Mind the Gap | ✔️

September 20 @ 11:45 A.M.: Evan

"It's like a spaceship, daddy!" Janice sat in a wicker sphere and eyed me from its round entry hole. The whole thing was suspended by a chain from the ceiling. "Push me, make it swing!"

I obliged, applying warp-pendulum speed to her vessel, and she squeed with delight.

Fortunately, the Chillaxium at Best Boston Insurances had been taken over by the Daughters and Sons at Work, and the usually quiet retreat was filled with howls, yells, and laughter, much like the monkey house at the zoo.

Next to the wicker sphere, a coffin-sized wooden box—it wouldn't be a coffin, would it?—had been press-ganged by some interior decorator to serve as a coffee table. Comics lay scattered all over it.

One of them caught my eye.

"Peanut, you've gotta see this!" I stopped the trans-dimensional motion of Janice's spaceship and pointed at a cover depicting a woman with a black mane, metal wrist cuffs, a tight bodice, and liberal amounts of skin.

"What is it?" Janice and Baby Yoda clambered through the hole, tumbled to the padded ground, and picked themselves up.

I handed the comic to her. "That's how the train lady, the one we saw today, looked in June, trust me."

My daughter inspected the picture, her eyes wide. "Wonder Woman! I love her! She is one of my favourite DC heroines! Did she really look like this, Dad? The train lady?"

I nodded. "She sure did. Exactly like this. The hair, the metal things around her arms. And she had the same dress."

"Wow! Cool!" My daughter leafed through the book.

"And, the train woman, she—" I was about to report on her hair dying habits when a hand on my shoulder stopped me.

"Evan. Introducing your offspring to our company brochures?"

I turned to find Liam, my boss of bosses, smiling at me. His bleached teeth lit up a perfectly tanned face.

"Hey, Liam. Good to see you." I gestured to Janice with one hand while getting the other one squeezed in the man's firm grip. "This is Janice, my daughter."

"Pleased to know you, milady... and miYoda." He bowed at her. "And this here is Maximilian, my son." He pointed at a blond boy next to him. He seemed to be a year or two younger than my daughter. The lad held a plastic machine gun and looked willing and able to use it in lethal combat action.

"Hello, Maximilian." I smiled at him in what I hoped was an amicable fashion.

The boy glowered back at me and pointed the muzzle of his weapon in my direction.

"Er..." I looked back at his father, seeking some kind of support. " So, Liam. Janice adores the comics collection here. She loves Wonder Woman, you know." I changed the topic.

My boss of bosses raised his brows. "Ah, yes. Wonder Woman. Who doesn't love her indeed? Did you know, Evan, that we here, at Boston's Best Insurances, have one Wonder Woman comic for each Superman comic? Gender equality is one of the paramount—"

"Pssh! She's just a girl, that Wonder Woman," Maximilian said, interrupting his father. "I bet Superman would kick her fat ass any time. And now I wanna see the servants. Take me to them, Dad!"

"The servants?" Liam frowned at his son, puzzlement written all over his face.

"Yeah, the big computers, you know" The boy wiped his nose with a hand, and then he wiped the hand on his weapon. "Those that you told me cost a lot of money."

"Ah, the servers, you mean." Liam smiled.

"That's what I said." Maximilian brought the gun to his right shoulder and aimed it straight at my daughter.