Heather looked at the line in front of her. Three people. She turned around and looked behind her. One person. And for this, they said 'Allow three hours to go through security'?
To be fair, she was leaving on a Saturday morning flight. The lines probably looked worse than this during the week, when they had loads of business travelers to deal with. And it wasn't like Heather really minded. She'd much rather zip through security quickly and spend a little quality time with her mp3 player than stand around in a long line while people stepped back and forth through the metal detector.
Only two people in front of her now. Heather handed her boarding pass and driver's license to the security guard to be checked. In just nine hours, now, that same driver's license would be getting her served in a hotel bar in Puerto Vallarta. Sun, sand, surf, and perhaps a cute boy or three.
One person left. Heather pulled her headphones and put her mp3 player in her carry-on, then flicked her fingers through her short blonde hair to fix the slight mussing that the action had caused. The terminal beckoned, complete with restaurants, overpriced gadgets, and magazines for people who hadn't brought anything to do. It was a place designed to kill time, and as soon as she passed through security, Heather would have quite a bit of time to kill.
She put her carry-on bag and her purse on the conveyor belt, and emptied her pockets into the tiny bin. After a moment's effort, she added her watch and her sandals to the small pile of stuff. Holding onto her boarding pass, she waited for the guard to beckon her through the metal detector. After a moment, the bored-looking black woman on the other side of the gate did just that.
When she stepped through, Heather was actually shocked to hear the buzzer go off and a bright light flash on the side of the device, stabbing into her bright blue eyes and forcing the pupils to contract. She tried to think of exactly what it was she'd forgotten. "I, um..."
The woman looked like she didn't care why the buzzer had gone off. "Step back," she said, "and then try stepping through again." Heather did so, and even as she was stepping backwards through the gateway, the buzzer sounded and the light flashed red in her eyes. "OK, ma'am," the guard said, "empty out your pockets before you come back through."
"They are empty," Heather said, turning them inside out and trying not to let any irritation show in her voice. She'd heard horror stories about dealing with airport security, how they would take any kind of perceived rudeness as an excuse to drag you out of the line and spend hours going through your stuff. That was not how she wanted to spend the time before her flight left. She stepped back through, and the buzzer and light both went off again. Heather blinked. Did they really have to put that thing right at eye level?
"OK, ma'am," the woman said, "try taking off your belt and stepping back through." Heather felt more than a little embarrassed as she pulled her belt through the loops and handed it to the guard. There were now three people behind her, and all of them looked at her with varying degrees of annoyance. But Heather knew that when you were in the security line, you were pretty much completely at the mercy of the people running the show.
She stepped back through, and sure enough, she got another buzz and flash. When it subsided, Heather blinked a few times. They'd certainly made that thing hard to miss, hadn't they? It felt like it was jabbing straight into her optic nerve. "OK, ma'am," the guard said, "if you'd like to step back through and come over here?" She gestured to a chair. "We're going to need to do some additional security procedures." The guard reached over to the radio clipped to her collar. "Frankie, this is Keisha. We've got a bit of a situation, here, and I need you to take over for me for a bit."
Heather heard Frankie respond in a staticky tone as she stepped through the metal detector again. The flash caught her even more off-guard this time, as she hadn't really been thinking of this last trip through as part of a screening. She was too worried about the sound of the phrase 'additional security procedures' to think about screwing up her eyes to avoid the light.
Half-blinded, she wandered over to the chair in a daze. The other passengers, of course, were just glad to get her out of the way so that they could get through security and get on with their own trips. Heather had never been more jealous of a collection of random strangers in her life.
After a few moments of sending luckier travelers on their way, Keisha let the new arrival, Frankie, take over. She walked up to Heather and said, "If you could please step over here, ma'am?"
Heather followed Keisha. She knew right now she didn't have a choice. It was stupid and pointless, but her only hope for getting to her plane, her vacation, and everything that went with it was to do what Keisha said and convince her that she was a good little airline traveler like everyone else. It sucked, but that was the way the world worked.
Keisha took out a small wand-like device with two blinking lights on the tip and began running it over Heather's body, starting with her bare feet. She could actually feel goosebumps where it passed, and worries about harmful radiation danced through her head. How exactly did these things detect metal, anyway? By the time Keisha ran it over her thighs, Heather was actually shivering.
When it got up to her breasts, the wand beeped, and Keisha gave a nod. The bored expression on her face didn't change, but she sounded a bit more serious as she said, "Alright, ma'am, if you'd like to step back into this office with me? I'm afraid we have a few more additional security procedures to go through." She took Heather's boarding pass from her unresisting hand. "Don't worry, ma'am," she said, checking the time on the boarding pass, "we'll still get you to your flight on time."
Keisha took her through a door into a small, windowless room with a series of cabinets on the wall, and a row of hooks on the door. The thick carpeting on the floor felt good under Heather's bare feet, and the soft lighting felt good after so many bright flashes. Beyond that, she felt a sort of numb terror overlaying all her other emotions. Somehow, she'd made some sort of huge mistake, she knew that much, but she couldn't tell what it was or why it was screwing up her trip. Getting angry wouldn't help, either. It'd just make things worse. All Heather could do right now was be polite, helpful, and do what she was told, and hopefully these people would understand.
Keisha was reaching for her radio again. "Ms. Samson?" she said. "I think we have something of a situation here. Could you join me in Security Room Three?" There was a staticky response. "I'll go ahead and start without you, then." Keisha looked up from her radio and over at Heather. "I'm going to need you to take your shirt off, ma'am."
Heather blushed. Part of her felt deeply awkward about taking her clothes off in front of a strange woman--not that she had anything to be ashamed about, of course. Heather was quite proud of her slim, lithe body and everything that went with it. But she didn't know Keisha at all. The other woman could be some sort of pervert.
