FSE

Furry search engine

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As the trees watched Eric and Diane drive by, the clock struck 1:30, marking an hour and a half since the debut of their drive, and an hour before the end of it. There was no major traffic in that area at the time, which gave them a significant speed advantage; however, they were closely approaching the nearby town of Paterson, New Jersey, which housed around 150,000 people, meaning there would be a significant risk of encountering several nearby police officers.

Unlike the earlier scenery of vast forests and pure nature, the only view they had was that of houses, buildings, and industrialization. The area was vastly populated, and grew in density as they moved along the highway, along with other unsuspecting vehicles beside him. Eric did not want to take any chances, so he recalled Matt's method to avoid detection.

"Diane, could you check around the seats to see if there are any sunglasses or something?", he asked, concentrated on his driving. "I'd like to have some sort of stealth. Everyone has seen me on TV by now."

She nodded her head, and began to look around the car for sunglasses. There was nothing over the visor, in the glove box, nor inside the arm rest. "I don't think sunglasses will help hide your image very well. I mean, if my hair cutting skills didn't do the trick, what would?" She laughed, trying to spark some energy into the dull drive.

"You'd be surprised how different people look with glasses. You look more sophisticated, smarter. The media definitely never portrayed me that way." He laughed.

She nudged her shoulders in acceptance of his opinion. "I suppose." Diane took a short moment of silence. "Eric, do you really think I'd be able to help you out in all of this? You seem to be much more knowledgeable than I do, and frankly, I don't see the use of having me along. Besides, I don't even have any information to give to the police, so what makes you think they would want me so much?"

Eric was reluctant to reply. "I don't know... maybe because you're the only one with me? The only one I have to help me out?"

She looked at him indifferently. "Eric, why did you stop me from taking the plane?"

He let out a short sigh. "I needed someone who was publicly low-profile in order to buy my ticket at JFK, and a few other things to get me out of here."

Diane allowed a pause creep between them. "Alright, if you needed me to do that, you could have just simply asked on the plane, on the way here."

"But, that's not the point. Once you begin to help me, you'll get into the exact same danger as Matt was, and probably worse. I... I didn't think you would feel like risking your life and wasting your time for something so little as me, but I had no other choice."

"Oh come on... I have today and tomorrow off", she said, sarcastically, along with a laugh.

"And, about the little love affair in the plane..."

"Disregard it. Its fine, I know you don't want to get into a relationship, and frankly, it's not worth it right now. You'll be gone to wherever you were planning to go, and I'll simply be heartbroken once again. I've moved on already. But thanks for that great kiss in the plane."

While that was not the answer Eric was looking for, he had to settle with it. He was hoping she still had feelings for him, because deep down, he had them for her. But he could not show it any longer. He had dug deep enough, and it was time for him to start climbing out.

Coincidentally, only a few short moments after seeing a sign depicting the final five miles to Paterson, a police car zoomed past everyone on the opposite side of the road, possibly chasing another car without his sirens on. This quickly reminded Eric of the danger present in the area, and decided to remain aware of the surrounding roads, instead of Diane. Luckily for him, he did not get into any while passing the city of Paterson, straight into a much denser traffic.

...

Benson walked around his surveillance team, watching their search for new leads. There was constant disappointment when comparing their lack of findings to the number Alan Parker had found; while it was helpful to them, it sickened Tom to see someone as inexperienced as Alan catch so many leads in such a short time frame.

A few hours prior, one of his crew members reminded him of the laptops found in Gerald's home, and notified Benson that the professionals had retrieved most of the data from it, promising to alert them once they assess all the information. Sure enough, the man in charge of the data collection contacted them by webcam with their findings. The man had glasses, and looked geeky, but very intelligent. He seemed to be in a blank room, but the background noise caused by the constant work effort of his team interrupted and disturbed him while he was speaking.

"Hello, Mr. Benson", he greeted, nodding at the camera, which displayed a high quality image.

"Hello. What information do you have on the laptops our Echo team found?"

"Right. Apparently your report was correct - he had done something on the night of his death. We found a replica of an American passport's identity page, with Renault's image, and a false name, date of birth, residence, and of course, country of origin. It seemed as though they had tried to create a fake passport to be able to use to flee the country."

"I suppose that would make sense. Do you think it would have made it through security?"

"Definitely", he complied with eyes wide open, nodding an exaggerated number of times. "If I was shown this passport before this case, I surely would not have known it was a replica. The security features are all present, as well as the text font. I'm sure the customs officials would not have noticed the difference either."

"Did you find one for Eric?"

"Unfortunately, no. We doubt one was not fabricated for him, however. We suppose his was made first, and the same template generated was used for Matt's passport. It's really just a simple mix-and-match. He saved the most recent version on his computer, which happened to be Matt's. A stroke of bad luck for you, I suppose."

"Could we have a copy of that passport, please?"

"Of course. I'm sending it to you by fax as we speak."

A few seconds passed, and printing was heard out of the fax machine at the back of the room. "We've got it. Thank you."

"It's no problem at all. Take care."

The satellite uplink was canceled, and the screen returned to the surveillance team's database overlook. Benson was not very surprised of his new information. A passport would have been their only chance of escape. This left Tom to realize the only thing they were able to do was to wait until Eric tried to enter the city of New York.

...

As Eric and Diane slowly approached the state of New York, the traffic became intolerable. There were four lanes filled with high density traffic, leaving Eric to wonder why residents of the state even bothered living there. There was only 20 miles remaining to drive, which would take him another hour to roll through. He recalled his hometown in Canada, where 20 miles would have take 20 minutes. As much as he liked big cities, he would never have been able to endure such a place.

Soon enough, after 15 minutes of driving, they managed to make it to the George Washington Bridge, which crossed over the beautiful Hudson River into the state and city of New York, or more specifically, the region of the Bronx. It had always been one of the poorest regions of New York, especially in the south. The war deprived the area of everything. Even the Hub, a popular shopping district, had almost been completely torn down by the fighting and the warfare. Most of it was cleaned up, but remains of metal and some debris could still be found in some places. Even then, the area was once again deemed a low-income zone, with 70% of its residents in poverty.

On multiple occasions, close calls were avoided ever so slightly with police. Around ten in total drove on the opposite side of the road from him throughout the course of the drive, which made Diane fringe every time, in fear of being seen. Diane remarked the police had not been as active when she visited the last time. Something was out of place.

Once the duo finally made it to the end of the Whitestone Expressway, and entered the region of Queens, Diane noted that it would probably have been best to book his flight online instead of going physically to JFK.

"I've been in Queens many times before", she reminded, looking around with astonishment. "I think there's an internet café about a mile from here. You could try and book your flight online easily from there."

Eric had never booked a flight online before. "I suppose, but I'd rather you do it, since I'd be seen very easily. Is that okay with you?"

"Of course", she agreed, with a smile.

"Say, how long did you travel here?"

"Oh, probably a month and a half, I think. I spent most of my summer vacation traveling across Manhattan and Queens when I was in college. But, things have changed, from what I've seen."

She directed him through several areas, which were not as dense in traffic, and tried to find any sign of an internet café. Of course, she had not been there for a long time, and her memory was still in need of refreshment, so they stopped at a small convenience store named Percy's, one of the only stores in the area to have survived the war. As he parked alongside the back of the store, Eric asked Diane to get directions, as well as some sunglasses.

Inside, it resembled a regular convenience store - a few magazines near the entrance, a dairy section, a row of chips and other junk, and accessories. She looked for sunglasses and found some, which had quite a European look to it. As she went to pay for her purchase, she noticed the camera hanging on the top-right corner over the counter. She knew it was not direct feed, meaning it was capturing her every move, saving it on a disk. While she was distracted by her own thoughts, she almost forgot to ask for the directions to the nearest internet café. Surprisingly, it was not very far from there; in fact, it was on the same street.

She left the building with the prepackaged pair of sunglasses, and headed back to the car. Upon telling him the location of the café, she was asked to go alone in order to stay hidden. She hesitantly accepted, and asked for a $5 bill to cover the fees, as well as his passport for the booking information. He finally revealed the location of his flight to be Moscow, in Russia, and watched her walk away.

It was only a five minute walk from where she was, and knowing the city of New York, it was a good idea to have left the car there. She figured it would do her some good to walk after such a drive, anyways. The surrounding area seemed to be much narrower compared to the rest of the city, and with the large stores and boutiques packed into small buildings, she wondered how tourism made so much income. Nevertheless, the café looked wonderful from the outside, or at least when she compared it to the Starbucks and the small restaurant surrounding it.

The café had a strange atmosphere. She could not figure out why, but she knew she should have been picking up the pace. She walked over to the counter, asked for a secluded computer, and after handing over money to a funny-looking clerk, walked over to it, away from the large number of people near the front. Diane sat down and turned the screen on, which displayed a simple user-interface with easy access to e-mail and the internet. She quickly typed "JFK" in a search engine, giving her access to a few results, including the airport's official website, and other booking companies.

However, as she was about to enter a trustworthy flight booking website, her eyes caught onto a news headline, which happened to have had Eric's pseudo - the "dragon" - in the title. Interested, she clicked it, and read the opinion of a well known journalist from Los Angeles.

"Over the course of the past week, Americans have been startled and shocked to hear of the recent 'dragon scare', which the public describes as an alarming situation. After confirming over seven deaths, the government has revealed they were closely tracking the culprit, - simply known as Eric - and said they have been since he escaped his home country of Canada. On another note, after the recent hijacking of flight 945-K was revealed to have been conducted by the dragon, independent reports from north-eastern Manhattan and southern Queens residents indicate an increase of police forces roaming the area, which coincidentally is near the John F. Kennedy International Airport; the destination of the former flight."

The article went go on, reminding readers of the events before the "hijacking". Diane noted the date of the article, and realized it had only been an hour and a half since its publishing. This meant the airport was highly guarded, and getting in would be extremely difficult. She felt queasy, losing interest in the whole affair, thinking about how better off she would have been watching all of it from the sidelines. Personally, Diane knew he would not have made it into the plane at all - why should she have risked her life for such an impossible feat?

While she was sunk into her thoughts, she felt a hand lay upon her shoulder. Her heart skipped a beat as she jumped, and instinctively turned around, only to see a surprised waitress glaring at her.

"I'm terribly sorry to have scared you, ma'am", she excused. "Would you care for a beverage of some sort?"

She was thirsty; however, she knew she had no money to pay for it. "Umm, no thank you. I'm fine."

"Okay. Have a wonderful afternoon." The waitress walked away and left Diane in solitude once more, who snapped out of her daze and reminded herself to book Eric's ticket. After going onto the web site, she found an economy-class flight to Moscow at just under 275$, which was 50$ under Eric's budget, but unfortunately could only be scheduled at 12:15 that night. "He won't be very impressed with that...", Diane thought. She entered all of the information onto the forms appearing in front of her, copying every detail off of Eric's fake passport, and looking out for errors. She then paid with her Visa, and printed out Eric's information at the nearby printer. After notifying the counter of her departure, and rejecting the café coupon for the time she had not used, she left with a sheet of paper in her pocket, and headed back to the convenience store driveway, where she would meet Eric and drive off once again.