//------------------------------// // Arrival // Story: Pinkie Pie Vs. the TSA // by Admiral Biscuit //------------------------------// Pinkie Pie vs the TSA Arrival Admiral Biscuit “We are beginning our descent to Sault Ste. Marie,” the intercom informed her, “and we expect to be on the ground in thirty minutes. Please return to your seats at this time, put your seatbacks and tray tables in the upright position, and fasten your seat belts. Stewardesses, prepare the cabin for landing.” Pinkie looked down at her seatbelt in frustration. Despite all her efforts, it remained securely fastened. It was a pity; she'd studied the airplane instructions some more, and was fairly certain she could get a side-door open if they flew back close enough to the clouds to hop out. The stewardess went by, cleared the empty plastic glasses off her tray, and pushed it up for her. Pinkie had availed herself of the free drinks—possibly to excess, but the flight was almost over and she could hold it just a bit longer. As the plane closed in on the clouds, she began to wonder if Sault Ste. Marie was a cloud city, and her ears perked up as the plane reached cloud level. To her disappointment, it passed through, and spent a boring ten minutes in the white fog. But when it came out the bottom of the cloud, the view took her breath away. Even with the overcast sky, Lake Superior was glittering like a jewel below her, surrounded on both sides by the dark green of pine forests. It felt like forever before she saw the first sign of civilization. •        •        • The landing took longer than she thought it would, but when it happened, it was unexpected. It was hard to judge altitude as the plane zipped over the pines, and even when she thought they were close, they just kept flying on. She was sure she'd see a big city before they landed, and then all of a sudden she felt a sharp screeching jolt, and then there were buildings flashing by level with her window. She was jerked forwards as the scream of the engines became nearly superaudible, and the whole aircraft shuddered and bumped down the runway, finally coming to a nearly complete stop. It turned to her right, passed several incomprehensible signs, and presently stopped completely. She heard the clicks of seat belts being unfastened, and her stewardess finally took mercy on her and let her out of her seat, handing her her carry-on bag. “Passengers with checked bags, please proceed to the 2B conveyor,” the intercom announced. Pinkie shook her head. She wasn't going to follow instructions. She had important business in the nearest bathroom first. As soon as she could, she trotted up the jetway, then started looking around for the familiar signs. It took her a moment to figure them out. According to Chuck, signs in America were written in English and Illegal Immigrant. Twilight had told her those in Canada were written in Canadien English and Canadien French—which Twilight had assured her were not the same as American English and French French. Still, the silhouette-people for the bathrooms were pretty much the same in American and Canadien, and she trotted into a stall, making sure to keep her carry-on bag with her, as the airport frequently advised. It's weird how I can party all night long and never have to pee, but when I'm in a place where I can't easily get to a bathroom—like a train or an airplane or Chuck's car—it feels like I have to go all the time. She wasn't the only traveler so inclined; by the time she was at the sink and washing her hooves, there was a short line of women waiting to use the facilities. Weird how the men's room never has much of a line. Pinkie walked back out to the main part of the terminal and glanced up and down the hallways for clues where baggage claim 2B might be located. This airport was lacking in the moving walkways, which was unfortunate. They'd been a lot of fun, and she hoped when she flew back, she'd have time to play with the walkways again. It didn't take her long to figure out where to go—the airport signage was very good, and she thus far hadn't been able to notice any differences between American English and Canadien English. Unless things meant the opposite, and she was supposed to not go where the arrows pointed. Chuck had told her that was the case in Australia, where they walked upside-down and talked backwards. She could fly there next, now that she knew the process. She backed onto the down escalator. Going down forwards made her too muzzle-heavy—the steps were steeper than anypony sensible would design. Maybe if she stood on her hind hooves—but that was hard to do on a moving conveyance. •        •        • Downstairs was another moving conveyor, although signs very clearly indicated she wasn't supposed to ride it. She recognized some of the people who had been on her flight, and they were all patiently waiting, looking at the conveyor, so she did the same, hoping it was like the ones in the supermarket. She moved close to a family, and it was only a moment before the children noticed her approach. They looked up at their mother questioningly, and she turned her ears in that direction. “No,” the mother said firmly. “It's not polite to pet strangers, eh?” “I don't mind,” Pinkie assured her. “Really, I'm used to it.” “Are you sure?” Pinkie nodded. “Oh, thank you. That means so much to them. You know, we see ponies like you on TV sometimes, but to actually see one here in the flesh—you were all they talked about on the flight. Do you mind if I take a selfie?” “Nopers!” Pinkie shifted around, next to the woman. Her two children were already running their hands across her muzzle, and she crouched down beside them, instructed them to face her cell phone, and then took a picture. “I wanna take one, too,” Pinkie said, reaching back and pulling out a camera. “Your foals . . . uh, kids are cute. Are they both sired by the same stallion?” Her eyes flicked to the left, her smile faltered for a second, and then came back full-force. “Of course. I'm married.” “Ah.” Pinkie grinned at her camera. “Everypony say picklebarrel kumquat.” “Huh?” Click Once the selfies were taken, she leaned down to give the children better access to her mane and ears. That was one of her biggest weaknesses—there was a little spot behind her ears that was super sensitive to a finger's touch, and the towheaded boy found it. A moment later, her ears jerked back up as she heard a clanging bell, and the conveyor jerked into motion. The woman went to the conveyor belt, while her children kept pawing Pinkie. A moment later, bags began appearing through a curtain. Pinkie waited patiently where she was. Her bag hadn't shown up yet. Even if it had, she was far too happy to be in any hurry to move. She could have stayed there being petted for hours, but the mother finally came back with three bags—one was a boring black bag, the second had a picture of a happy race car on it, and the third showed a trio of skinny teens that vaguely looked like the bipeds Twilight had described at Canterlot High, although these were more monster-y. Now with no further motivation to wait by the bag conveyor, Pinkie darted forward to grab her suitcase, and dragged it off the track. The TSA-approved lock was missing, she noticed, but that was a small thing to worry about. She'd had trouble with the combination anyway—it was by no means hoof-friendly. More arrows pointed her towards immigration, so she headed that way. Once again, there was a queue trailing around the ropes. Pinkie sighed. She'd thought that as soon as she got her bag, she'd be able to meet up with Twilight and her host, but apparently there was still another inspection to endure. She looked back at her hind legs. “Be good, you two.” •        •        • When she got to the head of the line, she went up to a little cubicle. A bored-looking man was sitting there. He held out his hand. “Passport, please.” She nodded, and unzipped her bag. The confetti explosion was spectacular. •        •        • “It just does that,” Pinkie insisted. “Everything I touch does that after a while.” “So you say.” She was in a private area, with three Canadian immigration officials studying her intently. A fourth was gingerly inspecting her neck bag. So far he'd shaken out a wastebasket of confetti, and it kept coming. One of the agents looked away from his computer and whispered in another's ear. That agent—who Pinkie had nicknamed 'Curly' for his curly hair—leaned forward and tapped her passport. “Do you have any other documentation?” “Like what?” “Driver's license?” “Nope.” “Birth certificate?” She scrunched her forehead. “Silly, nopony gets an award for being born.” She pointed a hoof up at the passport. “Twilight said that was all I needed.” “It's just . . . not as secure as we prefer, eh.” He flicked at the edge of the photo, which had been taped on with scotch tape. “This could be anybody's passport, and just be your photo.” “It smells like me,” she offered. To his credit, Curly sniffed the passport, then leaned forward and sniffed her. Mow—nicknamed because of his short manecut—gently smacked Curly on the back of the head before turning his attention back to Pinkie. “Does your embassy put any security provisions in your passports?” “Solar and Lunar magic.” Her pupils shrank, and she began reciting by rote. “Presenting a fraudulent passport will cause the bearer's cutie mark to be replaced by a black X, and she will be banished from the herd for a period of no less than ten moons.” The two immigration officials looked at each other, and then back at Pinkie. “Well, all right. It matches up with your record, I guess. Perhaps you should suggest that your embassy laminate the photographs.” “The Ovis embassy does that, I think.” Pinkie snatched her passport back and stuck it into her mane, since the fourth official was still de-confettiing her identification bag. “Are we done?” “No.” The third agent spoke up for the first time. She decided to call him 'Larry,' since he looked kind of like a hoe with a perforated blade for working with plaster or cement. It was bit of a stretch, but she was getting tired. “No?” Her ears fell. “Have you ever been arrested?” She wrinkled her muzzle. “Here or in Equestria?” The three officers leaned forward. “Let's start with here,” Larry began. “I want to know about this felony on your record.” “Felony?” He nodded. “According to the FBI database, you have a felony. Do you mind telling me what it's aboot?” “I . . . I got kicked out of an Olive Garden once.” “That's it?” She shook her head. “I got taken out by a policepony, and they made me go down to the station and took my picture and tried to take hoofprints but their inkpad wasn't big enough and so they kept me in a little room while they decided what to do and they took all my bits and made me take off my saddlebags and went through them and made me put on an orange suit that didn't fit right and I kept tripping over the back legs 'cause it wouldn't go over my tail and kept falling down and they thought that was funny but in a mean way and then after a couple of hours a nice woman in a pantsuit that fit a lot better than my pantsuit came and said she was a Dee-eh and that they weren't going to file charges and I could go but I wasn't allowed to go back to that Olive Garden again.” She rose up and leaned towards the counter. “Which is fine, because their service wasn't very good and the breadsticks were hardly unlimited and the pasta wasn't cooked with enough salt and the lady in the next booth over kept complaining that I was immodest and flashing her boyfriend.” “Well, it says that you were arrested for indecent exposure.” Larry looked up from the computer screen. “Since there's no disposition of your crime on the record, we have to look up what we'd do had you committed the crime in Canada.” He turned to Mow. “You got the book?” Mow nodded, and pulled it out from under the counter and handed it to Larry. Then Mow and Curly looked at each other. “How does a pony get arrested for indecent exposure?” “I have no idea. Dumb American cops, eh?” Pinkie gave no sign she'd understood, but she was actually really good at reading lips. “Why don't you go wait on one of those benches,” Curly suggested. “It'll be more comfortable than sitting here, waiting on us.” “How long is it going to take? Twilight's waiting for me.” “Shouldn't take too long,” he assured her. •        •        • “Miss Pie?” Curly waved to her. She jumped to her hooves. She could only imagine how deep a hole Twilight was wearing in the rug outside. The clock had ticked off three-quarters of an hour while her agents had consulted their giant red book, and everybody else in the room who had been waiting had already been cleared. “Yes!” “How old would you say the gentleman and lady at Olive Garden were?” “I dunno. I'm not good at guessing people's ages.” “Well, did they give any sign of their ages? Were they smoking? Drinking?” “Did either of them have a handgun?” “Who brings a handgun to an Olive Garden?” “In America? Probably every Republican.” “I don't think Republicans go to Olive Garden, eh?” “They had wine,” Pinkie said. “Both of them?” Curly looked over the counter. “Yes.” “Well.” He gave a smug look at Larry. “Then it's not illegal here, eh?” Looking back at Pinkie, he explained. “In Canada, you wouldn't have broken any laws.” He snapped the book shut. “So no foul.” “Is that it?” “Almost. We'd just like to examine your luggage.” Pinkie sighed. The three officers carried her bags over to a small table, helpfully gave her a stool to sit on, and opened her carry-on bag. It was mostly empty. Five hundred tubes of toothpaste had taken up a lot of space, and now four hundred ninety-nine of them were gone. Between that, and all the prohibited items Chuck had made her remove, there wasn't much left. Still, the immigration agents were thorough, and emptied the few contents of her bag out on the table, before poking around at her bag, checking for secret compartments. Satisfied that there were none, he lifted a long, black cylinder off the table. It had one hemispherical end, a battery compartment near the back, and was about twenty inches long. It had been loosely wrapped in a towel, along with its remote control. “This isn't the kind of thing most people have in their carry-on luggage,” he commented. “Were you expecting to use it on the airplane?” “I didn't know if I would. But I thought I might get bored.” “So you figured . . . what? That you'd head into the bathroom?” Pinkie nodded. “Would it even fit?” Her face colored slightly. “I was worried about that, but I didn't have a chance to test it out before the flight. I did bring that, just in case it was too tight.” She pointed to a flat package on the table. “It would keep the bathroom from getting all wet, too.” “That's a little extreme,” Larry said, examining the package. “I mean, for an airplane. At home . . . well, that's your business.” “My friend Twilight has one just like it. She uses it all the time. She says it's lots of fun.” “I'm sure it would be.” Curly began packing her things back in her carry-on. “But trust me, an airplane bathroom is way too small for a remote-controlled submarine, even if you do have a wading pool with you.” He zipped the bag shut, and turned to her checked bag. “I get why you didn't pack any clothes,” Curly said as he looked inside the bag. “And—I'll be honest—I can even see why you'd want that much shampoo. But what's up with all the toothpaste? Have you got a toothbrushing fetish?” •        •        • “So that's it, then?” The three nodded, and slid the suitcases to her. “Unless you've got anything on your person,” Mow chuckled. Pinkie froze. “You mean like my camera?” All three agents looked at her, and at her bags. There had been no camera. Mow narrowed his eyes. “Where's your camera?” “It's right here, silly!” Pinkie reached back into her hammerspace and pulled out her camera. Larry looked at her, mouth agape. “Where. . . .” “What else have you got?” “Oh, lots of stuff.” Pinke reached back and began pulling forth objects. “Let's see, a couple of rubber balls in case Cerberus gets loose again, an umbrella hat, a half-dozen eyepatches, in case of eyepatch emergency—“ “Eyepatch emergency?” “Look at the size of these eyes, buster. Trust me, eyepatches are handy to have.” She reached back again. “Ah: a spare horseshoe, two of AJ's extra hair-ties, a bow for Apple Bloom, binoculars, a microscope for itty-bitty stuff, a Skymall catalog, rubber chicken, a pin-the-tail-on-the-pony board with no tails 'cause the pins in them were prohibited, croquet mallet, a greatest hits of the Ponytones record—you should listen to it, they're really good. Keep it, I'm sure I have another somewhere. Ooh, let's see. Other side. Hm, here's a normal umbrella for normal rain or Mary Poppins emergencies, three quills and an inkwell for Twilight, an emergency hoof-mirror for Rarity and a second unbreakable one for after she throws the first and stomps on it and then apologizes but did you see the state of my mane, darling, and oh there's that other croquet mallet—can't have a game with just one. Oh, and I have a birthday card for you, Curly.” She presented it with a flourish. “I hope you don't mind if I wrote that in the card. It's way more personal than Immigration Officer Penna, don't you think?” The three agents stared dumbfounded at the pile in front of them. For a moment all was silent. Then Curly reached forward and took the card from Pinkie's grasp. “Is . . . is that it?” he asked cautiously. “Well, there was a cake, but Chuck said it was prohibited, so I didn't bring it.” She let out a sigh. “But that's all you have . . . on you.” Mow insisted. “Yup.” Larry looked down at the pile and shrugged. “None of it's contraband. Let her go.” “Thanks!” The three watched in undisguised fascination as she made all the objects disappear back into her hammerspace. Then she grabbed the bags off the table, and happily pronked out the door. “Twilight!” As the doors closed, the three agents heard an unmistakable glomping noise, and then a concerned voice—Twilight's, they assumed—began asking Pinkie what had taken her so long. They did not hear what her answer was, because Immigration Officer William 'Curly' Penna opened his birthday card, and the confetti explosion and accompanying kazoo fanfare was loud enough to temporarily deafen them.