Terry looked up at the small town and grimaced. This was not Gotham. There were no skyscrapers or drug-pushers at the docks, or docks to speak up. The sky was overcast but still sunny and everyone was old and cheerful. It was so much not like Gotham that he didn’t even know where to start looking. Where was a gun den in this country?
“Excuse me,” he said, tapping a woman on the shoulder. Older women know everything about small towns right? “Do you know the way to Diver Road?”
The older lady took him in and then smiled. “You want to go to Diver?” Her accent was thick and fast, like a few drinks Terry didn’t like.
“I have a friend that lives there,” he said. If anyone asked he was Canadian. “Friends.”
“You know the Reeds?” the woman asked. “Not many friends they have.”
“Don’t be mean,” another older woman swooped in out of the market. It was a club, a terrible town full of old women. She gave Terry a wink.
“I didn’t know they were well known,” Terry said. Maybe he had gotten the wrong address. Maybe they had already moved on.
“They’re private, I’ll give ‘em that.” Old Lady #2 said. White hair, short and strong, by the look of her shoulders. Terry wondered what this woman had done her whole life to get such manly shoulders.
“She’s a bit Nessie in the head,” Old Lady #1 said. Taller but still short and her hair was poorly dyed red. She had long witch fingers. Mystics?
“This way, this way.” They pulled him with their strangely strong feeble arms.
“You know I’ve been meaning to drop off some dinner,” Taller said.
“Oh that lass doesn’t know how to cook for the dog,” Dye Job said. “Might be the aspergers.”
“We don’t know that’s what it is,” Taller said. She turned to their new friend. “She’s very quirky. You must know. I’ve been trying to teach her to cook but it’s like it doesn’t click.”
“And that stare.” Dye Job shivered. “She scares the sheep back in the pen. Here we are.”
The car wasn’t much of a car. Terry thought he could make better out of cardboard. The paint was peeling and it looked big enough for Paris Hilton’s dead dog.
“What is here?” Terry asked. “What are we doing?”
“We’re taking you to your friend,” Taller said with a smile and proceeded to manually unlock the door. Who were these outrageous agents and what did they want? Cadmus? No, they killed and ate the elderly. Maybe it was one of Waller’s old croons.
“Nonsense, like I said, I have to take them dinner.”
“Is it the casserole?” Dye Job asked. “You know he likes that one.”
“Loves it, he practically inhaled it last time.”
“Have you met the husband?” Taller asked. She ushered Terry into the back cavern of the tiny buggy and pushed the seat back. “Danger that one.”
“I think he might’ve hurt someone,” Dye Job said. She settled in the passenger seat. “You know my friend Elaine? She knows a girl whose husband brought them here. He stopped flying. Just quit his job and left, never came back.”
“You know he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Look at how he is with their son. So gentle and kind.”
“He is adorable, that one. The cheeks on him. Too bad.”
“What’s bad about it?” Terry asked.
“His complexion,” Dye Job said, like she was revealing the President’s bomb list. “He’s much darker than his parents.”
“So what, you’ve taken high school biology.”
“I am. Would you like a drink?” Dye Job offered.
“Very much, yes,” Terry answered.
Dye Job handed back a silver flask with liquid that burned all the way down.
“Good stuff,” Terry coughed, pocketing it.
“They’re actually very nice,” Taller said. “I see them at the market sometimes. Strange, a bit out of place but you can tell they’re happy. That’s what really matters, isn’t it?”
“That and that little boy is to die for.”
Got that right, at least.
The road was a one-lane winding highway that left town and never seemed to find it again. Fields past and Terry began to wonder if this wasn’t a kidnapping. He hated being a sex slave.
“There it is.” Taller referred to a house on a hill surrounded by green fields dotted with sheep. Isolated, away from people, it was a nice spot.
“Thank you ladies,” Terry said upon exited, “but if you don’t mind, this is a family matter.” He took the casserole topped in foil from Taller and gave her cheek a kiss before turning to the house.
“Didn’t know they had family,” he heard Dye Job say before hearing the car turn around.
The porch was large and well-worn with a wooden swing and unpainted steps. Natalie sat watching him from the other side where the shadows gathered.
“You’re here.” The voice sounded familiar but felt so different. She’d grown her hair out to cover her missing eye. She had stopped wearing a patch.
She stood and the appearance of Nat in dirty jeans and plaid was so abnormal Terry missed a few moments trying to remember what she used to wear. Nothing, if she could help it, but sweat pants or combat wear, mostly. Nothing this casual.
“Hello, Natalie.” He held up the casserole and she opened the door. Her smile was so easily worn, he couldn’t tell if it was fake or not anymore. “I brought dinner.”
“Rein will be happy Ainsley was here.”
“Ainsley? Taller’s name was Ainsley?”
“The one with the poor dye job is Karen,” Natalie said.
“You’re best friends are old and possibly already dead.”
Natalie set the casserole on the counter. “Must be why they like Zeus.”
“Now you’re starting to scare me,” Terry said, surveying the room. There was no way she had furnished it. It looked homey, lived-in. And it had a smell. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t like the base. There was dust. And apples. And a stove that seemed to work. He swiped at an iPad on the table and a headline appeared. “Safe At Last” the Gotham Gazette boasted.
“Don’t deny us, Terry,” Natalie said with a blank look on her face. “Zeus!” she called in a normal voice. She was making jokes. This was serious.
Little footsteps came down the staircase and the boy appeared around the corner with curly hair and huge eyes.
“Uncle Terry,” he said and then Terry found himself in an embrace.
“I missed you,” Z said in a quiet voice. “It’s not as funny around here.”
Terry had to laugh. “That’s nice to know, at least. But you look taller.”
“It’s been a long time,” Natalie said as if the years apart hadn’t reminded him.
“Where’s your husband?” Terry asked.
Natalie gave him the same look she always did when he spoke ill of Rein.
“They see what they want to,” Nat said. “It’s easiest not saying anything and letting them think.”
“Sure,” Terry shrugged. “They just think you have aspergers.”
“I thought you liked my weird.”
