May 28, 1987

An uneventful trip. I don't really like being a passenger. My seatmate was a grandmotherly sort who told me she wanted to visit every state in the country and then all the Canadian provinces. She didn't have many left, though she was planning to just stop over in Kansas. I confirmed her suspicion that there was nothing to see there. I tried to sleep through the movie, which was something annoying and violent, and then we were landing in Detroit.
    I hadn't called ahead. Not sure why not, maybe because I would have had to think about why I was here. Well, the other reason, since part of it really is just a visit. I checked the phone book for Trent's office address.
    The gang situation in this city is downright vicious, and it shows in a lot of places. It's hard to fit Daedalus and Inferno into this milieu; they don't seem like they should have to be dealing with that kind of thing. Maybe just that reflexive impression of angels that one gets around inhumanly attractive people with wings. I'd gained a couple time zones, so I wandered around for a while—carefully, keeping in mind that this was a very different place than the one I had just come from, that if trouble showed up I didn't have any backup. Best to be a little cautious, although as it turned out nothing happened. Then took a taxi to the address I'd found.
    It was in a rather run-down part of the city. Looked like a set from the movie I hadn't been watching on the plane. Trent's office is near the top floor of a somewhat scruffy-looking 27-story building, across from a small law firm. I walked into the reception area. No receptionist, but a couple of chairs, bookcases, some professional journals and one bedraggled copy of People. Some very nice art on the walls, original oil paintings; reasonably comfortable chairs. Pleasant, but somehow not exactly what I'd been expecting. I spent a couple minutes looking around, and the inner door opened.
    "Yes, can—oh. Hi." Trent looked openly startled.
    "Hi," I smiled a bit uncertainly.
    "You're in luck, I'm not with anyone at the moment."
    "Glad to hear it."
    "How are you? This is a bit of a shock," he admitted, coming further into the room.
    "Well, I thought I'd surprise you."
    "Okay. Is there a case out here, or you just on vacation?" he inquired.
    "I'm vacationing."
    "Good, good."
    "Thought I'd swing by," I shrugged.
    "I'm sure Detroit was on your way, too. It's an idyllic vacation site for many people every year," he remarked wryly.
    "I don't have that many people to visit outside of Boston," I reminded him in the same tone. "It's a short list. Had to go somewhere, haven't been here... may as well. So how've you been?"
    "Pretty good. Business is going okay, there haven't been any major outbreaks of anything recently. My wing has healed up again, thank God."
    "Glad to hear it. Lucky mentioned that."
    He sighed. "Every time I fight that guy, I hate it. I just hate it. I don't know what it is, I just seem to end up with this cadre of villains who are the scum of the earth. It hardly seems fair. I mean... come on in." His office was nicer than the waiting room, and had a scattering of comfortable chairs—he himself used a stool behind his desk, one of those ergonomically designed things.
    "This is nice."
    "I've tried to get it working all right," he shrugged. "Other than a couple of times I've had supervillains attack me here...."
    "Don't you hate it when they come to the office," I commiserated.
    "It's a pain, it is."
    "There should be a rule."
    "So, what's going on?" He settled himself and gave me an inquiring look. "How's your team, how are things going?"
    "Things are going pretty well back home. We're riding a wave of popularity after weeks of increasingly dismal popular opinion."
    "Mm. I heard from Kyla about the whole scenario."
    "Oh? What'd she say?" I asked curiously.
    "That you had gone missing, and that they needed help, and I wasn't able to provide anything at the time, for which I am very sorry. I got a brief phone update on the answering machine that everything had been pretty much resolved."
    "Things worked themselves out."
    "Do you want to talk about it, or no?" Trent asked with a questioning head-tilt.
    "Not just yet," I decided.
    He nodded and let it go. "How long you going to be out here?"
    "I've got another week of vacation, I figured I'd stick around a couple days."
    "That's fine, I have space in my apartment to set you up."
    "You don't have to do that."
    "I have a loft with a lot of room in it, I need it to stretch out properly." He waved a wing.
    "Understood."
    "In fact, later tonight is our monthly meeting."
    "Really?"
    "If you want to see the whole mad crew..." he offered.
    "I'd be delighted. Always happy to meet fellow professionals." I'd been curious about the group ever since Trent's visit out to Boston.
    "I don't think Energeon's gonna be turning up, no one's seen him in a little while, but he has a tendency to vanish. Emily's back," he added.
    "Oh. Glad to hear she turned up, how's she doing?"
    "Still no memory," he sighed slightly. "Still an odd power set that she's getting a better handle on. No longer speaking in Japanese, although I have no doubt that she now speaks Japanese regularly, just...."
    "Not doing it in her sleep anymore."
    "Exactly."

| Top |