Young Justice: Central City
July 28th, 2010
My original plan was pretty simple. Apparate to Central City, get directions, apparate in the correct general direction, get directions, and repeat until we get there. Zatanna, with her far greater experience with muggle society, managed to both add and remove several steps from that process, but overall improved the efficiency of our plan.
After apparating to Central City together, it took Zatanna approximately five minutes to track down a massive, slightly ragged tome called a ‘phone book’. A simple spell later, she used Jay’s address to track down his phone number and promptly called him. The conversation went something like this, though I could only really hear half of what was going on..
“Hey, this is Zatanna…Yeah, I’m his sort-of niece…Yup, yup…I was hoping a friend and I could come by and talk to Jay about Uncle Kent…Yeah, um, a little urgent I guess…Great, do you think you could give him a call…Perfect. Then…Yes, that would be lovely, thank you…Yes, yes, thank you, I’ll see you soon.”
Zatanna hung up and glanced up to where I was standing beside her awkwardly, her thumbs moving swiftly along the screen of her phone without her needing to look. “I hope you like lemon bars,” she told me, “Jay’s out golfing, but his wife told me she’d give him a call and he should be home in just a couple of minutes.”
“Convenient. Uh, what exactly is a lemon bar?”
“Think like, a slightly soggy shortbread cookie with lemon goop and some powdered sugar on top.”
Well, I liked shortbread, and I liked lemon (especially since they didn’t cost two galleons a fruit around here), and while the combination seemed odd, I was certainly willing to give it a go. “A curious combination. The variety of sweets available in this time is truly something else.”
Zatanna rolled her eyes, then looked down at her phone. “Okay, we need to go…two and a quarter miles north and three and a third east. That should be in the middle of a park, it looks like this.” She showed me a picture. “Good enough?”
“Good enough,” I confirmed. I wrapped an arm around Zatanna’s shoulders and focused on the three D’s. A twist later and we vanished from the convenience store, leaving the phone book we’d borrowed behind on the counter.
From the park, it was a scant few minutes walk to the Garrick’s modest three-story suburban home. It probably would have been rather pleasant––the weather was lovely, Zatanna and I were holding hands, our fingers intertwined, and the area was clean and well taken care of. Unfortunately, I could practically feel Zatanna’s nerves and worries radiating off her in waves, and I too was rather concerned for my new teacher. Not only was there still a lot I wanted to learn from him, but he was my path to visiting the Atlantean Conservatory of Magic and I also had grown to somewhat care about the kindly old wizard.
I made a mental note to prioritize trying to get a blueprint of the man when I finally found him. That way, even if something did happen, I’d still have a teacher for Order magic and a path to learning that aether-sight spell we were working up towards. It would probably be a while till I was able to summon him––I had no doubt that he’d cost at least five mana, probably more––but it was a good form of insurance for the future.
We made it there at the same time as Jay did. Zatanna had just knocked on the front door when I noticed a blur moving towards us down the street and swiftly drew my wand. Before I could react, the blur was right on top of us and resolved into the shape of a stout, elderly but well-preserved man with brown hair, blue eyes, and a hint of a frown on his face.
The man looked down at my wand, then up at Zatanna and I, clearly not seeing me as much of a threat. “I take it you’re the reason I suddenly had to rush home?” he asked surlily.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Zatanna turned away from the door. “Uncle Kent’s missing.”
Jay’s frown deepened, highlighting the faint wrinkles around his mouth and eyes, but this time it was clear that it was not directed at the two of us. “Well, fair enough. That’s certainly more important than crushing my buddies at nine-hole.”
At that moment, the door opened and Jay blurred forward to embrace his equally elderly wife, then moved to stand beside her. “You’d best come in,” he said curtly.
His wife nudged his shoulder with hers and he shook his head. “Sorry, sorry, where are my manners?” He stuck out his hand, “Jay Garrick, Kent and I go way back. You’re Zatanna, I think? Giovanni’s daughter. And that means you’re probably that new kid he’s been teaching, Hydras?”
I took his hand and shook it firmly. He had a strong grip, but with different calluses than you usually felt from someone who spent a lot of time using their wand. “Hydrys. A pleasure to meet you, sir. I hadn’t realize that Kent had mentioned me to anyone.”
“Sorry, my memory isn’t what it used to be. And we try to meet up on occasion, once a month or so. Went and got some drinks this past weekend and your name came up.”
“We meaning…” I trailed off and looked around, realizing that we were still standing in the doorway.
Jay also followed my eyes and nodded. “Probably what you’re thinking, yeah. Me, Alan, Kent, Diana sometimes if she can make it. Wesley’s not doing so well these days, but he used to come. Tornado sometimes makes it, but it’s always a coin flip with him. You’re right though. Not the best place to talk about it.” He stepped away from the door and gestured behind him. “Come on in. Shoes off, please, we just had the floors redone a few months back.”
Zatanna and I followed Jay into the living room and the three of us sat down around the coffee table, Zatanna and I on the couch and Jay on a leather recliner. After some initial pleasantries, his wife Joan brought us all some water and the aforementioned ‘lemon bars’, and we dived into the reason we were here.
I let Zatanna do most of the talking, explaining how we’d gone to take a lesson with Kent, his absence, our search, and then our decision to track him down. He listened quietly, the index and middle fingers on his left hand blurring as he lightly tapped them against the arm of his chair. Judging from the marks all up and down the armrest, it was a common tic.
At the end of it, he sighed heavily. “Kent does sometimes have a habit of vanishing, but he’s usually pretty good about warning people if he’s got a commitment. Sure he sometimes misses our meetups, but never without a reason, and he didn’t say anything about having plans over dinner.” He hummed softly, his fingers picking up speed until the sound of them tapping against the leather sounded more like a constant drone than individual impacts. Then he sighed again. “You’re probably right that it’s best to check up on him, but I don’t know how much I can help you. I know Kent’s got a big-ol gold key that can let you in past the Tower’s defenses, but I’m not really sure who's got a hold of it these days. Might be Allen, might be Diana, might even be…” he trailed off, eyes staring blankly out into the middle distance.
“Jay?” Zatanna asked, her voice heavy with concern.
Jay stood up and ran out of the room so fast that it created a breeze. Zatanna and I exchanged bemused looks, and then before either of us could say anything Jay was back.
He picked up his half-eaten lemon bar, took a bite, then set it back down on his plate. “Tornado’s probably still got it. There was a bit of a mess back in ninety-six, something about a sleep demon or whatever, and Tornado ended up needing to take care of some stuff with Kent. Bet you he still has it lying around somewhere, ‘specially since he’s part of the new League and all and they probably want to have a way to get to the helmet if something happens.”
“That’s Red Tornado, right?” Zatanna asked. Probably for my benefit––I was only very vaguely familiar with most of the Justice League.
“Yeah, him. Shiny red android, big yellow arrow on his head. Did you know they made some kind of kids cartoon based on it? The arrow I mean. Good stuff, made for kids but it really holds up. Shame it never caught on.”
I wasn’t completely sure what that meant, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t important. “So do you know how to contact Red Tornado?” I asked hopefully.
“Uh…I can try? I know he’s got something new going on, something about watching over some of the kids so they don’t get in too much trouble? Not too clear on it. Don’t tell Joan but I was like, six drinks in by the time Tornado finally made it over to Alan’s place.” He scratched his head. “I…think, maybe, that he’s down in…Happy Harbor now? Alan might know more, or you could probably ask Diana. She’d definitely know how to find him and I’ve definitely got her number written down somewhere.”