Profession

Another contract

It felt like we were just settling into a cozy routine when Jon wrapped up all his current work and packed for several months in London. I went over with him for a few days, getting him oriented as far as helpful shops were concerned (grocery, hand pie place) and introducing him to the gatekeepers and my friends from Cambridge, who were extremely interested in meeting the man I'd chosen and who had chosen me. "Lys wasn't really cloistered in uni," Jones said over drinks one night. I rolled my eyes and Jon grinned. "But between schoolwork and rowing, she didn't have a great social life. So it's good to see she has other interests beside troublemaking." I stuck my tongue out at him. There was comparison between how we'd done things at Cambridge and how Jon had done them, trading reminiscences. "What's your project?" Jones asked Jon.

"I'm working on a book exploring the fall of Parliament. What went so very wrong, and the immediate aftermath as well as a perspective with some distance."

"Interesting." Jones chewed an olive from his martini. "It's going to be a popular topic, since documents and testimony will be unsealed. I know of a few other books that are in the starting gate." Jon nodded.

"I have a few sources who have promised that I'm the only person they're talking to," was all he said.

"Interesting," Jones said again, eyeing him speculatively. They chatted a little more about the scope of the project, Jon refusing to give up particulars but Jones asking just because he's irritating that way.  But the day before I left for New York, he called the house and offered to introduce him to a couple of additional individuals who had personal knowledge of the events in question, as well as the offer of an interview with Princess Diana, who was heir to the perspectives of the royal side of events. The interview wouldn't be no-holds-barred, but it was also the only interview that she was granting on the subject; soon she'd be too busy with a tour on behalf of the king that would culminate in her first appearance in the UN, and then there'd be the wedding. She wouldn't be available for other interviews until the new year, so if Jon played his cards right, he could get his in print first.

"Part of it's due to Lys," Jones acknowledged when Jon asked why he was getting this prize. "Diana likes and trusts her. But some of it's my recommendation, and it's also an opportunity for the princess to get an interview on record that has academic substance. She's studied this for years; the monarch and the heir have always had access to classified information, and she's very interested in history, especially as it pertains to how the monarch became a politician again, ruling with substance rather than appearing as a token, a figurehead. She looked up your publications and is satisfied with the evenhanded treatment you give to all sides in an event." So that was awesome for Jon. I might have unlocked a door, but it was his work that opened it. Somewhat reluctantly, I went back to New York. I had my own work to do, even if it sounded like Jon's was going to be more interesting. He'd be head down in his writing and research, though, corroborating facts and perspectives, and identifying and rejecting false narratives and facts.

And it wasn't like I was going to be bored, anyway. Uncle Richard had made a full recovery and was back at work. And the vigi-friends were hard at work looking for the Joker; we felt like we were in the home stretch and wanted to get it done. None of the paper I'd found concerning the address in Uncle Richard's files came back to the Joker, but that actually didn't mean much. His initial name was unknown, and he assumed identities with ease, shedding them like a snake sheds its skin when its utility is over. Names themselves meant nothing; I was having to track down each name to make sure it matched a real, non-Joker and/or non-Harley person. It wasn't that easy to do; I had to crack into different databases to confirm, and it was slow-going because I didn't want to get caught. And even then, who knows if the Joker had bribed/threatened somebody into being a figurehead? Jinx had sent in his first wave of cockroaches, which had been met by a fog of insecticide before the owners could be caught on a roach cam. Jinx was working on alternatives.