Julia slowly turned in a full circle where she stood in the center of the living room.
"Bruce—it's beautiful."
The large fireplace marked north, while the almost floor to ceiling bow windows overlooking Melrose Street pointed east. The entire room was decorated in tasteful yet neutral tones, as was most of the 3000 square foot condo. It stood just a short walk from Belmont Harbor, which served as home to Bruce's 37 foot sailboat.
Bruce Wayne stood next to the long sectional sofa that lined the south wall. "Thanks to you." Above the sofa hung an abstract, textured blue-and-beige landscape painting by Veronika Obushikhina. "If you ever decide to give up the life of clandestine operations you have a bright future in interior design. I can't thank you enough for seeing to all of this for me."
Julia completed her circular tour of the large front room before coming to rest. The dark haired man stood centered in her field of vision. She could look at that face all day and not grow tired of it. She felt her cheeks flush a bit, accompanied by a slight smile.
"I just started the process, and helped a bit with colors and decorations."
She hadn't rushed to meet Bruce. Just as he hadn't rushed to meet her. Each had waited the minimum time required to avoid drawing undue attention to their solitary departures. In Julia's case, those nearest to her were too occupied with each other, and she needed only the most basic of diversions, prearranged and provided by Luke. In Bruce's case, nothing short of a nuclear attack would have diverted Alfred Pennyworth's attention as his employer appeared in the most anonymous attire he owned and stated, I have to go out for a while.
Alfred had simply inspected Bruce from head to toe before answering. "Dressed like that?"
"It's not what you think," Bruce had answered, apropos of nothing, and byzantine enough to allow for total deniability afterward.
"It never is," Julia Pennyworth's father replied. There was no doubt in his mind where the man standing before him was going. But having no interest in pursuing the issue he said. no more.
"You did more than start it. Every bit of what you see is because of you," Bruce reminded her before removing a small rectangular box from his coat pocket. He closed the distance between them as he raised the gift with his left hand and presented it to her. "This is for you."
Breathe. She reached out, her hand only slightly trembling, and took the box. Just breathe.
Julia opened the box. Her breath caught in her throat as her mind struggled to accept what her eyes were seeing. A green oval set in gold and held by a gold necklace.
"The Gurhan Rune," were all the barely audible words that managed to escape her lips.
"I remembered how much you liked it," he replied gently. "And every time I saw it I thought of you, so I figured..."
Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry. She felt her eyes well up, then spill over. But she steadied herself—just before the tears could turn into sobs.
A thousand things went through her mind in that moment. But what came out of her mouth was, if not witty, then at least not embarrassing. "Would you?" Julia asked, voice soft. "Help me with it?"
Bruce picked up the necklace from the box, which was Julia's cue to turn around and present her bare neck. As the gold chain settled she could feel the roughness of Bruce's fingers caress her skin when he secured the ends of the chain with the clasp. She leaned her head back against him as his fingers traced lines from her neck to her shoulders before departing. She turned back around again and looked up as he looked down. He admired the cornflower blue of her eyes, and the turquoise oval that was framed by the white silk of her blouse.
He broke the pregnant silence eventually. "I think this calls for a celebration of some sort. Something a bit more intimate than a big Thanksgiving dinner."
Julia's heart was racing, even though she was positive that he was not offering anything besides dinner.
"Did you have something in mind?"
She was correct, thought she had no way of knowing it. But Bruce Wayne adored Julia Pennyworth's smile, and he had every intention of enjoying that smile, and the beautiful music of her laughter, many times before the night was through.
"As a matter of fact, i do."
The flicker of something unspoken passed between them—before Julia finally exhaled and smiled.
Nine hundred miles away, in a brightly lit apartment, Misty reached into the fridge and pulled out another bottle.
"At this rate we're going to run out of beer." She twisted off the cap with her left hand (the high-dynamic EPS regulators in her prosthetic hand and arm were set to mimic their organic counterparts), tossed the cap into the trash, and picked up another slice of pizza. She walked back to her dining room table, and the two women seated there.
"There's another case on the fire escape," Colleen reminded her. "It's in the cooler, packed in ice. Last year I could have just left it in the cardboard box it came in."
"Don't complain about a warm Thanksgiving," Jessica said, "or else we'll have two feet of snow next year."
"Who said I was complaining?" Colleen Wing asked as she sipped from her own bottle of Pacifico, "I was just making an observation, is all."
They had been at it for well over an hour. None of them had official access to any of the national criminal information systems, and Jessica drew the line at cyber break ins that could actually result in jail time. She didn't care if Malcolm said he was up for it. But Malcolm Ducasse had also been up for, and Jessica Jones had been quite happy to accept, a list of instructions as long as Jess's arm for accessing those systems themselves. As well as other less well known institutions that collected fingerprints in the course of their normal, perfectly legal, or sometimes not, operations. In the almost two hours since they began they had only covered one quarter of Malcolm's suggested list of institutions, and the specific instructions for accessing those institutions without the usual bother of a username and password.
"Shit," Misty muttered, scrolling. "All these private companies collect biometric data? I was a cop for fourteen years and never knew that."
Colleen quickly came to her partner's defense, knowing full well that she did not need it. "You were on the front line enforcement side, not the rear echelon techie side. No one expected you to know the ins and outs of looking up fingerprints or DNA."
"And all these places upload everything they collect to NCIC or NDEX," Jessica added as she swallowed another mouthful of bourbon before washing it down with an equal amount of beer. "So the NYPD only has to make one request. We, on the other hand, can't use the same route that the CPD took, or leave any kind of digital footprints that can be tracked."
There was a collected feeling of urgency, even though they had no official deadline. Their unofficial deadline was the big Thanksgiving get together roughly eighteen hours. But that celebration would, if necessary, only mark a pause in their work, not an end. They would be right back at it on Friday if necessary, which, thanks to a rather unobtrusively named website, would not be necessary.
"What just happened?" Jess asked as she looked at the flood of information that appeared on the monitor.
"I think we are actually in," Colleen said, her voice colored with equal parts skepticism and relief. Up till then they had been batting zero. And each of them was not willing to tempt fate by celebrating early. The room was silent as the three women each read the information being displayed. "What am I looking at?"
"All it says is, Cinna. It doesn't say what it is or who it is. It's a .COM, so it's not a government web site."
Misty leaned forward so her head was right next to Colleen's as she read out loud.
"Cinna provides useful resources for criminal justice research and education, such as criminal justice databases..."
"Yes!" Jessica said, "criminal justice databases, just what we need. Click on Services."
"Services... biometric search, travel identity documents search, illicit arms records search, International Child Sexual Exploitation database search..."
"Jesus fucking Christ," Jessica said, "who are these guys? How do they have access to all of this?"
"Is Cinna a name or an acronym?" Misty asked.
"Who cares?" Colleen asked. "Let's get what we need and get out. I don't like this. Malcolm's sure we can't be traced?"
"He says he double hopped us through Algeria and Belgium, and the last hop is faking an IP address in Japan. Nobody's finding us. But your right, lets get what we came for and delta the fuck out."
Colleen provided the running step by step commentary. "OK, biometric search, fingerprint database search, upload fingerprints, JPEG format, upload file."
searching...
"Now we wait," Misty said as she walked into her kitchen and dropped another slice of pizza onto her plate.
Kate pulled her Range Rover into the parking space at corner of Clark Street and Buckingham Place. It was a short walk to their destination, and the two familiar faces that stood waiting for them under the blue awning adorned with the name of the restaurant.
"I was about to send out an APB for all of you," Laurel Lance said to Kate as she looked at the time displayed on her phone.
A round of quick introductions (to avoid freezing to death; the temperature was dropping and none of them was wearing a heavy coat) saw the group of women through the front door of 3345 N Clark St., the home of P.S. Bangkok, one of the best Thai restaurants on the planet; at least in Kate's opinion, and to their reserved table.
Beth and Kate had not made too strenuous an attempt to get Julia to reveal her dinner plans, though at least one of them had her own idea where Julia was heading. But Kate kept that idea to herself. As they met up with Barbara Gordon Julia's plans receded even farther into the background of her mind. Kate and Barbara didn't see each other every single day, but close enough to it that people who did not know better could be forgiven for mistaking them as a couple. The same could not be said for Barbara and Beth. The two women were still virtual strangers, a fact that Kate knew quite well, and was determined to remedy, come Hell or high water.
Right after I get Beth and Dad back together, Kate thought, or maybe before. During? Merde.
Beth and Babs had met a few times since Alice had faded into the background—but not since Aric had done… Kate still didn't know how to describe it.
"You've actually been to Bangkok Kate tells me," Barbara said to Beth as they all began to fill the chairs that surrounded the large round table. Kate had talked to Babs well in advance of the trio's outing, although at that point she had thought there would be four of them meeting up with Laurel and Trish. Kate had given Babs pointers on how to try and connect with Beth, "any good restaurants there?"
"Lots, but we only visited a few. Tossakan Thai Curry House, and Blue Sky Rooftop Bar, plus a couple of small restaurants that Aric likes because he knows the families who run them."
"Does he live there?" Laurel asked.
"No. He's in Buenos Aires right now, but he's looking to move. Argentina isn't a good place these days, and he was ready for a change of scenery anyway."
This was news to Trish. She had visited Buenos Aires at Beth's invitation, and had loved the city, but she knew that politically and economically the country was on a downward trajectory. "Is he moving back to the States?"
"No. He's not on speaking terms with the US Government."
That detail got Laurel's full attention. "Why not?"
"It's a long story, but the short answer is that someone in Washington DC who knew his secret asked him to pay a visit to a couple of foreign heads of state and then kill them. They worded it differently, of course, but the message was clear. He said no. Words were exchanged. You can guess that they were not friendly words."
"Holy shit," Kate commented.
Beth picked up her water and took a sip. "Well said."
"And they're still holding it against him?"
"Not exactly. He made them forget that they ever asked, and then got the hell out of Dodge just in case they remembered. It was a long time ago, and he was still learning to use his abilities, and he wasn't sure how long his memory wipe would last. If he did it today it would be permanent. Anyway, he only ever visits now. And he's really careful about who gets to know him in that way."
Babs was shaking her head in astonishment. "Holy fuck."
A slight smile formed on Beth's face. "You two really have a way with words."
"How long ago was that?" Trish asked.
"Thirty-some years. Before the Berlin Wall came down."
The waitress arrived and took their drink order, which gave Kate time to do some rough math in her head. "He would have still been in his twenties."
Beth nodded her head in agreement while she crunched on some of the ice from her water glass. "He was. He was also a lot more active back then, thinking that God gave him his abilities to use for the betterment of mankind. This was the sort of thing that began to change his mind. This and something else."
"Something else?"
Beth sat motionless for a moment before answering.
"There was a notorious Russian gulag called Logovo Tigra," she began, her voice growing quiet as if she was sharing a secret. "It was back in the Soviet Union days. It was a prison for writers, or dissidents, or any other people that the USSR didn't like, especially if those people were LGBT. So Aric decided to pop in and release everybody being held there. He put the guards to sleep, opened all the cells, and told the prisoners that they were free."
There was another moment of silence while everyone waited for Beth to continue.
"And?" Babs asked eventually.
"And within a year the government had tracked down and killed every freed prisoner - and their families. Then they killed the staff that had been on duty that night. And their families. Aric took it hard. He says he was a wreck for a month. He's still not over it. It colors every action he considers taking."
Trish had met Aric when Beth had, and she had been just as affected by his loveliness. She barely knew him, but the thought of what he must have gone through was causing her chest to ache. "Fuck me."
"He has a lot of guilt about the things he did that went wrong, like Logovo Tigra, and things that never went right because he never attempted them."
"But he used to do them, right? Like the thing in Mexico. He healed five thousand people who shown up just so he could cure them of whatever was wrong with them. He doesn't do that anymore?" Kate asked.
"No. It became too much. Half of those people just wanted money. A new truck, Stupid shit like that."
Laurel's brain was still processing what she had just heard as he lips seemed to move on their own. "That must have been rough."
"No, what was rough was all the people who asked him to bring back a dead child. He cried when he told me about that. The looks on their faces when he told them he didn't have the ability to do that. I cried just watching him cry. I have no fucking idea how I would have felt in his place, but it would not have been good. Of all the things he has to live with, the looks those people gave him as he watched their hopes fade to nothing, all those dead people because he decided to make a grand gesture and tell the USSR to go fuck itself, those are the scars that have never healed. He fixed my shattered mind. He took my nightmares away. But the nightmares he still has, those he keeps as a reminder of how badly he can fuck things up if he's not careful."
Barbara felt the blood drain from her face as her stomach argued with itself whether it wanted to turn inside out. "Sweet Jesus."
Beth took a deep breath. "Yeah."
Kate could see Barbara's eyes latch onto hers from across the table. The silent accusation was clear.
Ask her about Thailand, they go there a lot. That should get the ball rolling. For fuck's sake.
The rolling ball had turned into a real downer as it gained momentum. Kate had to admit that her idea had been a bust. She was about to say something, but the telepathy that many twins share kicked in, and Beth spoke first.
"Sorry...that got dark really fast. To go back a few miles, no he's not moving back to the US of A. He was thinking of moving back to Bali. He still has an Indonesian passport. But he lived in Spain for a few years, in a small town named Navacerrada, and he liked it a lot; so that's on his list. Rounding out his possible new homes is a larger city on the Rhine River in Switzerland called Basel."
"Wow," Barbara replied, resorting to one of the few neutral responses that popped into her head. She was about to ask Beth if she was planning on moving with Aric whenever he relocated, but that had danger, Will Robinson written all over it. She bit the words off before they could reach her lips.
"That's some list," Trish added as their drinks arrived. Trish had, out of conscious friendship as much as unconscious habit, taken the chair to Beth's left while Kate had taken the seat to Beth's right. She reached out with her right hand to clasp the left hand of her friend and partner and applied a gentle pressure that said, without the need for words, I'm here, I've got you. Lean on me. Beth returned the pressure in kind as she turned her head slightly towards Trish and smiled in acknowledgement of their growing bond.
Laurel felt her phone vibrate. One message from Jess.
We have a match
Laurel smiled as her pulse quickened.