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Two days later, the team had just finished training and Mallory went to Brek's room and knocked on the door. "Yeah?" he asked.
She pressed the button and the doors slid open. "Hey, you ready for your twenty-first century tour?" she asked.
"What, now?" he asked. He was at the desk with a laptop.
"Well, sure, if you aren't doing anything. I'm free for the rest of the day."
He smiled and grabbed his light blue Polar Boy coat off the bed. "All right, sure, let's go."
"Wait," Mallory told him, surveying his suit, "don't you have anything else to wear?"
He looked at his suit. "No, we didn't exactly pack robags for the mission."
"Robags? No, don't tell me, suitcases that are robots, right?"
He tilted his head slightly. "Well, it's a little more complicated than that, but sure."
She laughed and shook her head. "All right, then that might need to be our first stop. Let me go see if I can find something less conspicuous." She went down the hall to Conner's room and opened the door, which was almost never locked and he never cared about her just walking in. He was sitting in the chair staring at the wall with Wolf lying down next to him chewing on some sort of huge bone.
"Hey," she said to let him know she was there.
"Yeah?" he asked.
"Can I borrow something?" she asked.
"What?"
"A shirt and some pants, for Polar Boy. He wants to go out in his suit."
Conner sighed and got up. "Sure, I guess," he said, and went to his dresser and pulled out some navy blue cargo pants and a black shirt with his usual red s on it. Mallory took the clothes and nodded at the wall.
"Anything good playing?" she asked with a small smile.
He sighed. "I'm fine," he said.
Mallory stared at him for a second, searching his face for signs that something was really wrong. "You want to come with me and Brek? I'm gonna show him things about the time period, and we'll probably end up in Metropolis at some point."
"No, I'm just gonna stay here."
She sighed, torn between staying with him or going through with her plans. After a few seconds of thinking it over, she said, "All right, well, guess I'll see you later. You should go do something. Zatanna was saying the other day that she wanted to get out of the cave. You two could go watch a movie or something."
He shrugged and went back to his chair. Wolf settled next to him, and they went back to staring at the wall. Mallory backed out of his room, staring at her friend's back guiltily until the doors slid shut. She shook it off and went to Brek's room. He was back in front of the computer, but he got up when he heard her walk in.
"Here, you can wear this for the day, but we're going shopping to get you your own stuff."
Brek shrugged and started to get out of his costume. Mallory cleared her throat and said, "Well, I'll, uh, be in my room." She tossed the clothes towards the bed and walked out. She went to her room and grabbed her phone and her wallet. By the time she was ready, Brek was at her door. She gave him a once over to make sure that nothing stood out about him. The pants fit him, but the shirt hung a little loose around the shoulders and arms. He was wearing the boots to his costume, but they didn't look too bad.
"You might want to turn the shirt inside out," she said, gesturing to the S on the chest.
Brek looked down, a little confused. "Why?" he asked.
"Because it draws attention to you. People don't really wear red super shields on their shirts. They wear shirts that look like the big guns."
Brek tilted his head like that idea was totally foreign to him, but he pulled off his shirt and turned it inside out. "Like this?" he asked.
Mallory laughed a little. "That is what inside out means, yes," she said.
He pulled the shirt over his head and nodded to the door. "You ready?"
She smiled. "Yeah, let's go." She led the way to the garage and turned the lights on.
"What are we doing here?" Brek asked, "We can both fly."
Mallory turned to him in surprise. "You can fly?" she asked.
"Well, yeah, all the Legion members can." He held up a hand so she could get a better look at the ring on it.
"Huh, that's a good idea. Too bad the League doesn't have that. Bats, GA, and Canary could use one."
"Yes. So, now that you know I can keep up with you, we can fly anywhere you want to go."
Mallory shook her head. "Do you see my costume anywhere?" she asked, looking down at her jeans and leather jacket. "The point was to keep a low profile."
"Then how are we getting to wherever we're going?" he asked.
Mallory pointed to her motorcycle, parked in it's usual spot by a pillar. "That's how." She walked over and smiled a little as she straddled the cycle. She hadn't ridden it since that last time she'd seen Roy. She thought about him every day, worried about him and wished that he would show up at the cave, the same old Roy that she'd known, not the one who thought of himself as less than human. She sighed and shook the thought off. "Well? You coming?" she asked, pushing a strand of black hair back and taking her helmet off the handlebar.
Brek grinned. "I've always wanted to ride one of these. Seems more dangerous than our magnicycles."
Mallory didn't ask about the magnicycle. "There's an extra helmet over there on the shelf." He grabbed the indicated helmet and got on the bike behind her. She revved the motor to life and slowly drove it to the door.
"Red Tornado, hangar door," she said, putting her helmet on. The ramp lowered, and Brek wrapped his arms securely around her waist. She leaned slightly forward and sped out into the sunshine towards Happy Harbor.
"We're gonna get you clothes, then we're gonna coin some tourist spots for futures."
"Sounds schway. So, what kinds of things do you do in this time period for fun?"
"Well, clubs, street races, petty crimes, and drugs would be high on the list for most young people, but you're not gonna find any of those in Happy Harbor, and the League would skin me alive if they caught me doing it, and I'm not so sure I'm kidding with some of the Leaguers, Batman at the top of that list."
"Ok then, what are we going to do?"
She pulled into a parking spot and pushed the kickstand down in front of the largest department store in the town.
"Come on, I'll think about it while you shop," she said. They secured their helmets to the bike with a magnetic field and went into the store. Brek looked around the racks at the rows of shirts and pants that for the most part were all the same three styles: button down, t-shirts, and nice t-shirts, shorts, jeans, and regular pants.
"This is the height of fashion in the 21st century?" he asked, holding up a t-shirt.
Mallory shrugged. "The century's young, it might get better." She helped him pick out some outfits, then waited on a bench while he tried them on.
"Is this all right for today?" he asked, coming out of the dressing room. She looked him over. He was in khakis and a mint green polo shirt that went well with his white-blonde hair.
"That's great. But you'll need some shoes. You can't wear those boots everywhere, they're not exactly in style."
She waited while he got back into his borrowed clothes, then they went to the shoe department to find him a pair of everyday shoes. "Tennis shoes are the most common," she told him as he browsed the boot aisle. He moved to the isle she was standing in and looked at the selection.
"People actually wear these things?" he asked disdainfully.
"What's wrong with them?" she asked, a little defensively.
"They're so bulky," he replied.
She sighed. "They don't look that bad on. Besides, most shoes are a little bulky."
"Maybe you should just pick something for me. I can't find anything that I like."
Mallory sighed and moved past him to grab a pair of black tennis shoes off the shelf. "Here, try these on," she ordered.
Brek sat on a bench and tried the shoe on. "It's too big," he complained, "How do you adjust it?"
Mallory chuckled and went back to the shelf, coming back with a size smaller. "That's how," she said.
He looked at her like she was joking. "Wow, that seems exhausting," he said when he saw that she was serious.
She laughed quietly. "No wonder Kara went to your time period. You guys have it so easy, you don't even have to worry about finding your size shoe in a store."
He smiled and shrugged. "Guess we do. So, what do we do now?"
She grabbed the box of shoes and her wallet and they started walking to the front of the store. "Well, let's start with the zoo, since the zoologists are predicting that almost all of the animals will be extinct by the time you're born."
They made it to the counter and Mallory veered off the path to get in line, but Brek kept walking out the door, still carrying the clothes they were buying. The alarm went off and the cashiers looked at him.
"Excuse me, did you pay for those?" one of them asked nicely.
Mallory chuckled and grabbed his arm to lead him to the end of the line. "Sorry, he's been a little out of it today," she told the girls working behind the counter.
Brek looked at her, confused and slightly embarrassed.
"You have to pay for stuff in this time," she said, gesturing to the clothes.
"Yes, you do in the thirtieth century, too, but why are we waiting in this line?"
"To pay for it. Why, how do you pay for things in the future?" she asked as they moved up a little.
"There are chips in the clothes, and as you leave the store, your credits are transferred to the store."
"Wow," she said, impressed. They moved up some more. Brek started shifting his weight around, bored and Mallory sighed.
"We're next, don't be so impatient," she told him. The cashier waved them over, and they started walking. A black baseball cap caught Mallory's eye and she grabbed it off the shelf and placed it with the other items on the counter. "To cover your hair," she explained quietly as the girl rang up their purchases. "White isn't the most common color around here." She paid for the stuff and they went back out to her bike.
"Do you want to go back to the cave and change before we do anything else?" she asked.
"No, that would take too long. Let's just go," he replied. They straddled the motorcycle and she started riding to the closest zeta tube.
"We'll go to the Gotham zoo. It's probably the best overall experience, they have a lot of animals and there's the thrilling underlying fear of getting mugged." She turned into what passed for an alley in the suburban town and stopped in front of the concealed zeta tube. The computer scanned them. "Recognized, Inferno, B08, Polar Boy, C09."
They rode into the light and appeared in a much darker alley in Gotham City. Brek's grip tightened around her waist slightly, and she wondered if it was the speed of the ground passing inches below their feet or the obvious shift in atmosphere from Happy Harbor to the streets of Gotham that was making him uncomfortable. She kept an eye on the people around her. It was the middle of the day, so she more than likely wouldn't have the Dark Knight's help if anything happened. The zoo was in a slightly better part of the city, so she started over.
Brek kept heaving impatient sighs in her ear when she had to stop at lights or in traffic. Finally, a few blocks away from the zoo, she asked, "What?"
"Does everything in this time period take a long time?" he asked as an answer.
Mallory rolled her eyes. "Wait until you experience rush hour traffic. Trust me, it's not as fast as it sounds." She pulled to the side of the road in view of the iron sign. "All right, lets go." She turned on the anti theft tech and connected the helmets to the bikes with a high powered magnet. Brek looked around and got off the bike behind her.
Mallory chuckled and put the cap on his head. "Come on, I promise Gotham isn't as bad as it looks. At least, not during the day." She grabbed his wrist and pulled him through the crowd of pedestrians on the sidewalk. They got their tickets and went to the first exhibit.
"What's that thing?" Brek asked, eying the animal in the enclosure.
"That's a tiger," she said.
"I know that. That bird, what is it called?"
Mallory squinted and looked around until she saw a little brown and white bird in a tree. "That one?" she asked, indicating the bird.
"Yes. What's it called?"
"I don't know, a sparrow, I think," she replied.
"Huh, that's schway."
"What is?" Mallory asked, becoming accustomed to the strange word.
"Well, in my time we don't really have birds that just fly around the city on their own. They all either went extinct or are endangered and were captured to preserve the species."
"Oh, so you do have zoos in your time. You could have told me," she said as they meandered along the path to the next section of the zoo.
"Well, we have something like this, but all the animals are stuffed," he said.
"What? That sounds horrible," she said.
"Well, when it's all you know, you don't really think about it, but seeing this place, it is kind of grim. Almost all of these animals are gone by the time I'm born, and the only things left of them are pictures and videos and some taxidermy if it's lucky enough to survive the test of time. This is so much better, being able to see the animals alive right in front of you. It makes you really care about what happens to them. Especially when you know that they aren't around in the future."
He walked a little ahead of her, and she let him set the pace as she thought about what he had said.
By the time they got back to the cave, the evening shadows had started to fall. Brek hadn't wanted to leave the zoo, but Mallory had explained that it was suicide to be caught in the streets of Gotham after dark, so they'd headed back to the cave.
"That was amazing, thank you," Brek said as she parked the motorcycle and they got off.
"Yeah, no problem. I'm glad I finally found something that you like about this time period."
He chuckled. "Yeah, you surprised me. I really didn't think there could be anything you could show me that could convince me this isn't the worst place in the timeline to be stuck in."
Mallory smiled and handed him his stuff from the store. "Well, that's quite an accomplishment. I'll have to think of some more things that we have here."
They made it to the hallway and she let them in the door to the main room of the cave where Zatanna and Megan were training. Brek went to his room and Mallory joined Artemis on the sidelines, watching the fight.
"Where's Conner?" she asked her friend.
"I don't know, I haven't seen him since I got here a few hours ago. Why?"
Zatanna dealt Megan a particularly hard kick to the stomach and Mallory winced.
"He was acting weird before I left, like he was upset about something. I was just wondering if he had snapped out of it or not."
Artemis shrugged. "My guess would be not. He isn't exactly known for dealing with emotions well."
Mallory scoffed. "Yeah, well, who is around here?"
Megan threw Zatanna to the ground and Artemis and Mallory joined them on the arena floor. Megan helped the magician to her feet.
"Well, how did your date go?" Zatanna asked with a smile.
Mallory shook her head. "Hey, don't even joke about that. It went alright. I brought him to Gotham Zoo. He said that most of the animals there are extinct in his time, so I think he liked it."
"Is it just me, or does the future sound pretty bad?" Artemis said.
"Yeah, but there are some things that are pretty cool. The Legion has rings for its members that gives them flight. And they don't have to wait in traffic or carry their own suitcase."
"Oh, come on. That just sounds like they're all lazy, that doesn't sound all that great."
"Oh, come on, Artemis. You're telling me that you wouldn't love to be able to fly?" Zatanna asked.
Artemis shrugged. "I guess the flight's a good idea," she relented. The girls walked to the living area and sat around the kitchen island.
"How long do you think they're going to be here?" Megan asked.
Mallory turned around and started rummaging through Wally's cupboard. "I wouldn't think long. They have a mission to do, and they risk messing up the timeline every day they're here," she said, pulling out a package of double stuff oreos.
"Wally doesn't even let me eat his food. Why does he let you?" Artemis asked.
Mallory grinned. "Jealous?" she asked, offering the oreos to her friends.
Artemis scoffed. "No, just‒curious," she said.
Mallory shrugged. "He eats my food, so it's only fair that I get to eat some of his. And he doesn't let me, he just doesn't kill me when he finds out about it."
Artemis rolled her eyes and took a cookie.
"You know, we haven't had time with just us in a while. We should go do something," Megan mentioned.
"Sorry, but I can't do anything tonight, I'm beat," Mallory said.
"Besides, if Raquel found out we did a girls night without her, she'd kill us," Artemis put in.
"Maybe next week. If we don't have a mission or anything, we can do something," Zatanna suggested.
"That sounds good," Megan agreed.
Artemis checked the time on her phone and pushed off the counter. "I've got to go meet GA in Star. I'll see you tomorrow."
She went to the zeta tube and Mallory put the rest of the oreos back in the cabinet. "I'm gonna go to bed. If I'm not up by the time Canary comes, tell her I'm sick."
Zatanna chuckled. "It wouldn't matter to her. She'd say you need to be able to fight at your worst and drag you out of bed for a special session."
Mallory groaned and started walking to her room. "Yeah, you're right. I'll see you at training tomorrow."
I want two reviews before I post the next chapter. I want to hear what you think about the story, don't worry about whether your review is good or not. Just tell me what you like/don't like, maybe who your favorite character is, favorite part of the story so far, things that I might have gotten away from, anything. This is the 51st chapter I've posted. Surely if you've read this far into a fanfiction, you have something to say about it.