Oh, look. It’s Lucas.
Virginia-Hersey Border Post 24-23
(Wiley, Pennsylvania)
Monday, June 4, 2531 AD
Lucas Coltrane gave the border guard his best grin. “This is mostly just an innocent misunderstanding,” he told her. “I’m hoping it can all be worked out in the morning.” He was somewhat proud of those statements: both were certainly true, and the first one was even accurate. There was nothing in either to trip the magical lie detectors that this Hersheyan border post undoubtedly (if quietly) had.
Alas, the guard seemed unimpressed by his parsing. Then again, Lucas had handcuffed and gagged her, using the post’s own security gear. He couldn’t really blame her from not being more reasonable about the situation. He felt the same way about everything, only from the other side. A headlong flight from Greater Hershey wasn’t something he had planned for.
He peeked out the window, again. The border was forty feet away, close enough to almost taste, but it wouldn’t do to just run for it. There were a lot of State Police out there, and that crew didn’t hire idiots. If Lucas didn’t plan this just right, they’d have him in nets before he got halfway to the border — and then they’d drag him right back to Liberty Lair, the Great Wyrm, and her very pertinent and extremely unwelcome questions.
All in all, he’d rather not be in Philadelphia.