Ela rode down the airport escalator.  On the wall in front of her was a massive painting.  It showed three versions of a CN-235 transport plane.  The first showed a bare airframe of the plane.  Various parts were labeled with an illegible scrawl.  The next showed what the airframe would look like if it had muscles attached to it.  The final version showed what it would look like with skin added on.  It had a terrifying look, like a dinosaur that had not quite evolved into a bird.  The painting was as if a medieval scholar had somehow found the wreckage of a modern airplane, mistook it for bones, and tried to reconstruct what the beast plane would have looked like alive.  As the escalator took Ela down and out of sight of the painting she wished that she had the imagination to think of such an idea.

At the bottom of the escalator she was surprised to find Green and shocked to find him in a wheelchair.  “Green!  What happened to you?”  She bent over to examine him though she could not find any visible signs of injury.

“Oh this?  Don’t worry about it.”  Green replied with a shrug.

“Don’t worry about it?  What’s going on?” 

Before Green could reply a dumpy middle aged woman walked up and yelled out at Ela “What are you doing?  Don’t seduce your uncle.”

Ela stood up and replied “Don’t worry, I’m responsible.  I’d have an abortion.”  This got the reaction Ela was going for and the woman stormed off in a huff.

“Wow.”  Green commented.  “Where did that come from?”

Ela started pushing Green’s wheelchair.  “Where did that come from?  Where did she come from?  Do you know her?”

“No.”

“Yeah, who is she to just walk up and assume that a) you’re my uncle and b) I’m trying to seduce you.  What kind of sick mind does she have?”

“I don’t know about the uncle part.  The seduce part may have been related to the awesome amount of cleavage you showed when you bent over.”

“Awesome amount.”  Ela repeated drolly.  “You’re welcome.  Never mind her though.  Why are you in a wheelchair?”

“Don’t worry about it.  I’m not hurt.”  Green then whispered “I’m actually doing a bit of smuggling.”

Ela stopped pushing.  “You’re using the wheelchair to hide illegal goods?”

“No, I’m smuggling the wheelchair.”

“Wha… Why would you smuggle a wheelchair?”

“The same reason anybody smuggles anything, for the money.”

Ela caught her response in her throat and forced it back down.  This conversation was too silly to be having.  Ela walked away “You can move your own illicit wheelchair.”

Green tried to catch up with her but she walked at a brisk pace and he wasn’t used to the chair.  “Hey come on, this thing isn’t easy to use.  Wait up, there’s something I wanted to tell you.”

Ela stopped and turned around.  “What?  What is it?”

“It’s new.  It’s good.  You’ll want to hear it.”  Green promised.

“So tell me.” Ela curtly replied.

“I will.  But there’s something I wanted to do first that requires two people.”

They had to go through a security check to get to what Green wanted even though they had already been through one check.  Ela was already annoyed by the security and more annoyed when Green directed them towards an advertisement for Vestel appliances.  “This is what you wanted to show me?  An ad for white goods?”

“Not just show, do.  It’s interactive.”  It was a TV large enough to show an anthropomorphic washing machine and refrigerator in life size.  The screen showed the area of the airport directly in front of it. The cartoon appliances invited people to stand on a spot in front of them.  Everyone else in the airport ignored their invitation but Green was fascinated by it.  “Go on, stand there.”  Green instructed.  With a roll of her eyes Ela obliged.  She found it unsettling to see herself on the screen standing next to two robots that weren’t actually there.  The android appliances scanned Ela then asked for one more person to come forward.  Green got out of his chair and stood on the spot.  Other people in the airport were too busy getting to their planes to notice the man in the wheel chair walking around.  Green was scanned as well, and then the screen flashed white.

The TV now showed Green and Ela seated at a table in a dark kitchen.  Or at least it looked like Green and Ela, when they moved they looked stiff and unnatural.  Huddled over in a corner were a mother, a father and a baby.  The parents looked terrified, the baby screamed uncontrollably.  A cop came up between Green and Ela; he looked like a poor man’s Al Pacino.  “You two had better start telling me the truth about what happened!”  Hollered not-Pacino.  The video versions of Green and Ela exchanged terrified looks, not-Pacino slapped Ela.  Watching this, Ela recoiled as though she’d actually been slapped.  “Start talking!  You don’t want to talk hun?  Well how about this then?  If you don’t talk then you can just go in here!”  Not-Pacino grabbed them both and threw them into the refrigerator.  “You’re not coming out of there till I want you to, that’s a Vestel fridge!”  Yelled not-Pacino, apparently he was incapable of speaking in a normal volume.  “Maybe you’re a little too comfortable in that fridge!  Maybe you need some more incentive to speak!”  Not-Pacino grabbed the father and rolled him up in a rug.  The mother moved to help her husband but not-Pacino easily knocked her away.  He leaned the rug up against the fridge and set it on fire.  “You feel that heat in there?  That’s a fire and your daddy is going to get all burnt up!  Just tell me the truth and you can come out of that Vestel and save him!”  The screen froze on that shot and the Vestel icon came up.  “Vestel—friendly technology.”  An announcer proclaimed.  After that the TV went back to showing the anthropomorphic washing machine and refrigerator inviting people to stand on the spot in front of them.

“What the…” 

Before Ela could finish that thought Green cut her off “That was amazing.”  He proclaimed.   

Ela looked at him as though he was insane.  “Amazing?  I think the adjectives I might use would be ‘weird’ or ‘disturbing’ or ‘something to haunt you in your dreams.”

Green shrugged, “I guess it’s not for everyone.”  He started to wheel away.  “Well I better get going; I still have to go through security.”  

“We’ve already been through security twice.”  Ela retorted.

“Right, but I’m going on one of those new lake planes.”  Green responded, as though that explained anything.

“What were you going to tell me though?”

“I did have something to tell you,” Green snapped his fingers trying to recall.  “I know, it’s that you need to make a switch.”

Ela blinked at him.  “Switch what?”

“How should I know what you should switch?  I should never have switched from scotch to martinis.”