Yet more

"It could be worse," I admitted, most because I didn't think they'd fall for a lie. "We can still do this, it'll just take a bit more work."

Reaching into my Inventory I drew out the schedule for the event and I took another glance over it to be sure I remembered it, filling in the blanks with the knowledge I now had. I pulled out my scroll next and placed it in my lap for the moment.

"Okay," I said, drawing out a pen and notepad as well and flipping the latter open to a blank page to start doodling. "The good news is, I can definitely fly the thing. I know everything it can do; I can put it through its paces. The bad news is that we're going to have a few things to deal with first, if we want to get it in the air."

I finished the drawing, sketching out a rough illustration of the airship's sleek design and marking out bits I thought were important, scrawling brief notes beside them.

"The first issue, we'd anticipated; there are several security measures on the airship itself. Most of them won't be an issue, because they'll need to be taken off for the presentation, but there are several that…" I shook my head. "There's software on the ship specifically for this show, to make sure nothing goes wrong, and it's both inside and outside the ship. The stuff inside won't be a problem since most of it was explained in the books, but…the outside controls will be a bit tougher."

I added another drawing off to the side, this one of a man in a room.

"This is the control station," I said, tapping the new picture. "It's mainly in case of emergencies and to avoid any incidents in the demonstration. Among other things, it can remotely lock and unlock the weapons systems on the Airship, largely to make sure no accidents happen within city limits, and if something happens, it can activate the emergency landing protocols even if the controls within the ship suffer damage, causing the ship to lower safely to the ground. Actually flying the ship requires both a confirmation from within the ship and one from outside it to unlock everything."

"So they can shut us down any time?" Adam asked, tilting his head to the side. "That's what you're saying?"

"Yes…and no," I said, raising a hand to forestall them. "There's a few ways around it. It's all password or scroll activated, but if things are unlocked from both sides, I think I might be able to change which passwords and scrolls. They've had to go through a number of pilots and technicians, so I know it's possible, we just need to figure out a few things first. This is primarily an issue of timing, since it'll be hard to do beforehand, but we can do it."

"How?" Blake asked, surprisingly calm. I guess she wasn't surprised that things had gotten a bit more difficult.

"I'll get inside the ship," I said. "You'll need to handle the control center, because it'll need to be done quickly and quietly. I'll need to know the specifics about the system they're using to be sure of anything, but I can sneak in and wait until at least the flight portion of the system is activated. You get into the control tower, we disable whoever we need to, we change everything we have to, and we're fine."