Tom walked around the empty town that was once his home. He looked at the borded up store fronts and houses. He looked at the abondoned farms and barns. He looked at the white automobile that held the keys to his new life. Tom turned away from the ghost town and to the car. He opened the back door and got in.
"You see what you needed to see, boy?" Skinner asked from the front seat.
"Yeah." Tom said while looking out the window at the small town that was dissapearing into the horizon.
"Should have listened to Nemo. He told ya there was nothin' left."
"Yeah." Tom replied again, though not listening to the question. Skinner picked up pn his absent mindedness and played with it.
"I think you shoot like a girl." Before Tom could answer Mina reached up and hit Skinner in the head, which caused Tom to become aware of what was going on.
"What?" Tom asked as he looked from Mina to Skinner.
"Nothing." Mina answered before Skinner could repeat his previous statement.
The car ride was a long and tedious one. Full of endless horizon and no signs of civilization. Eventhough the car was filled with the nervous chatted of his british friends who were so used to the buildings of London, Tom still felt like this was home.
The league (or what was left of it) had contacted him a month earlier. Nemo had been the one who showed up on the door step of him house in Boston. He had asked if Tom would like to rejoin the rest of the league in Aberdeen. At the time, Tom thought it was just another mission, but as Nemo got into details in sounded more like a new home. Tom wasn't ready to leave him home yet.
Tom had been in Boston ever since he got back from Venise and hadn't gotten a chance to go home and see his friends yet. When he told this to Nemo, standing at his door, the older man got a look of sadness on his face. Nemo went on to explain how Tom's home town had become nothing more then a ghost town.
Through much talk and negotiation Tom and Nemo worked out a plan. Nemo provides transportation for Tom to go home and when he is through there then he rejoins the league. Nemo had faith in his plan to get their young shooting ace to join the league once more, for Nemo had already been to Tom's home town and saw what it had become. But Tom, being the young, ignorant child he was, insisted on seeing for himself.
And he saw. He saw the borded up store fronts and houses. He saw the abondoned farms and barns. And now all he saw was the inside of the white automobile and he heard the cheers of Mina, Nemo, and Skinner as they saw the city that housed the hanger of Nemo's small airplane that would take them to their new head quarters in Aberdeen.
During the plane ride from Middle America to a large field in Aberdeen all Tom could think of how stupid he was to get himself into this. He was going to a country that he didn't even know, to be with people who he bearly even felt like he knew, to probably sit in a big romm in front of a red telegraph waiting for some govenment hot shot to call and tell them to save the world.
He leaned his head against the window of Nemo's second car, that was in Aberdeen. The plane landed almost an hour ago but it took close to 45 minutes for Nemo's new first mate, Essam, to get it here. It was raining and even through the glass of the window, Tom could tell that it was beginning to hale as well.
Tom was begining to fall asleep when Skinner began poking him and laughing. "Would you quit it." Tom yelled after trying to ignore it for 10 minutes.
"Sorry Mate, Just makin' sure you're not dead." Skinner laughed again and Tom slapped his arm. Tom pulled his hat over his head and leaned against the window again.
About twenty minutes after Tom had really fallen asleep they were at the new headquarters. Mina turned around from the front seat and saw that Skinner was about to wake Tom.
"No leave him." She said quickly.
"Why? We're here." Skinner went to go wake him again.
"No, Stop it." Mina reached back and slapped Skinner.
"What is it with people hitting me today?" said Skinner as he got out the other door of the car, leaving Tom in the back seat. Nemo was still in the driver seat looking at Tom and so was Mina.
"Poor kid." Nemo said. "No more home, probably no more family. It's depressing."
"I don't think he had family to begin with." Mina said. Neither Mina nor Nemo looked away from Tom until Skinner tapped on the window. Mina got out first, followed by Nemo. They began walking up to the building when all of a sudden Skinned ran back to the car, opened the door that Tom was leaning against and ran back up to the door. Tom abruptly woke up as his head hit the ground.
"Shit." He yelled as he looked up to see Skinner laughing at him. Tom jumped up and ran after Skinner. "You're dead you little Son of a Bitch."
This was the beginning of a very long adventure.