The Runners: Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Jacob and his friends were next in line to go through the security checkpoint. Once people reached this point, the lines seemed to be moving rather quickly. The travelers would place their luggage into a container to be scanned by a machine. Once a clear signal for the carry-on was given, the owner would enter a full-body scanning room that looked to be as spacious as a large dining room. Then a few moments later, the same person would reemerge at the other end of the body scanning unit. It appeared to be a straight forward procedure to Jacob.
The entrance into the room was arched and the thickness of the wall, from what Jacob could tell, was about a half foot. As the person ahead of him entered the room, Jacob saw two panels of doors appear from the sides of the already opened entrance. Moving past the center of the opening, the two panels closed the gap by sliding towards the middle. One side of the panel protruded out in a circular pattern while the other was concaved in. When they made contact at the center, it perfectly sealed and closed the scanning room. At the top of the scanning room was a single LED display unit that read ‘Stand-By’. Bolted to the floor near the front of the door was a scanner box that was used for checking the carry-on luggage.
Jacob counted 15 exact duplicates of this security checkpoints arranged in a crescent configuration. In between the checkpoints were walls of windows that rose from the floor to the ceiling. These window walls separated this side of the checkpoints to the interior or the terminal area of the VTT.
Each scanning room was manned by two security personnel, who were standing on either side of the entrance of the scanning unit.
“Please, place your bag into the carry-on scanner!” One of the security guards ordered Jacob pointing to the luggage scanner.
“Sure!” Jacob responded as he placed his small carry-on, his favorite civilian luggage manufactured by HaeRhan Designs, into the box that appeared to be made out of plastic material. As Jacob’s hands retracted out from the general area of the container, the top of the box closed automatically. After some clicking sounds, the covers seemed to lock securely from inside.
There was a digital display panel with green and red colored light indicators on the top of the box. The display read ‘Locked’ followed by ‘Scanning’ once Jacob’s carry-on has been secured inside. About five seconds later, the display indicated ‘Cleared’ with the green LED light and the top of the box reopened just as quickly as it had closed.
“Please take your bag out of the scanner box and step into the bio scanning room with your luggage!” requested one of the guards.
Upon reclaiming the luggage from the carry-on scanner, Jacob approached the full-body scanning unit. Then, he stood facing the room and waited for the ‘Enter’ sign to light up. He has been studying the travelers who were ahead of him, so Jacob knew what to do when he was to reach this point.
“Do you have any communication device?”
“A mobile phone on my watch is all I have. Is anything wrong?”
“No Communication device is permitted beyond this point. You will need to remove it. We’ll keep it in a storage locker until the end of your trip.”
“What if I have an emergency during the trip and I need to contact someone outside?” Jacob asked, unwilling to leave behind his only means of contacting outside.
“Sir, it’s the company policy. No comm. device is allowed. When you return from your trip, you can reclaim it prior to exiting the building. Besides, for any emergencies during the trip, you will be given access to the central command.” The security guard repeated the script as he was trained to.
“Other electronic devices are OK, but not communications?”
“That’s right sir. It is very strict. It may cause technical interferences and we cannot let you travel with it, sir.”
“Very well…,” Jacob conceded and he removed his watch reluctantly.
“Please, place it into this storage container.” Opening a small black plastic box, the security guard waited patiently for Jacob to place the watch into it.
After collecting the watch, the guard placed the box into a receptor on the side of the bio scanning unit. Immediately after that, the sign above the door displayed ‘Enter’.
Carrying his luggage, Jacob slowly walked into the room and the doors shut behind him. He stood in the middle of the dark room, void of any sounds. Then, a computerized female’s vocal instructions were heard. “Please place your bag on the floor and keep your eyes open,” followed by, “scanning for identification.” Immediately, Jacob complied.
‘Buzzzzzz’. A quick flash of red infrared light briefly shot into his eyes, reading the impression of his iris. At the same time, a red, followed by green light flashed on the black box that was housing Jacob’s communication device.
“Tagging completed.” The female voice announced as it imprinted the owner’s ID onto the box.
“Identification confirmed.” Followed the female voice once again. Then, a horizontal bar of bluish white light appeared on Jacob’s left side. ‘Zzzng… Swish’ in series, but seamless movements, the bar traversed up and down the length of Jacob’s body. Then it moved to his back side, right side and his front, scanning up and down at each position. The device then slowly changed to vertical orientation as it stood taller than Jacob’s height of six feet. At which time, he saw the device taking one complete revolution around his body, making a final pass at scanning, looking for some minute substance that should not be on him.
In a confined room that was pitch-black, Jacob’s eyes autonomously followed the lighted bar as it moved about. He thought that if he had even a tiny little speck of dust on him, it would have triggered an annoying and embarrassing alarm.
“Thank you! You are cleared! Please exit the scanning room!” The female voice cleared Jacob as the door on the other side of the room slid open in similar fashion as the entrance door. Relieved that he did not trigger an alarm and having cleared the identification check, Jacob happily stepped out of the room in a dash. With the door closing behind him, he looked back and saw the black box holding his watch, briefly come into his view at the top of the bio scanning room. With a short, but powerful ‘swish’ sound, Jacob saw the box travel thru a transparent tube inside as it shot up towards the top of the glass wall. When it reached the top of the wall, the box traveled further traversing the tube at curved 90 degree angle. Then, in a blink of an eye, the box reached the far wall at the opposite end of the terminal area, into which the container disappeared. He stared at the far wall with his head tilted up, wondering if he would ever get his watch back.
Turning to the terminal area, Jacob was in awe at what he saw there. There were two gigantic circular metallic gates about thirty feet in diameter, approximately sixty yards away from the security check point. One had a signage that read ‘Departure’ and the second one read, ‘Arrival’. The arrival gate was on his left, while the departure gate was on his right as they were set apart from each other by a distance of approximately forty yards. There were eight tall oval shaped glass windows, spaced evenly across the entire wall, each one standing nine feet high. In each window, there stood an armed guard canvassing the area down below for some unforeseen security threats.
Jacob assumed that the travelers were heading to different destinations based on the items they were carrying and what they were wearing. Yet, he noticed all walking towards the only departure gate at the far wall once they have exited their respective security check points. He thought it was odd that there was only one gate to accommodate many destinations. It was baffling to him as he had expected more than at least several gates to accommodate all the travelers.
Instead of following others and proceeding towards the ‘Departure’ gate, he turned and remained standing. He stared into the direction of the exit of the security checkpoint, anticipating that Jane and his friends would emerge shortly.