Read Pop Travel for Free Online Page B

Cheryl is sending you the files. We will be in touch soon,” Ed said, dismissing her.
    Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, eh?
Geri got up and plastered on a smile for the boys.
    “Yes, sir.” She gave Ed a hardy salute and left. Excited about finally getting a field assignment, she floated off like a giddy teenager who just finagled the keys from her dad.

Atlanta, GA
11:00 a.m., Wednesday, July 24
    he MARTA train sped through a rebuilt neighborhood on the south side of Atlanta. The city had morphed with the arrival of pop travel. And with Pop Travel International headquartered downtown, PTI executives had rebuilt College Park as an inner-city suburbia, a gated community.
    Balancing himself as he stood during the ride, Cooper checked his QV for messages to help him ignore the 3D ads overhead, urging passengers to purchase various unnecessary necessities. Harder to filter out, the bouquet of sanitizer and urine irritated his nose. He needed one of those surgical masks for protection.
    Cooper yawned. After transferring buses and just making his train connection, it was already eleven. When he got up at eight, he had considered staying home. A pop travel problem was none of his concern and certainly not worth trekking downtown. Phisner had probably been pushed over his stress tolerance limit and needed someone to blame. Cooper knew how that felt. Losing a loved one made people do stupid things.
    Which made him think of Kristen. So he had dragged himself out for the lovely day’s journey into the bowels of Atlanta hoping to find a shred of evidence against pop travel and bring himself some peace. One good thing, he might get to see his old college buddy, Gordy Maynor. Cooper grinned, picturing Gordy’s goofy face, the big dumbass.
    Several years ago, Cooper had helped Gordy get a job as a baggage handler at the Transport Center. A good guy who always had Cooper’s back, but not very bright. During their days at Michigan, Gordy would always get them into trouble and Cooper would talk their way out of it. Having Gordy point him in the right direction to see the security recordings would make things that much easier. If he still worked there. Cooper hadn’t spoken to Gordy since his and Kristen’s wedding.
    For the rest of the ride, Cooper looked out the window and made a game of spying the web cams on buildings they passed. When Cooper first got on the train, he had noticed the small video camera in a corner of the ceiling, reminding him surveillance cams had overtaken the city. He spotted them under awnings, on storefronts and restaurants, attached alongside traffic lights, and on columns of charging stations. After counting fifty, he better understood Phisner’s paranoia. Cooper would have to keep in mind someone could be watching him at all times and be careful not to draw attention to himself.
    As they approached the travelport, Cooper shook his head at the new construction on the north runways. Hotels with spectacular amusements based on themes rose around each other in a race to be the first finished. It looked like a miniature Las Vegas strip. The Sin City of the South. Just what Atlanta needed, to attract more lowlifes. One more reason to avoid downtown.
    When they arrived, the doors slid open and Cooper exited with the rest of the passengers. Everyone entering the building had to pass through a security checkpoint with scanners and special ops dogs sniffing out weapons, drugs, and explosives. Every time they beefed up Security, some idiot terrorist found a way around it. Smarter and more loyal than any human or android, the dogs had Cooper’s complete faith.
    Feeling queasy just by being at the travelport, Cooper let others go first. They placed their bags on a conveyor belt, then stepped onto an adjacent people mover. Like cattle entering a slaughterhouse, they were funneled through the scanners. As the last line of defense, they passed a fenced enclosure, where faithful dogs did their duty, sniffing