Work Text:
I’ve never really found the time for doing stuff like this, but my fiancée kinda pushed me into this.
(usual ‘it’s my first time’ disclaimers, yadda yadda yadda)
So, backstory: I work in New York and my fiancée is currently working in Washington, DC. Every other weekend, I take Amtrak down to spend the weekend with her, I’ve been doing this for a couple months now. We both work for the same government agency and in a few months, she’s being transferred into a new branch in NYC and she’ll be moving in with me. She also recently told me she’s pregnant, so I’ve got a lot going on these days.
Now, this happened just yesterday afternoon.
I usually take the Acela Express down, but there was an issue in the yard, so Amtrak had to sub in a normal locomotive pulled train. The platform was packed and I let out an ‘UGG’ as the train pulled in. I’m not a big fan of the “AMCAN” cars, seats are too hard for me, and they don’t reline how I like. but, if it gets me to the woman I love, I won’t make a stink about it.
(“Amcan” is a nickname for the cylindrical shaped Amtrak passenger cars used in the eastern US. Their proper name is “Amfleet”)
I’ve ridden this trip enough I’ve gotten to know some of the crew.
“Can’t wait for the new ones? Junked the old ones already” I jokingly ask as I board.
“Hey (my name)” the conductor replied, recognizing me “there’s a sinkhole forming in Sunnyside under the yard leads. This was the only train we could pull out to try to keep some service going. Unfortunately, we’re making Regional stops and all normal coaches with a dinette.”
“Meh, it’s not my money.” I say, knowing that I have a first-class ticket but it on my agency’s dime (at least for us, Amtrak tickets don’t have the same restrictions as plane tickets) and I knew I could get the difference refunded. They cover my travel expenses since part of my weekends are spent doing set up work for the new branch office, which I will technically be attached to.
I decided to camp in the Dinette and get some work done. People think working for my agency is a glamorous job, but they never consider the massive amount of paperwork that goes with it. I have a small support staff under me and it was quarterly review time. Whoop de f’ing do… And, on top of that, my one-year review on my rookie partner was due up. That wouldn’t be so rough if she wasn’t my fiancée’s sister, meaning I’d have to tread lightly between being honest and not getting myself in trouble with her.
It took us about an hour and half to get to Philadelphia (my normal train makes just the one stop at Newark and then runs express to Philly, making the trip in about an hour, this one made six stops without leaving New Jersey) and when we do it’s kinda close to SRO. No one’s joined me yet, but it’s at this point I wish they did, because that’s when SHE got on.
(will apologies to Will Smith)
In North Philadelphia, she got on my train.
350 lbs. of trouble with a Kid to her name.
OK, I’ll stop (my Fiancée just gave me a whack in the back of the head for how lame that was)
“Are these taken?” She asked me. Before I can answer she sat down anyway across from me and her son sits next to me.
“Well, I guess they are now.” I mutter as I my earphones back in and ignore her, going back to work as the train pulls out.
Not five minutes go by (we haven’t even gotten into the main station at 30th street) when I feel a tugging on my sleeve.
I look, and it’s her kid, smiling.
I pull out one earphone.
“What are you playing?” He asked.
I should point out I was on my work laptop, which has a privacy filter on the screen so that you can only see it from basically one angle.
“Kiddo, I’m not playing. I’m working.”
I put the earphone back in. Only to feel him start tugging again
“What games do you have on there?”
“I’m sorry, but there aren’t any.” Which is the God’s honest truth. The machine has a custom OS. Damn thing doesn’t even have Solitaire.
“Can I play?”
“No, sorry, I’m really busy.”
At this point, Moby Dick starts her mouth.
“Let my son play with your computer.”
“Technically, this isn’t mine, it’s a work computer and I’m not allowed to let anyone touch it.”
“Bullshit.” She says “I know you’re playing your War of Worldcraft.”
Aside from the fact I don’t play WoW, I’m not trying an MMO on the train’s shit WIFI.
“Ma’am, with all due respect, I’m trying to finish a paperwork for my job. I’m not gaming.”
“Prove it.”
“I’m sorry, why do I need to prove anything to you?”
“EXCUSE ME? How rude… Let my son play with the computer or I’m having you thrown off the train.”
“Ma’am… I couldn’t show you my screen, even if I wanted to. The device will shut off if the camera doesn’t see my face. I work with extremely sensitive information and...”
“Why are you being so difficult, just let my son play with your computer. He’s bored.”
“You two just got on, if he’s that bored, that quickly, I’m sorry but there’s nothing I can do.”
“We were waiting at the station for hours. I don’t know why I travel this way.”
I mutter to myself “because the plane would never get off the ground…” as I pop my earphone back in and return to my work.
Again, not five minutes go by when I notice the little runt climb under the seat. Two seconds later.
“Look what I found!” He yelled. He’d pulled my personal laptop out of the bag under the seat.
“YOU!” His mother says to me “You had another computer and you won’t share.”
“Not my kid, not my problem.” I say as I pull my property from his hands.
“GIVE THAT BACK.”
“Lady, it’s my stuff” Politness went out the window when her kid was rummaging through my stuff.
“At least let him play with your phone or something? He can’t hurt anyone. He’s the most well behaved child around.”
“no, just accidently start World War Three…”
“Why can’t he use the other computer to play a game?”
“Kid how old are you?”
“I’m seven.”
“Ma’am, none of the games on my personal computer are age appropriate. I don’t want you screaming bloody murder over showing your child Mature rated games.”
I decided to make him an offer.
“Tell you what, champ, let’s switch seats, and you can look out the windows.”
“Just let him play with one of your games.”
“I told you, all of my games are ether too complex, to tedious or outright rated Mature if not adult rated.”
The primary reason was the desktop background was a photo of me and my fiancée and I… let’s just say she prefers to operate as low key as possible and I actively try to keep to her wishes.
The… it happened.
She reaches out and grabs my work laptop and tries to get out of her seat.
“Ma’am, put that computer down.”
“No, you wouldn’t share with my little angel, so this is how you’re going to make it right.” She says a she forces herself away from the table and starts down the car.
“Ma’am… I didn’t want to do this, but you’re leaving me no choice.” I tell her as I get up.
I pull out my gun and badge. My employer is a certain government security organization….
“I’m agent (my name) of (agency name)” I yelled as I held my badge up “and Ma’am, you are under arrest for stealing classified documents.”
“He’s got a gun!!!” She screams at the top of her lungs and drops to the floor. Considering I’d announced my identity, no one bought the act.
At this point, the conductor comes into the car.
“Help!” the whale cried “He’s trying to steal my son’s computer and he’s got a gun! Toss him off the train.”
“Agent (my name)?” the conductor asked, “everything alright?”
“Get on the radio to Amtrak police and tell them to meet us at 30th. I’m arresting this woman for stealing government property.”
“But it’s my sons!” she continued, pointing at me “He’s the one trying to take it.”
“Ma’am” the conductor says “I know who this man is. He’s a regular on this train. Give him back his computer.”
“This is MINE!” She bellowed “I’m going to get you fired and him arrested”
“Listen, lady… have you ever wanted to visit Cuba?”
“What does that have anything to do this, thief!” she said. I give her credit, once she starts with a lie, she sticks with it…
“Because if you don’t give me that back this instant… You’re moving there. Permanently…” I’ve always wanted to threaten someone with Gitmo… mind you it was complete and total bullshit, but I was hoping it would be effective in convincing her to give me back the laptop.
It wasn’t.
I don’t know why she did it, but she opened the laptop. Since the lid was closed, it had gone to sleep. Upon opening, it started going through the facial recognition scan, and started making a god-awful racket when it detected an unauthorized face. Most of the people in the car had their hands over their ears.
I reach over and grab the laptop and slam the lid shut.
“Told you only I can use it, but you didn’t listen.”
I pick it up and show her the bottom and told her to read it.
“Property of (my agency, full name spelled out). Contains classified “Top Secret” documents. Authorized use only by users with necessary security classification ONLY. Non-authorized access is a violation of United States Federal law, any attempt to access without proper security clearance will result in imprisonment.”
She was so white in the face, she might have been transparent.
She forced herself back to her feet, I still pointed my gun at her.
“Ma’am, as you opened my machine, I am legally authorized, as a counter-espionage agent, to SHOOT you. No trial. No pleading your case. Nothing. Do you understand that.”
“All I want is to make my little angel happy. I’m taking him to his father’s and then I’m not going to see him again for an entire week!”
“Lady… I’m sorry your living conditions are rough, but I am supposed to protect the information on that machine with my LIFE. Do you understand that?”
She just looked at me as the train started to slow down.
“I want to hear you say it out loud.” I repeat, but she does nothing.
The brakes hiss as the train pulls into 30th Street station. I turn and see her son holding my personal laptop and now making for the door.
“GET BACK HERE!” I yell as I turn to give chase, only for the mother to shove the conductor to the ground, grab my work laptop out my hands and head for the other door out onto the platform. The kid bolts up the first ramp while the mother continues down the platform. I let the kid go. I have backups of my personal PC. It’s the work machine that’s my primary concern.
I identify myself to some SEPTA cops I saw passing and tell them what’s going on, the follow me and radio for backup.
We eventually corner her at the far end of the train trying to get back on.
“Ma’am… One last time. GIVE ME BACK the computer.”
At this point, she is crying like you wouldn’t believe.
“YOU MEN ARE ALL THE SAME! YOU TAKE AND TAKE AND YOU DEMAND AND DEMAND!”
“Ma’am, like I said. I’m sorry for the circumstances you’re living in, but there is information on that machine that if it fell into the wrong hands, could lead to countless incocent lives being lost.”
“I’m a good mom! I just want to take care of my baby!”
The SEPTA police approached her and cuffed her, handing me back the laptop.
Now all I needed to do was find her little hellspawn and get my personal machine back.
Fortunately, help came in an unlikely form as I exited out into the main terminal to look for him.
“Hey babe.” My fiancée said with a smile. ‘Missing something?”
She’s got the kid by the collar.
“Put my baby down.” The mother screamed. “I’m gonna…”
It was at this point she got a good look at my fiancée’s face.
“You…” she said
“Hi…” my fiancée said with a slight smirk.
“(kid’s name)… give him back the laptop” she said in a panicked tone.
“But mom!”
“Just do it.” She hissed.
My fiancée let go of him and he wandered over and handed me back my machine with a look that could kill.
The kid then looked back at (fiancée).
“now, say you’re sorry.”
Instead of doing what he was told, the kid balls his fist as if to hit her. I grab his arm and yank him back.
“Is this how you raised your son?” I ask the mother, furious “teach him to attack pregnant women?”
When the entitled piece of work opened the laptop, it sent out an emergency signal, kind of like an even more high-tech version of Lo-jack. My Fiancée happened to be returning to her office from an assignment and her plane happened to be the nearest to me. I went back the train, grabbed my stuff, and got on the plane with her instead, once the local PD had crazy in the back of a radio car.
We spent the short flight taking about being responsible parents to our future child. We decided to skip the usual weekend and take an actual vacation.
This morning, I enquired about the crazy lady with Philadelphia PD. Turns out she wasn’t losing her kid for a week, but permanently. Her husband had divorced her and was given full custody because she refused to take medication for whatever psychological issues she had. She had actually KIDNAPPED him and was taking him back to Virginia. He didn’t care because she spoiled him rotten.
I’m an only child myself, so I know what it feels like to be mom’s little darling. But I just can’t understand why she would risk FEDERAL PRISION for the sake of keeping the kid entertained.
Well, that’s my story. I hope you enjoyed it. I need to get packing; I’ve got a flight to introduce the misses to my mom’s family.
“And… done.” Scott said with a smile as the page refreshed.
“I don’t know why I let you talk me into posting that” he said to Daisy as she walked past with a suitcase,
“I think it’s a great story and…”
“Your account got disabled and you want to use this one…”
“Maybe…” she muttered. They went outside to her car and started towards the airport.
“So… Do you think your mom’s parents are going to like me?”
“Well… I guess there is only one way to find out…”