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Author's Note: I'm glad I had this chapter in reserve and I'm sorry for the delay. I'd like to say my muse kicked in on Whisper, this story and/or Reality Storm, but it didn't. Instead, it kicked in on a 5th story. :( Again, a "my bad" goes out to my remaining 10 readers. A VERY special thanks to all my beta-readers for putting up with me. Djkauf for his magical editing.

~o~O~o~

 

 

Sadie decided to wait for Matt and Craig to leave the hangar. Since they were probably paid by the hour, they would have to get back to work sooner or later.  The place was loaded with multi-million dollar private jets and security cameras to protect them.  The cameras would present a problem for her, but she figured they would be easy to defeat with her holographic projector. Once they left her alone, she could simply use her projector to make it look like her owner/pilot walked into the hanger, moved the chocks and pulled her plane out of the hanger.

She noticed one tiny problem with her idea. Hangars were the place mechanics worked on planes. Why would they leave?  She felt a bit of optimism when they both exited to go work on some aircraft in a second hangar, but her plan went all to hell when Matt closed and locked the hangar’s door as he left. “Damn it…” She muttered with frustration.

With the security cams, it would be more than a little tricky to open the doors herself without transforming and giving everything away, impossible really.  She had a couple of hours to stew over her problem and she came up with a go-to-hell plan. Worst case, she would zap all the cameras with a low powered laser to blind them and once done, she would make her escape, but her plan A was a little less risky.

Plan A was for her to wait for Matt to return and use her holographic projector to fool him into thinking her owner/pilot had returned and ask him to pull her plane out of the hanger for her.  Holographic-Sadie would then enter her cockpit and she would take off, easy peasy.

Matt promptly returned at 5pm, cleaning supplies and polish in hand. “Oh, good, you’re still here.” He glanced appreciatively at her. “I was worried your owner would come back before I got a chance to clean you.”

Sadie decided to hold off on leaving for a few more minutes. It might be nice to have a good wash job. She didn’t think she really needed one, but having someone pamper her sounded a lot like day at the spa.  Michelle and Natalie raved about how nice it felt to have someone give you a nice massage and facial, so maybe getting a free wash and polish from Matt would be the same.  Besides, her skin did have a few bugs stuck to it and they could hurt her aerodynamics, right?

It sounded like a good reason to her and besides, once Matt started cleaning her and she got used to the fact a strange man was touching her in places no man had gone before, she discovered it felt pretty damn good.  In fact, it felt so relaxing having Matt work his magic on her back and wings, she almost went into sleep mode a couple times.

Her ‘skin’ cleaned itself everytime she transformed. She didn’t ‘need’ to have someone wash and wax her, but it sure felt nice. Sadie decided that once Michelle had the babies, she would have to ask for a wash and wax every once and awhile when she was in motorcycle or airplane mode.  After all the foot and back massages she gave Michelle, it was only fair.

“Well, Arcee, that’s it.” Matt stood back and admired his handy work. “I must say, you’re looking mighty fine.”

Sadie felt ready to melt into the floor and his compliment slipped past her filters. “Thanks, Matt.”

“What?!? Did you just talk?” Matt jumped back with alarm as Sadie realized what she had done.

She projected her Holographic-Sadie by hangar’s entry door. “I said, thanks for taking care of my plane, Matt.” She smiled as he anxiously glanced between her hologram and her real body.

Confused and looking a little embarrassed for thinking that the plane spoke to him, Matt blushed and stammered. “Umm, it’s...umm, no problem, ma’am?”  He clutched the microfiber polishing cloth in his hand as he scratched his neck with confusion.

“Sadie. Ma’am makes me sound old.” She chuckled as she walked over to her real body. “And I’m sure ‘Arcee’-” She smirked at Matt causing the poor man to blush even harder. “-appreciates your work and I’d love to stay and chat with you about what you think of her, but I need to fly.”

He looked crestfallen. “Oh…”

Sadie hated making him feel bad. “Sorry, you did a very good job on her, but would you be kind enough to pull her out for me?”

Once Matt had her sitting on the tarmac, Sadie popped the canopy and jumped into her cockpit. She wanted to show him some appreciation for his work, but was at a loss for how she could do so without giving herself away. “Hmmm…”

She made a show of slowly starting up her engine as she wrapped her hologram around the flight stick, including it in her holographic disguise.  With it hidden, she transformed the flight-stick into a gripper tentacle and pulled two $20 bills from storage.  With her tentacle hidden inside her holographic body, she snaked it up to her left arm and offered him the cash. “Here, thanks for the extra work and care you put into my plane.”

Matt looked surprised by her offer, but he waved her offer away. “I can’t take this ma’am.” He hesitated and smiled apologetically at her. “I was just doing my job.”

“Sadie and nonsense, you didn’t have to pull me-, my plane into the hanger and you most certainly didn’t have to wash and wax her!” Sadie pushed the $40 toward him.

“Honestly, ma’-, umm Sadie, it was my pleasure…” Matt took another step back and smiled at her.

She was getting a little frustrated. Why did he have to be such a nice guy? “I’ll drop it if you don’t take it.” She threatened and with the wind, the bills would probably be lost.

Her threat broke through the impasse, causing him to accept the offered bills. “Umm, thanks Sadie.” Matt rubbed his fingertips where they had brushed up against her hidden tentacle.

“Sorry about my nails!” Sadie quickly lowered the canopy to avoid any further chances of discovery.

It took her almost fifteen minutes to get clearance to take off and it wasn’t until she was airborne before she breathed a huge, virtual sigh of relief.

{“Phew! In the air. ETA some time after midnight. Sorry.”} She sent a quick text to Michelle.

As much as she wanted to be home --right now-- Sadie decided it would not be wise to break the sound barrier and draw unwanted attention. As a result, she impatiently kept it down to reasonable private jet speeds while hoping no one watching the scopes would wonder how a small jet was able to reach six hundred plus miles per hour and have the range to fly non-stop from Hawaii to California.

I was 1 AM when Sadie finally made it home. She knew it was impossible to not wake Michelle, but she tried anyway.

“Sadie Prime! Sadie Prime!”  Wheelie’s enthusiastic greeting stopped any chance of her not interrupting Michelle’s sleep.

Sadie desperately motioned for him to be quiet. It didn’t work exactly the way she expected. In an attempt to sound cool, his voice dropped a few octaves. “I mean, yo, hot mamácita. Whatcha doing?”

“Wheelie!  Shhhhh, Michelle’s trying to sleep” Sadie’s eyes flared with surprise at her sometimes annoying and sometimes funny little Decepticon cleaner bot’s appearance. “What tha’ hell?”

He no longer looked like a modern, mini-monster truck with oversized tires. Instead, he looked like an 1950’s low-rider pickup, complete with white wall tires, chrome hubcaps and custom blue with yellow flame paintjob.

“Pretty bitchin, don’t ya think boss?”  Wheelie jumped up to show  Sadie both sides before he began to slowly roll down the hallway to the tune of “Low Rider” as he activated his shocks to raise and lower his body in time to the music.

{“WHEELIE! Stop making noise!  Michelle is trying to sleep, remember?”} Sadie sent to him via radio.

{“Aye, caramba! Sorry boss…”} Wheelie’s music halted mid-note and his chassis sank to the floor with shame.

From the way he was shaking, Sadie almost expected the little guy to leak some coolant like a chastised puppy. {“Wheelie...stop that.”} She sighed with resignation because dealing with Wheelie was going to take some time. {“Now, tell me why you look like a low rider pickup and why you’re trying to speak with a Spanish accent.”}

{“Oh, sí. I mean sure.”} Wheelie lifted himself off the floor. {“It’s like this, boss. Mama Vasquez sent me to work with Papa Vasquez and I kinda, sorta helped him out in the body shop at night. Ya know, when no one was around.”} He transformed into his bot mode and chuckled. {“Well, it was good work and I did a pretty damn good job fixing up those dumb human vehicles, but…”} He deflated a little. {“The workers started to think the place was haunted. So, *sniff* Papa Vasquez had to let me go.”}

Wheelie’s emotional outburst surprised Sadie. She didn’t realize the little guy had it him. She crouched down and hugged him. “There, there, little buddy. I’m sure we’ll think of a way to fix it, but I’m surprised it bothers you so much.”

“Yeah, well, me too, but fixing up those dumb vehicles felt good and there were always more.” Wheelie began to cry with lubricant leaking out of his eyes.

“Okay, well, it’s been a few weeks since you were home and there are probably a few things for you to do here. Let’s give Papa Vasquez a few days and I’ll go talk to him. Maybe we can work something out.”

Wheelie’s eyes flared open with shock. “You’d do that for me!?!?”

“Of course Wheelie, we’re family and that’s what family does.” Sadie hugged him tight and patted him on his back before releasing him. “Now, I’m going to bed. You be good.” She smiled and kissed him on the top of one of his eyes, causing him emit some beeps and melt bonelessly to the floor.

She knew it was probably pointless now, but she took the time to make her way up the stairs and to their bedroom as silently as possible. It was a lost cause because with her Catwoman/Black Widow blend, she was impossible to sneak up on.

Michelle waited until Sadie dropped her clothing facade and prepared to lie down beside her before she opened her eyes and purred. “Meow, I like it when you prance around naked and try to sneak up on me.”

“I was not prancing!” Sadie whispered fiercely while simultaneously wondering why she was whispering since Michelle was awake.

Michelle chuckled. “Whatever,  turn up your body temp, kiss me like you mean it and ‘maybe’ I’ll forgive you.”

The next morning, Sadie exited hibernation mode at exactly 6AM to get ready to be at work by 8AM.  With traffic, her commute was only 45 minutes; short by Californian standards and it never took her more than 30 seconds to be ready to leave.  The hardest part about dressing herself was picking which outfit to simulate.  She used the extra time she gained from not having to spend an hour showering, dressing and putting on makeup to make sure Michelle had a good breakfast.

With Wheelie home, the kitchen was clean, but not as clean as she expected. “Wheelie?” She looked around for him in his usual haunts before she used her radio. {“Wheelie? Where are you?”}

{“Oh! Sadie Prime, ¡buenos días!  I’m in the garage...”} His voice trailed off.

Sadie thought he sounded a little guilty or something. {“Oookay, I’ll be right there.”}

She entered the garage and gasped with surprise. Overnight, Wheelie had somehow given Michelle’s jeep a custom paint job. Gone was the hunter green metallic paint job. In its place, her Jeep was now painted flat black with a subtle, organic, flat red flame job around the wheel wells and hood that faded to pink as the flames rose. Wheelie had even re-finished the wheels, painting them black with pink highlights.  Sadie thought it looked kind of cool, but it wasn’t her car.

“Micheeellle!” She turned and yelled back into the house.

Wrapped in a towel and fresh from the shower, Michelle poked her head into the garage. “What’s wro...ng?” She stammered when she noticed her jeep.

“I’m sorry Michelle Prime…” Wheelie hung his head down with shame as he looked up to her, pleading with his eyes for her forgiveness.

Sadie wasn’t sure which way Michelle would go. While Michelle was surprised, she felt fairly sure she wouldn’t hate it and might even like the new paint job. “You can take my car to work.”

Michelle slowly shook her head. “No, that won’t be necessary.” She crouched down and looked intently into Wheelie’s eyes. “Wheelie, you know you should’ve asked first, right?” She asked, gently with a friendly smile.

“Yes, I’m sorry. I’ll change it back.” A spray can morphed into existence in his hand as he turned back to her jeep.

“No!” Michelle grabbed him and surprised him even more by picking him up and hugging him. “I love it!  Don’t change a thing.”

“You do?!?” Once again he melted into the floor with a few stray electronic beeps when Michelle set him back down.

“Yes, but please ask next time.” Michelle giggled excitedly as she turned back to enter the house. “Oh, I can’t wait for the folks at work to see my new ride!”

Sadie glanced down to a deliriously happy Wheelie. “Don’t change anything with my car…” She paused as reconsidered. “Well, I do have a few dings and scratches. If you have a chance.”

Wheelie shot up to attention and saluted her. “Ma’am, yes ma’am! I’m on it!”

Sadie shook her head with amusement as she returned to the kitchen to cook Michelle and their unborn babies a healthy breakfast.  She added an appointment in her calendar to visit Papa Vasquez during lunch the following day.  Wheelie had some talent and it would be a shame to let it go to waste.  She sent Wheelie a ping to let him know what she planned.

After seeing Michelle off, Sadie left for work and she was impressed by Wheelie’s work on her car. The little dude only had a little over an hour, but her car looked showroom new on the outside.  Compared to enjoying the road as a motorcycle, driving a car frustrated her a little, but she didn’t have anywhere at work she could transform back into Pretender mode from her motorcycle mode.  She no longer felt as uncomfortable in Pretender mode, but she eagerly looked forward flying back to Hawaii to pick up Natalie later in the week.  She had discovered a genuine love of flying and it would be great to stretch her wings a little.

Work was just work. Mr. Rogers didn’t have any high-powered client meetings and nothing blew up. That evening, Michelle happily raved about her cool new paint job, which made Wheelie even more insufferable.  He begged and pleaded with Sadie to let him customize her ‘boring’ car, but she didn’t want to have a car that attracted attention. Her car was just a 2007 Camry. A custom paintjob would look out of place on it.

Sadie decided that the trick for tomorrow’s lunch with Papa was to make him want Wheelie back. “Okay, for tomorrow, I think I need to borrow your jeep so Papa can see Wheelie’s work.”  She mulled it over while Michelle nodded with agreement as she happily dug into a wild caught salmon filet.  “And, I think I need to bring Wheelie with. What do you think?”

“Hmmm…” Michelle finished chewing her bite of fish. “Good plan.”

Wheelie anxiously glanced back and forth between the two of them and Sadie could tell how much he wanted this to work based on the fact that he was staying  uncharacteristically silent. She tilted her head a little to the side and pursed her lips as she considered how to answer. “And, I’m thinking the only way it will work is if it is a night job and where Wheelie works with an employee we can trust to keep it a secret.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea, still a little risky though...” Michelle grimaced with distaste as she stabbed a broccoli spear with her fork. “Are you sure I need to eat this?”

Sadie sighed and affectionately smirked at Michelle’s cat-like avoidance of healthy vegetables. It was the same mock argument they had every night. “Yes, veggies are good for the babies.” She saw her reply coming and held up her hand to stop her. “And, yes, I’ll take you out for an all-you-can-eat sushi dinner as soon as the babies are born.”

Michelle giggled. “You better believe it!”

When Sadie pulled into the Papa Vasquez’s parking lot in Michelle’s jeep, Wheelie’s custom paint job attracted a few glances, but her exit attracted even more admirers.  The tapping sound of her heels as she walked into the shop coupled with her expensive and subtly sexy business suit caused a stir.

“Aye caramba!” One of the workers made his opinion known just before he walked into an equally distracted coworker, causing them both to trip and fall to the floor.

Sadie struggled not to laugh as she stepped delicately around some of the dirtier sections of the shop.

From behind, she heard a low whistle of appreciation followed by a crude remark by a man who didn’t expect a gringo woman to understand Spanish. [“Wow, I’d tap that ass!”]

There were a few response options that ran through her central processor before she settled on the least deadly. Pretending she didn’t understand and ignoring his crude request to ‘tap her ass’ wasn’t good enough for her. She glanced over her shoulder at the man with a satisfied smirk, noticing ‘Jesus’ was the name embroidered on his shirt. It was time to show off her Spanish. [“Jesús, Do you kiss your momma with that mouth?”]

Jesús immediately flushed dark red with embarrassment as his coworkers laughed and patted their friend on his back, commiserating his bad luck and approval for her reply.

[“Hey, what’s going on here?!”] Papa Vasquez emerged from his office, none too happy with his crew.

Sadie turned back to face him and handed him a paper bag containing a freshly cooked, home-made lunch for him courtesy of Mama Vasquez. She figured it might help butter him up and Mama was more than happy to help. [“Nada Papá. I brought you some homemade lunch from Mama Vasquez.”]  

Papa Vasquez glanced down at the bag, clearly surprised by Sadie’s Spanish fluency and her gesture. He opened the bag and took a deep breath, appreciating what his nose reported. His smile of satisfaction was instantly wiped off his face as he glanced back up and spotted all his workers enjoying the show. [“Stop clowning around and get back to work!”]

He opened the door to the small office area and motioned for Sadie to enter as his workers scrambled to get back to their jobs and look busy.  She quickly spotted Isabella, his front office worker, sitting behind her desk speaking on the phone with a customer.  Isabella smiled and waved at her as Papa escorted her into his office. She could see Wheelie’s touch on the room because it was much cleaner that the last time she had been here. Wheelie had only been gone for a few days, but the desk was already starting to lose the battle over car parts and clutter.

“So, what brings you to my humble shop Sadie?” Papa asked, switching to English as he sat down behind his desk and glanced longingly at his bag of lunch.

“Wheelie, but go ahead and eat first. I can get some work done while I wait. No rush.” Sadie smiled and gestured to his lunch bag.

He wanted to protest, but Sadie insisted it was okay.  She had a few emails to compose and send for Mr. Rogers and a couple appointments to work into his schedule. Once he finished his lunch, Papa leaned back into his chair with a satisfied smile.  “Ahh, that was great, but I can’t take Wheelie back.  The guys were getting spooked because of how clean the place was getting without ever seeing anyone come in and clean.”

“I understand, but perhaps I can show you something first?” Sadie stood and gestured for him to follow her.

Curious, Papa followed her out and into the parking lot. His eyes flared with surprise as he recognized Michelle’s jeep. “Aye caramba! When did Senorita Michelle get her jeep painted and why didn’t you bring it to me?”  He sounded a little professionally insulted, but he crouched down and inspected the detailed flames. A low whistle of admiration escaped from his lips before he glanced back up, over his shoulder at Sadie.  “I wish I could afford to hire who ever did this.”

Sadie grinned. “But, you can.  Wheelie painted everything in less than six hours the other night.”

{“How’s it going boss? Does he like it?!?”} Wheelie anxiously transmitted from the back seat.

{“Shhh, I’m still working on him…”} Sadie lightly admonished him.

{“Doh! Okay, sorry!”}

The little guy must really like painting cars because he never acted so politely.  Her conversation with Wheelie only took a few nano-seconds, allowing her to turn her full attention back to Papa without missing a beat.

He gasped with shock and abruptly stood, glancing to Sadie with disbelief. “No way!”

“Yep.” Sadie proudly grinned as Papa walked around Michelle’s jeep, professionally inspecting the entire paint job.

“This is good. I wish I could hire him.” Papa scratched his chin with consternation.

“You can. Does minimum wage sound good?” Sadie struggled to contain a giggle at his shocked expression. “But, we would need to come up with a way to keep it a secret or limited to employees you can trust to keep a secret.”

With the boss in the parking lot inspecting a custom jeep with a hot chick, a few of his employees had gathered a polite distance away.  Papa turned to face them. “Manuel, grab Jesús and send him out here, please. The rest of you, get back to work!” He impatiently waved them away.

Jesús looked a little nervous at the sight of Sadie. “You needed me, Senor Vasquez?”

“Si, look at this job and tell me what you think.” Papa gestured to the jeep.

From ten feet away, Jesús stole a quick glance. “The base is good, but vinyl flame kits are pretty common.”

Papa chuckled. “Look closer.” He motioned Jesús forward.

“Aye caramba! This isn’t vinyl!” Jesús glanced back over his shoulder at Papa with astonishment. “Who did this work?”

“Let’s go to my office and talk about this idea of yours.” Papa Vasquez smiled at Sadie and gestured for Jesús to join him.

Sadie grabbed Wheelie, in low rider truck disguise, from the back seat and walked with Papa back into his office. Once inside, he closed the door and turned to Jesus.  “You’ve been working for me for four...” He performed a quick mental calculation. “No, five years and you do great work.”

Jesús anxiously nodded with agreement and stole a quick glance over to Sadie, clearly worried about the direction this was going due to his recent sexual harassment of a woman his boss was obviously on friendly terms with. “Si, I try, but I’m very sorry about what I said Senorita.” He turned back to Papa Vasquez with a pleading expression. “Please don’t fire me!”

“Fire you?” Papa shook his head with amusement. “Sadie, what do you think?”

Sadie studied Jesus for a second before turning back to Papa. “Do you trust him?”

{“Now?”} Wheelie began to vibrate with excitement.

{“Not yet…”} Sadie cautioned as his movement caught Jesús’ attention.

Papa nodded with agreement and glanced to Sadie for her to start. “The paint was done by a little robot I built, it’s all mucho top secret.” She was heartened by how wide the man’s eyes grew. He looked suitably impressed. “He needs some training. So, how would you feel about working with him a few nights a week?” She glanced to Papa and received a slight nod of confirmation on the schedule.

“A robot did that?!?” Jesús gestured vaguely in the direction of the parking lot.

“Yes, but not just any robot. A highly intelligent and adaptive robot, named Wheelie.”  Sadie pointed to the now trembling low rider truck. It was probably bad to be boosting his ego so much, but it seemed to impress Jesús.

Wheelie couldn’t take it any longer. He transformed into his robot mode and crawled across the top of the desk on his knees with his hands clasped in front of him. “Please, please, please Senor Jesús. Say you’ll work with me!”

“¡Mierda!” Jesús jumped back with shock at both the sound of Wheelie’s quick transformation and his sudden animation.  He made the sign of the cross as he worked to regain his composure. Due to the lack of reaction by Papa Vasquez and Sadie, he quickly composed himself and took a deep breath as he stared at the pleading robot.

His expression turned to wonder and he took a hesitant step forward. “He’s like one of those movie robots...” He whispered, awestricken.

Sadie nodded. “Exactly! That’s where I got the idea from.”  She only half-lied to the man. He didn’t really need to know Wheelie was actually created in Hector’s garage using an alien machine.

Papa chuckled. “And, he’s the ‘ghost’ who was cleaning up the place at night.” He grinned at Wheelie’s pained expression.

The rest of the negotiations went well for Wheelie. Jesús seemed fascinated by the little guy and agreed to work with him for a few hours during the night to help keep his existence a secret.  In a shop as large as Papa’s, Sadie figured the secret would be out in less than a month, but maybe not because Jesús also liked the raise he was promised.

The deal was for Papa to pay Wheelie minimum wage, using Sadie’s ID to make it legal with immigration since no one would believe a toy truck could be a robot or that a robot could be advanced enough to paint outside of an auto factory.  With Wheelie getting the low wage, Papa could pay Jesús an extra bonus based on the additional vehicles the two of them could crank out of the paint shop. To help with the illusion and appease a possible immigration investigation, Sadie offered to come into the shop a few times to help sell the story and provide evidence that it was her doing the work.  She would also use the time to pretend to gather test data from Wheelie to make it look like she actually designed and built him.

The rest of the week went smoothly with Papa Vasquez calling to tell Sadie how well Wheelie was working with Jesús.  The two were thick as thieves and he warned Sadie that Wheelie might gain a few bad habits. Her flight back to Hawaii to pick up Natalie was trouble free with only a little turbulence during the descent to the airport.

Due to her friendly mechanic, Sadie tried to time her arrival with Hector and Natalie to give her the least amount of time on the ground. She hoped it would be enough to keep the man from trying to be nice and pull her into the hanger again, but she wouldn’t mind another wash job.  It didn’t work because less than five minutes after she reached her assigned parking spot, Matt walked over with a greasy rag in hand as he worked to wipe his hands.

She activated her hologram, popped the canopy and waved to him. “Hey Matt, how’s it going?”

He looked a little surprised. “Oh, umm, hi ma’am. I was just checking to make sure you were okay.”

“Thanks, but everything’s fine. I’m just waiting for my ride.”  Sadie glanced behind Matt and toward the parking lot. “They should be here soon.”

Matt pointed to the hanger. “You can wait in the air conditioned hangar there if you want.”

Sadie smiled with gratitude as she gestured to her multiple and complex looking LED cockpit displays. “Thanks, but I have a few things to tune here and the cockpit is pretty comfy.”

Matt self-consciously rubbed the back of his head and glanced bashfully down to his feet. “Okay, but if you change your mind…” He glanced meaningfully back to the hangar before waving goodbye and heading back to his job.

~o~O~o~

Sadie anxiously waited another fifteen minutes and it looked like Matt was about to make another attempt to be nice to her when she spotted Hector and Natalie’s rental car. She jumped out of the cockpit and waited for the pair.

Hector carried Natalie’s luggage and waved to her as he approached. “Hey, Sadie. What’s up?”

“Thank god you’re here!” Sadie turned and waved to Matt, signaling him that everything was okay and he could stop worrying about her. “Matt’s a nice guy, but I think he’s a little too smart for his own good. He spotted me land, but when no one got out; he came over to make sure the pilot was okay. I told him I was waiting for my ride.”

As Natalie faked hugging Sadie’s hologram, Hector glanced over to the mechanic before turning back to Sadie with a grin. “I think the poor man has a crush on you, but how are we going to do this?”

“Well…” Sadie gestured to an older couple loading their plane from their car parked next to it. “How about if you bring the car over and I’ll make it look like I’m your passenger while Natalie takes off?”

Hector nodded with agreement. “Okaay, I didn’t realize we could drive the car in here, but I guess it will work. How far can you project your hologram?”

“Not sure, maybe fifty meters, but it should be good enough to fool him.” Sadie hesitantly bit her lip. “I hope.”

Once he brought the car over, it took Hector a few extra seconds to say goodbye to Natalie. Sadie’s hologram waited for him to open the passenger door and she projected herself into the car. Their plan seemed to work, but Sadie was only able to keep the hologram solid looking for thirty meters due to the car windows. It flickered out completely after forty meters, but it seemed to be good enough to fool Matt.

Sadie felt all her worries melt away as she went nose up at the end of the runway and punched her engines up to a whooping 20% thrust to get her up to her cruising altitude as fast as possible for a human jet.

“Holy crap Sadie! In a rush?” Natalie gasped as she was pushed back into her seat.

“Oops!” Sadie dialed back on her thrust, dropping it down from a blistering 4G to a more sedate 2G while increasing the inertial dampeners to help Natalie. “Sorry, I was feeling a little stressed out due my friendly mechanic.”

“Oh, it’s not a problem. It was actually kind of fun. You just caught me by surprise.” Natalie forgave her with a laugh. “Hey, do you think you can do a few loops and barrel rolls?”

~o~O~o~