Identity

Notification

I stood in the break room in shock, until the assistant manager touched my shoulder. "Lys, are you ok? You're white as a sheet."

"Bad news from my family," I managed. He frowned.

"You go deal with that, clock out. We're slow enough that I was going to ask if anybody wanted to go home anyway, we could stand to lose a few people with the snow coming and all." I thanked him and clocked out, calling Bob so that he'd be at the curb.

"Where to, Lys?" AI Tony said. "What's the matter? Your heart rate is elevated, respiration shallow, and you're pale and clammy."

"The Valkyrie," I said. "I need to talk to Grandma Alex." She'd said she was going to be working this weekend.

"Ok," he said, and the pod took a hard right down an alley. We were taking shortcuts then. Excellent. He let me off right in front of the doors and I zoomed into the elevator, which had just disgorged some shoppers. A couple more shoppers got on, and I waited until they'd gotten off on their floors before placing my finger on the discreet reader for access to the Valkyrie team's secure floors, wiping the reader to remove the print when I was done in an excess of caution. I stopped at the reception desk and smiled tensely at Agatha, the longtime Valkyrie receptionist.

"Lys, how are you, dear?" she asked, smiling at me. "How's school?"

"Doing really well for a change." She smiled. "How's your daughter doing?"

"She's also having a good semester," she said, and showed me the latest school picture. "If you're here to talk to Alex, she's not in the meeting, that's Serena's show, so go on back." I thanked her and trotted down the hall to tap on the door casing. Grandma looked up, surprised, but happy to see me. Well, that was going to change fast.

"Lys, honey, come in!" She got up and hugged me, letting me go but holding my shoulders. "What's wrong? You're shaking. Come sit down." She sat me down in the comfortable chair across her desk, sitting down on a desk corner, and Eira got up and placed her head on my lap.

"It's kind of complicated, but bear with me. You know my friend Jinx Johnson, right?" She nodded; he'd been at my birthday party. I drew a deep breath. "So he's adopted, but his birth mother meets with him for lunch three or four times a year, she wants to know how he's doing. His folks know that this happens, and it was part of the agreement that they made when he was adopted. So she's missed the last two meetings, and he was peeved about it. But today we were having lunch, he works in the same area I do and there's this deli--" I shut my mouth for a second to focus. "We were at lunch and this woman approached, knew who he was, asked to speak to him privately. So I left."

"Did the woman do something to him?" Grandma asked, frowning. I shook my head.

"Not that I know of, not physically. She had news for him, though. And you're really not going to like it." I bit my lip. "Jinx's name was originally just Jinx Quinn." Grandma's eyes widened immediately.

"Any relation to Harley Quinn?" she asked warily.

"That's his birth mom. She got pregnant just before Egypt." That was all I needed to say. She looked grossed out.

"The Joker?" I nodded.

"No wonder she didn't show up at the battle," she said slowly. "I wondered at the time.  But she gave him up?" I nodded again.

"Apparently she didn't want her kid in her lifestyle, and she wasn't able or willing to quit, plus she knows she's not quite stable." Grandma snorted. "The arrangement was that the Johnsons could adopt Jinx if they agreed to keep his name and let her see him a few times a year. They agreed. But this woman...here. Just read this text." I passed over my communicator and stroked Eira's head.