There's no reason to delay, of course. I head to the bank I use, and get the two cashier's checks from a teller, dropping them in my Extradimensional Storage from the Warp sphere

She pauses when she sees my checking account total, and asks me a question: "Have you considered investing? We have a nice variety of mutual funds that will get you a lot more interest than your current checking account."

I consider. Money doesn’t really matter much to me, but eh, appearances do, and keeping money moving is important to an economy, so… may as well. “Sounds nice. What do you have?”

We go over a few options, and I end up dumping 95% of my checking account into an “aggressive” mutual fund. I make money hand over fist normally, and can simply sell gold if I’m in a pinch, so it doesn’t matter that I’ve “only” got three years worth of salaries and other expenses for the warehouse covered in checking. Several thousand people a day at a thousand dollars each adds up fast. I could have clones do it too… hmm. I’ll have to think about that… maybe once I’m in the airports well? Then folks will be able to come and go MUCH more readily… yes…

Regardless, I should run a shift… I time warp to the place so I'm exactly on time, and find a man with dark rings around his eyes waiting for me with two official-looking envelopes. X-Ray Vision tells me what's inside easily, but I listen to him anyway.

"Ah, Mr. Carlson. I am Matvey Godrick, with the Federal Aviation Administration. And I have come to let you know that we've officially dropped the case against you and your company."

He hands me the first envelope, "The official paperwork is all there, stating we were operating under incorrect information and that the regulations in question don't actually apply to your current specific methods and product."

I smile as I accept the envelope, "Thank you."

"Next time there's a misunderstanding like this, please, please just call us."

"I … didn't know I had that option. The paperwork you left on my door said the court date to appeal was in six months."

"Hmm. Yes. That's what it said, sure. But talk to a lawyer sometime. That's what injunctions are for. And help lines. Our contact information is on our website. But your contacts… ugh. I haven't had any rest. I've had to explain to the Air Force. And the Army. And the FBI. And the Navy, all in separate meetings, in different states, that we were wrong."

"No CIA?"

"Ah… they came to me. When I thought I could finally sleep. It's been three days, Mr. Carlson, I'm SORRY, OK?"

"Eh, it's fine. I only ended up missing out on one day's profits… where do I send the bill?"

Matvey takes a slow breath, "How much are we talking?"

I smile, "Well, I generally service about ten thousand customers a day, and it's a thousand dollars each, so I missed out on ten million."

"You will… need to talk to my boss on that one. Unofficially? You'd probably need to go to court to get it, and might not win, because we were operating in good faith."

"And that could take years. No matter. And the other item you have for me?"

Mr Godrick takes a slow breath as he hands me the second envelope, "I'm also here to deliver the airport paperwork. You're officially licensed to install your portals in airports for regional travel with very little restrictions other than that we’re allowed to tax your tickets and a note that general flying rules apply to who can use them. For international travel we're requiring that you maintain a separate system with different lines, so that the airport can manage customs and immigration effectively."

"I figured you'd want something like that, and was planning for it regardless. It's not a hardship, especially as I need to get permission from other countries as well."

"Great. Now, this somehow managed to be part of an international treaty - no, don't tell me how you did that, I don't want to know - so the only airports that can actually tell you to go away are the private ones, which tend to be smaller anyway. But they do have the option of telling you where you can put your holes in space. And some folks are liable to be a little… protective of their territory."

I chuckle, "Thank you for the warning. I largely figured I'd be putting up my own signs and things anyway. I can do it faster regardless."

"Hmm. Well, you're someone else's problem now. And ah… can I get some of that flight you're selling?"

I grin, "Sure, but you'll have to get in line, just like everyone else."

He sighs, and heads to the back, as I spawn a time clone to take care of the customers (having him turn into a lizardfolk and covering up with a Persistent Veil spell, and orders to disrupt his connection to this timeline after the normal shift is done), as I go get started on the airport middle terminal.

There’s fifty states plus DC and territories, and I figure I’ll need to organize things a little. So I start by making a demiplane that will act as a hub - a fifty-one sided regular polygon with each side being for a state, plus one for US territories and DC. I make each side a good ninety feet wide, and make the area forty feet tall. I use Persistent Image to make signs above each: One for each state (in alphabetical order), plus "Territories and DC" between Alabama and Wyoming. It's less than a mile to walk all the way around the diameter of this central hub, and less than five hundred yards to get between the two most separated state zones if you walk through the middle. For each of those fifty-one sides, I then make another, similar demiplane, and link it back by an Enduring Portal from spheres, ninety feet wide. That will give me space for the fifty biggest public passenger airports in each state, and if I need more than that, I can simply add portals: Most airports probably aren't big enough to really need a ninety foot wide walkway after all, and in a pinch, I can always expand the demiplane up or down to deal with having more than fifty passenger airports in a state. But to go from one US airport to another on my list should take, at most, a one mile walk when I'm done. And I'm sure I'll get complaints about that being far too far. But that's OK: I can task a summon with ignoring whining.

Just for giggles, I also set each main zone up with the “Bountiful” option, so people can walk through nature (and possibly grab snacks off the plants, but I’m sure they’ll exhaust the daily provisions quite quickly) as they go from airport to airport.

The basic framework set, I pull out my phone and sort out how many airports I'll need to link up… and find out that I have an excessive number of facets. While yes, there's over five thousand public airports in the United States, most of those don't really do passenger airlines. Texas (the state with the most airports) only has about twenty-five that are built for passenger airlines, and there’s really only about three or four hundred overall. I mean, the General Aviation airports that do things like crop dusting, aerial surveys, flight training, and so on? I’m not planning on replacing those at all. And cargo flights like FedUp does? Those would need a completely separate system anyway, as it’s a really bad idea to mix heavy duty cargo with people walking. Room for expansion, I guess. Making sure I’m actually holding the paperwork that says “Yes, you have to let me set up here” I spawn a time clone for each of my target airports, have them take a form that won’t make milk (again, Lizardfolk), disguise themselves as me, link up to me via Interplanar Telepathic Bond, let me plant a scrying sensor on them, and head off to an airport to get set up. Meanwhile, I use the “Structure” option of Create Demiplane to build and organize the walkways in each demiplane in the set, and make signs via Persistent Image spells. As each of my copies gets an assigned spot to set up, they ping me, and I place the portal. This allows me to dismiss the portals if needed at some point in the future. I mean, can you imagine what an invasion through this place would look like?

I also staff the place with Conjuration Sphere Companions with the Mage archetype (orbs, for the increased intelligence, which I also boost via both Sage Companion and Skillful Companion, plus buffs), forgoing their natural attacks to take the Implement Bearer option to get a nice boost to their caster level for a chosen sphere… and then I buff them up to high heaven (reach and chain spell combine to let me buff a lot of them quickly, and I basically give them all enough buffs to be close to indestructible, and make them look like normal humans in uniforms). Each airport entryway gets three of them to watch the entrance, three to answer questions, and each zone additionally gets twenty as a strike force if needed.

That out of the way, I settle in to monitor one of the Time Clones as he sees about getting space….