Profession

The cat's out of the bag and roaming freely

"What makes you think that?" Jon said, sounding bored, over my inadvertent comment.

"Facial recognition, Wonder Woman was out and about yesterday," one man said avidly, thrusting his recorder in my face. "And she might be good at her job, but her employment record at the museum shows that she's been disciplined for excessive absences at times."

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Bryan Gold, The National," he said, puffing up a bit. Ugh. The National was a two-bit rag that made its money on the extremely dubious quality and sensationalistic nature of its reporting.

"Good to know," I said. "You're going to be sued. Employment records are private, and you and whoever hacked the records are going to be up a creek." It was interesting information, though. I'd often wondered how she got so much time off.

"We get sued a lot," he jeered at me. "I'm not afraid of you."

"If you did decent reporting, you wouldn't have to be," Jon said testily. I held my tongue. The Waynes never had to sue the paper because they'd never gotten anything wrong enough about us, just blowing the story of Deri's wedding up which was unpleasant but not unfactual. So they didn't know what was going to be hitting them shortly.

"So if your mom's Wonder Woman, does that mean that your dad's Superman?" one woman asked hopefully. "They seem to work very closely together." Both Jon and I burst out laughing.

"Absolutely not," I said, chortling. "There's no room in Daniel's schedule for heroing." And the gate slid open, the big pod inching forward assertively and pausing by us. The door swung open and we got in fast, the door shutting quickly. Jon darkened the glass and put the pod on auto, taking us to the Valkyrie.

Jon came in with me, dismissing the pod for parking. I'd thought to stop at Barnraising, but there was a crowd in there, so I guess I'd wait until the coffee cart came through later. "Go on up to your office, honeybee," Jon said, accurately divining my thoughts. "I'll bring you up your coffee. It's going to be a long day."

"I married up with you," I said gratefully, pressing a quick kiss on him and taking the stairs. I was starting to get stares. I regretted it around the fifth floor, even though I'm in good shape, and pressed on; Lys Wayne's not a quitter. I was breathing heavily when I got to the secured seventh floor and my office, waving at our receptionist in the MM suite.

"We've been getting calls, Ms Wayne," he said. "What do you want me to do about them?"

"If they don't have business with Valkyrie or MM, Carl, refer them to Diana," I said. "Sorry about this."

"It's no trouble," he assured me. "The team's out in the field and it's a break from the quiet."

"That's a nice way to put it," I agreed. "Jon's coming up shortly, if you could let him in."

"Of course. And your grandmother called down about five minutes ago. She wanted me to have you call her when you got in." Ah, then it was the personal business she wanted to talk about. If it had been company-related, Carl would have called her "Ms Barnes-Wayne." I flicked the lights on in my office, sat down behind the desk, and scrubbed my face briefly with my palms before calling up.

"Hi, Grandma," I said.

"Buttercup," she said immediately. "Have you heard the news about your mother?"

"Yeah, a pack of press jumped me outside the gate at home," I said, sighing. "They wanted to know if Daniel was Superman." I started to snicker again, and she joined me.

"Well, that was humorous," she said, winding down as Jon came in with my coffee and a slice of marbled poundcake. "Hello, Jon, dear," she said as she caught sight of him onscreen. "What do you make of all this?"