One thing I've learned about traveling this year is that it's a lot cheaper if you let the airline use their own bags.

Even though Psyhigh has a teleportation hub, I still enjoy the liminal power of the old fashioned airport. So many random people, so many random places, so much moving, so much waiting. Being still in such a place there's no telling what you might find.

I got tired of waiting for my flight and fell asleep and ended up boarding the wrong dream. I didn't have a boarding pass so the flight attendants brought me to their special room in the back of the plane. Did you know they have huge floor-to-ceiling windows and couches and a baby grand piano back there?

The best time to visit airports is at night. That is when we usually go.

It doesn't help to bring cables or ropes to try and lash yourselves together. We tried that enough to know it doesn't work.

You can practice first by hanging out at the natural history museum. There's usually nobody back in the dioramas of extinct animals and ancient peoples. The halls are dark and the scenes are lit up, the skies are curved, and if you close one eye you can start to feel the pull. Some people can make it through on that alone.

But visiting the airport at night you can approach the gates when they are empty. Sometimes find whole terminals that are closed, lights half off and janitors vacuuming or waxing the floors.

That's you best chance to slip through, unseen. But don't use ropes. You gotta hold hands.

"There he is," says the voice in my earbuds. "Guy in the parka, row of seats on the right. There's a spot next to him. Sit there."

I take a seat next to the guy.

"Pull out your phone and mess with it. Act natural."

I pull out my phone and look at it, fumbling with my thumb. No messages. Then a message comes in.

ding!

STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING. ABORT THE MISSION.

"Ok, he's going to get up in a minute, but he's going to leave something behind in his seat. A small scrunched up paper bag. Don't look at it!"

The guy gets up and leaves.

"In about a minute, you're going to grab that bag and put it in your pocket as you stand up. But not till I give the signal."

ding!

DON'T DO IT. TURN AROUND AND LEAVE THE AIRPORT. NOW!!!

I flip on the browser on the phone. Oh but I'm not connected to the airport wifi.

"Ok, real casual, reach over and grab the bag, now stand up and put it in your hoodie pocket, and walk back down the concourse the way you came."

ding!

Too late. I'm already headed down the concourse.

Uptown Ami here, camping out at Denver Fictional Airport with my crew: the Flight Attendants.

We live in the Airports. We travel the gates to all the times and places that crazy mixed up bowl of macaroni tubes will take us.

We're just grabbing a bite at the Wolfgang Puck's before heading to Winterland, San Francisco, June 9th, 1977.

If you're not ready yet that's cool. We'll be back! See you then.

Excuse me, have you seen a group of young people here? We're on a... school trip, yeah, and I was supposed to meet up with them here at this Wolfgang Puck's. They probably look at bit, uh, rough, because they've been traveling a lot, and going lots of, uh... places?

No? Ok, no that's fine. But also, you wouldn't have ten dollars you could give me, do you? See, I'm haven't eaten for, well, I don't know how long, and I lost my wallet. The friends I was supposed to meet up with have money though, so they were going to buy me a salad, but they're not here...

Has anybody seen Ami? We got separated leaving Winterland and even though we were roped together the lash snapped. It was a clean cut, just like last time.

Anyway so the rest of the Flight Attendants and I had to bail out of the tube and ended up at the Red Rocks portal, south side cravass. Some 80's band. Carved our names in wet cement and made some friends who gave us a lift to Stapleton Fictional Airport, which was ok because Ami and I ended up there once and she showed me the way in. Security was practically non-existent back then. Made it to DFA no problemo but there's dudes in suits staking out the Wolfgang Puck's.

What goes on?!

"Don't look back," says the voice in my earbuds. "Eyes forward. Nobody's following you, but you can never be sure who's looking."

Well, whoever is texting me seems to be looking.

ding!

"Don't answer that," says the voice. "Just keep walking down the concourse. See that Wolfgang Puck's ahead? That's where you're headed."

I keep heading down the concourse. A big flight must be unloading, because it's getting crowded with people walking my way.

"Now, take a seat. Anywhere will do."

I take a seat at one of the tables in the food court. It's got crumbs and looks sticky.

"Excellent. Next, take the bag out of your pocket. Reach in and take out what's inside."

I take the crumpled paper bag out of my hoodie pouch and pull out what's inside. It's like a fountain pen, heavy, and made of brushed silver metal. It's got some kind of gem set into it. Like a button.

"Push the button."

I lift my thumb to press it...

"Hey!" says a girl who is now sitting across from me at the table. She has red hair, but not recently washed. "I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm on a school trip and got separated from my friends, and, well, they've got all our travel money, and I'm really hungry. Would you mind giving me a bit of money for a salad? Or you could just buy it for me. I'm really sorry to have to ask..."

Uptown Ami here. I ended up at an emo show from the early 2000's. New Appliance. This particular live musical performance era was always in my top 3 (ok maybe my #1) though I could never find a gate to it. But when you fall off the tether you can end up in weird places.

Hanging out after the show, I discovered these early 2000 emos had their own network of gates, totally separate from ours, which explains how we couldn't find them. But GUESS WHAT their network isn't even connected to shows in our universe at all -- it's completely in these weird dystopian universes, like where bands have to play literally underground in bombed out cities not to get arrested by the robot morality thought police or whatever.

Which means I'm kind of stuck! Because there's no way to climb back up a broken tether. So I'll keep hanging out with Dirk and Krystal and Hegemony I guess and try and figure something out.