"Fucking eh!" Jon mumbled as stood there starring at the mass of bicycles in front of him. After a bit of wandering along the perimeter of the fairgrounds Jon had been able to track down the area dedicated to bicycle parking. "There's got to be over 100 bicycles here..." He thought as he wandered into the bicycle parking area that was littered with bike racks and bicycles. "But how do I get the lock off?" He wondered as he studded the bike lock that secured a kids bike to the bike rack. "Do I cut it? Could I pick the lock?...Hmm..." Jon stood back up and looked around at the myriad of bicycles. "Maybe someone didn't lock theirs up?"
"Excuse me?" A man who looked to be some sort of security guard was quickly approaching Jon. "Excuse mam... sir? What are you doing?" He asked getting right in Jon's face.
Slightly stunned Jon took a moment to gather his thoughts. "O yeah this looks bad doesn't it?" Jon said in a calm tone as he took a step back and did his best to appear non-threatening. "It probably looked like I was going to try to steal one of these bikes didn't it?" The man's intense eyes remained fixed on Jon. "But I'm actually out here doing research for an app that I'm developing." Jon squatted back down and lifted up the bike lock. "See the app is meant to help people find parking for their bicycles. Of course that doesn't explain why I was looking at this lock, BUT when you park your bike don't you need to secure it?" Jon grinned at the guy and stood back up.
The man's intense gaze began to soften as he nodded yes. "EXACTLY! That's why I was looking at the lock. I need as much information as possible on how people lock up their bikes. So I'm just doing a quick check of all these bikes so that I can integrate that information into the back-end of the app. That way I can make the GUI as simple as possible. You get what I'm saying right?" The man's eyes were beginning to glaze over. "So all of the information that I'm collecting now is going to be integrated into an indexed database that we'll house in the cloud that the app will be able to access..."
"STOP." The man said shaking his head. "I don't care... Just finish up what you are doing and get the hell out of here." He tossed his hands up in the air and walked away.
"Wow that actually worked?" Jon couldn't believe he pulled that off. Normally he would have froze up in a situation like that, but his mind felt really sharp today. "Alright..." Jon focused back on the task at hand. "One of these bikes has to be unlocked..." Jon began weaving in between the bike racks looking for an unlocked bike. "That won't do..." He thought as he walked past an unlocked kid's bike. As he continued to search he stumbled onto another unlocked kid's bike. "Wait a second." Jon squatted down to inspect the bike chain lock that was wrapped around the frame of the bike. "This could be useful." Jon thought as he turned the key that had been left in the lock. The lock popped open and Jon quickly pulled the chain off the bike frame and continued his search.
"What do we have here?" Jon mumbled as he approached an unlocked road bike. "Perfect!" Jon said as he pulled the bike off the rack it was leaning against. Jon could tell that the bike had definitely seen a good bit use in its lifetime, but after a quick inspection it appeared to be perfectly functional. "Now what?" Jon stood there surveying his surroundings. He could hop on the bike and just start riding, but Lake Point was 2 hours away by car. "Would I even make it back before dark?" Jon began to work through what sounded like an elementary school math problem. "If by car it takes two hours... and I average 55 miles per hour... that's 110 miles... But on a bike I won't be able to ride that fast..." After a bit more mental math Jon figured it was going to take him anywhere from 6 to 10 hours to ride back depending on how fast he rode. "I might make it back today... But damn if I end up riding in the dark..." Jon let out a sigh and his head slumped. He knew It would be smart to delay his escape until tomorrow morning.
"Alright." Jon took a deep breath. "You've got the rest of today to get prepared for this ride. I'll need food and water for sure." Jon looked down at his baggy hoodie and jeans. "And maybe different clothes..." Jon quickly glanced around to make sure nobody was watching him and then he hopped up on the bike and began to ride towards the exit of the bicycle parking area. "Crap this is hard to ride." Jon thought as his skinny legs struggled to push the pedals. Upon reaching the exit of the parking area Jon hopped back off the bike and began to push it towards the vendors area. "Stupid weak legs..." He lamented.
