problem for him- unlike most travelers, he actually liked the traffic-choked city. But, due again to that last job he had completed, he was avoiding the town for now. Landing in Atlanta would have been the logical equivalent of leading the cat to a birds' nest.

Someone a couple of rows behind Marcus and Mira began to complain loudly, to which the woman behind them replied with a biting retort. Additionally, the woman just in front of the pair apparently put two and two together and got two, and turned around to glare at them and provide her own opinion on the matter. He simply gave her a winning smile. "Oh, admit it. You want to laugh."

With a few exaggerated taps to his keyboard, he reset the entertainment center, and the previous movie picked up a couple of seconds ahead of where it had been cut off. "There you are. That ought to please Fatass back there, at least." He nodded back, to the man who had inanely complained about Southwest sucking.

Mira rolled her eyes at Marcus, then turned to the woman in front of them. "My partner happens to be both a jerk and a prankster. I apologize on his behalf."

"How very thoughtful of you," Marcus answered in a tone that might have been mistaken as rude were it not for the playful smirk that accompanied it. Mira returned the smirk before picking up her book and returning to reading it.

[Margot DeSilva]

Margot rose and eye brow at the two and said to the woman. "I would think he would be more of the former."

She turned back then, to peer out the window and at the land below them. She always thought it quite wonderful to be so high up above everything she knew. Like she had been in the dreams she used to have as a child. Before everything went to shit.

However, the musing ended when she thought about texting the guy who was caring for her sweet and precious little lovely lizard to see how the little dear was fairing.

The thought that maybe she obsessed about that lizard a bit much crossed her mind however she enjoyed thinking about her lizard so that thought hadnt deterred her.

A sigh and she settled down in her seat. Now that the annoyance had gone, she might be able to get a good nap in. Most people she knew werent really able to sleep well on planes but she on the other seemed to snooze just fine on them.

Hell, maybe she'd dream naturally.

[Angelika Kiselowa]

Angie couldn't help but to be attracted by the conversation that the people in front of her were having, it seemed like the guy had been the one responsible for all the changes and they had upset the girl in front of them.

He was some sort of hacker he had to be to be able to do what he did, Angie wouldn't have a clue as to how to start doing that, so she figured he must be pretty clever. She knew most networks used some sort of discrete mathematics programming, but that was information she could really do without, thankfully her parents didn't dictate her life anymore.

Meddling into the conversation, Angie bent forward a little so she would be in the range of the man in front of her and then she simply whispered to his ear. "Hey Mr. Hacker, if you are so good what are you doing flying coach?" she said teasing the man and then smiling to herself a little before getting back to the comfort of her own seat.

She took out her cellphone it was in flying mode, so she couldn't make any calls, she wondered if she should call her father sometime soon. It had been close to 8 years, it was really stupid to keep this feud going and from how things were going lately from what she heard in the news it seemed like maybe her father could need some help.

One of her team mates fell on her shoulder completely asleep and Angie couldn't help but grabbing her head and moving her the other way, if she wasn't going to get any sleep she wasn't about to stay still while others did.

She didn't want to see a movie, she couldn't sleep, God, what else was to do in a plane other than have sex in the bathroom? Not that she would do it, she didn't have a boyfriend anyway, she hadn't had one in a long time and it wasn't something that she particularly needed, she had always found pleasure in being by herself.

[Marcus Rodgers]

When the woman in front of them commented on Marcus being a jerk, Mira frowned for a moment, then went back to her book. She would not have called Marcus a "jerk," exactly, but then again, she had probably become desensitized- what an appropriate word- to his jokes. They had known each other for years, and Mira was far from being unbiased with regard to her partner's personality.

Marcus, on the other hand, could not have cared less what the woman in front of them thought of him. His mind had already moved on from the Astley incident and was now focused on an intense game of computer pinball. The small laptop pinged and made other little noises in time with the game, which Mira successfully ignored.

Neither of them missed noticing the woman who leaned forward and whispered to Marcus before settling back into her seat. Marcus raised an eyebrow and glanced back at her for a moment. "Coach is so much less conspicuous. Don't you agree?"

She had obviously put together the available clues and figured out what Marcus was and what he had just done. That level of cleverness was rare these days, as far as Marcus could tell. That remark she had made earlier had been pretty witty too. He wondered if he could get into the flight record and find her name, and the name of the girl in front of them too for giggles. Fatass probably had a really embarassing name, like Joseph R. Jonas or Ashley Justin Bieber.

Mira peered at him over the top of her book. There were times that he could swear that woman could read his mind.

"I'm just playing a little game. There's no harm in that." He gave Mira his characteristic innocent-yet-Chesire grin, and as usual, the grin was lost on Mira, at least on the outside. The actress could bluff better than most professional gamblers.

"Mute it." She uttered the sentence without moving her eyes away from the pages she was reading.

Marcus muted the computer and continued playing for a little while before suddenly closing the laptop and glancing backwards and forwards. Mira raised an eyebrow. "Look, ladies, I apologize if I disrupted your enjoyment of the flight or anything," Marcus said to the two women around them. "I get bored easily. You aren't the first victims of my pranks, and you won't be the last."

Mira snorted to herself from behind the book.

"So, what brings you ladies out to Los Angeles?" Marcus asked amicably, possibly more out of boredom than actual interest, but he figured the intention should be worth something at least.

[Margot DeSilva]

Margot had been drifting off, making her usually pre-snooze thoughts. This time it had been about the book store. Business had been poor lately and every time she saw the elusive owner, more and more grey hair appeared, framing his creased and worn face. Financially he was just making it and with hi family and all easy to see why he was so stressed.

Margot was thinking of loaning him some money, of course that may blow her cover as a student earning her masters in language, but she could deal with that problem as it came. She was good at improvisation and it had saved her life thus far, though had cost those of others in some circumstances.

A voice interrupted her thoughts and she opened her eyes. It was the guy behind her. What did he say? Something about why she would be in LA.

"I am taking care of funeral arrangements for a friend in Burbank." Bold faced lie, but then again lying was something she was good at. "Why?"

[Angelika Kiselowa]

Angie heard the man reply something to her that she chose to ignore, if she knew how to do it, she wouldn't care a bit about anything and she would get herself out of economical trouble as soon as she could. There were only so many things she wouldn't do for money, sex was one of them, not that she hadn't been asked before by the way. Sell drugs was another one, killing, well you got the drift, she didn't really saw hacking as something as bad.

The guy kept on talking to the girl next to him and so Angie's thoughts drifted away from the usual again. The article on the magazine had reminded her of the last time she had talked to her parents. It hadn't been pretty, but well, talking about free will with someone that doesn't really believe in free will was never really good to begin with.

He had told her many things, like that he had payed a lot of private schools because of her gift, her mind was supposed to serve her country. She had been schooled for great things, things that her father wished her to become, things he was training her for even if she just saw it as boring mathematics. Dancing just meant throwing her talent away, she simply replied with a speech that she had been practicing before hand about how it wasn't his life and that if he wanted that so much he should study mathematics himself.

Things were said, and now Angie was on her own barely able to pay for her own food, but at least doing something that she loved. At least no one had taken that away from her. She was definitely glad about the fall of communism.

Her attention came back to the man in front of her as she appeared to be speaking to her and another woman in front of him, she didn't quite hear what the other girl said but she guessed that the man was expecting her to answer. She tried to look away and play fool but realized he was still waiting for it.

"Oh sorry, you were talking to me?" said Angie. "Well, I'm going back home so I can keep on doing my daily routine, which in part involves getting rid of random Casanovas, but I think I just fulfilled my daily quota so I don't have to worry too much for the rest of the day"

She said all of this with a playful smile, she was one of those girls that were kind of bitches but that said everything with a non fake, sarcastic smile so that she wouldn't come off as a complete bitch.

[Marcus Rodgers]

Unfortunately, neither of Marcus' two new acquaintances seemed interested in pursuing light and meaningless conversation. Marcus completely ignored this, not because he had not noticed it, for he certainly had. He kept talking for this solitary reason: he felt like being an ass.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Marcus said to the woman in front of them, regarding the funeral she had mentioned. His words were actually quite sincere. Arranging funerals was seldom a pleasant task- they were expensive and could be a hassle when they were too detailed or involved too much work. This in addition to the fact that you had just lost someone you were probably close to.

Marcus was a bit too familiar with the implications of funerals. He had buried more former partners than he really cared to count. Most of them had only lasted a few months, or a couple of years at the most, before they got shot or fell victim to whichever particularly gruesome murderer, kidnapper, or other sadistic bastard they had been after. Mira was an anomaly; it was a wonder she hadn't died yet. The woman was too damn clever for the good of either of them.

"Anyway, Burbank is nice. I hope you enjoy it anyway." He thought he detected the hint of a lie in the woman's expression and choice of words- he was trained to notice that sort of thing, and that skill was probably the primary reason he also hadn't been killed yet. But Marcus was not on a case and most likely would never see this woman again, so whether she was being completely truthful mattered to him not at all.

"Oh, why? I was just making a little conversation. Trying to be less of a jerk." His eyes sparkled mischievously. Behind the book she was reading, Mira rolled her eyes.

Marcus turned around and looked at the woman in back of them, who ignored him for a while before finally answering, at which point he gave her a big smile. "'Casanova'? Why, thank you. That's one of the nicer things I've been called. As far as meeting your quota, I'm glad to have been of help." Again, he flashed her a winning smile, though it was probably a bit more fake than the smile she had given him. Clearly he was having fun with this.

Mira suddenly felt compelled to interfere. Lowering her book, she shot the other two women an apologetic look before fixing Marcus with a mild glare.

"No one particularly enjoys hearing the sound of your voice, dear, except for you. Besides, there are people around us who are trying to sleep. Be a little more considerate, all right?"

Marcus' smile drooped theatrically. "Yes, ma'am. I'll just keep to myself." Facing forward in his seat again, he opened his laptop and pulled up a fuzzy window. "Ooo, the plane's navigational console. I wonder if I could have them drop me off in Niuatoputapu?"

The look Mira gave her oblivious partner was sharp enough to kill.

[Angelika Kiselowa]

Angie sort of just let the man talk his way out before what seemed to be his wife told him off rather harshly. She let a smile out as the other woman told him off and asked him to stop cause people were trying to sleep.

Angelika didn't like lying, however that didn't mean she liked telling the truth either. She was just herself, enigmatic and someone would have a hard time getting any information out of her. She had discovered it was easier to play the mysterious card than to open up to others.

She knew that once someone knew enough about someone else, the mystery was gone and they simply moved on to the next person. Angie ensured that if they did move on at least they wouldn't take a part of her with them. She liked people not knowing everything about her, it made social events much more fun.

It was when he mentioned the plane's navigational system that she had a problem with him. "I rather you leave the navigational system alone" said Angie rather serious but just so he would hear her cause she didn't want to make a scene.

"I am not comfortable knowing that my life depends on someone that likes to Rick Roll complete strangers for on board entertainment" she said to the man.

She hated her fear of crashing, it was somewhat irrational, but she rather not take any chances, everyone was paranoid enough about crashing without having a prankster making jokes about it.

She was beginning to think that the vodka she was thinking about wasn't such a bad idea after all. Though of course, she knew what happened when she drank and she rather not put everyone on the plane through that. Hopefully the flight would be over soon and she could go back to her peaceful and financially stressful life.

[Marcus Rodgers]

There were times when Mira really wished Marcus would just shut up. She was immune to his jackassery- occasionally, she even found it funny. But there was a time and place for that, and it wasn’t aboard a plane full of sleeping strangers.

Clearly, the woman behind them was not enjoying Marcus’ antics either. At first, she had seemed only mildly annoyed, but, when Marcus mentioned the flight console, her expression changed to something more serious. Both Mira and Marcus noticed the change, but on different levels, and with different reactions.

Marcus began to turn around again, intending to address the concerned woman. Sometimes he forgot that most people couldn’t take jokes that well. Her discomfort went unnoticed by him, but his more emphatic partner was quick enough to stop him from dealing any more damage. Mira did not even have to speak; the look she gave him was enough. The two of them were about as married as a couple could get without signing an actual certificate.

“And now you’ve been relegated to playing solitaire for the rest of the flight. I swear, you act so much like a child sometimes.” Mira had never been very tech-savvy, but she was fairly certain he could not actually access the navigational console that easily. Then again, being a computer genius, he did have a knack for getting into places that should have been impossible. They were all better off if he just left the plane alone.

With only a very slight nod, Marcus closed the laptop and took the novel Mira had been reading. She rolled her eyes but did not argue with him. She understood well that fighting with him was pointless.

She glanced back at the other woman. “I doubt you’d be surprised if I told you he acts like this often.” He was an asshole, through and through, to just about everyone he came across. Mira had seen him behave well at times- alone with her, he was respectful and thoughtful. She just wasn’t sure why he could not be that way all the time.