From a vantage point on one of the dockside buildings south of Puckett's Landing, Detective Inspector Dick Grayson of the New Avalon Police Department had an excellent view westward across the eastern harborside districts - particularly Salutown and the northeast corner of Claremont - with the bristling towers of the City Center as a backdrop. Away off behind those towers, the setting sun backlit the skyline, throwing the whole scene into the kind of red-tinted, silhouetted relief that wouldn't have looked out of place on a tourism commercial, or one of those motivational posters with a slogan like AMBITION: Without It Things Like This Don't Get Built. It was, he had to admit, a deeply cinematic sight.

That didn't stop him from turning a sardonically skeptical look to the taller, younger man - also dark-haired, also athletic, but very different in other respects - who stood next to him on the rooftop.

"You're crazy, McGinnis," he said.

Terry McGinnis, hands in his trouser pockets, grinned out at the cityscape. "Seriously, Dick," he said cajolingly. "Don't tell me you haven't looked at that skyline and thought, 'Yeah, I'd hit that.'"

Dick's look became even more skeptical. "You're going to a pretty weird area now, Terry."

"Come on, man!" Terry burst out, making a wide gesture that took in the whole panorama before them. "New Avalon's a perfect town for a Batman." He pointed to the nearest of the many airships plying the invisible streets of the city's upper reaches. "There are even blimps. How many cities have blimps these days? It'll be just like being back home, only the subway's cleaner."

"Technically they're zeppelins, and you've been hit in the head one too many times."

Terry put an arm around Dick's shoulders, gesturing to the sunset-red skyline again with the other, and said expansively, "Richard, my friend, every now and then you've gotta say, 'What the hell.'" Jogging his friend's shoulders a little with each subsequent point, he went on, "'What the hell' gives you freedom. Freedom brings opportunity. Opportunity makes your future."

Before Dick could reply, a dark-cloaked shape sprang from one of the neighboring buildings to the top of the enclosure around the roof access door, then from there to the parapet next to the two men. When it stopped moving, this shape resolved itself into a young woman dressed in snug-fitting, lightly armored black and purple, her long blonde hair trailing decoratively (if a bit impractically) from under her cowl. She turned a grin to them, blue eyes twinkling merrily through the eyeholes of her half-mask.

"Hey, boss," she said. "I begin to understand why you lost your last two recruits to this town. This place is happening." She put a hand to the side of her cowl, over one ear, then said, "Tim says the Sky Raiders are hitting some biochem outfit downtown, you want a piece of that?"

"Nah," Terry replied. "Still in negotiations here. You kids have fun."

"Will do!" Batgirl replied, then fired her grapple gun at the building across the street and swept away with a trailing, "Woo-hoo!"

Dick watched her go, then turned to Terry and said dryly, in answer to the remark he'd made before she arrived, "Is that why you took Steph on as your sidekick?"

Terry didn't miss a beat picking up the thread. With a slight smirk, he shook his head and said, "Partner, Dick. We don't call them sidekicks any more." He shrugged. "Anyway, she works alone most of the time. She actually teams up with Kirk more than me."

Dick raised an eyebrow. "Batgirl and Man-Bat? That's just weird."

"I know, right?"

Dick looked out across the darkening city for a moment, then returned his gaze to Terry. "And what," he asked with dry, overdone formality, "do you suggest I do about this -" (rapping on the hard plastic casing of the cybernetic leg inside his right pants leg) " - in your grand franchising scheme, Terrance?"

"Well, Richard," Terry replied with equal formality, "I would suggest you go to our mutual close personal friend the Chief of the IPO and say," (and here he adopted an attitude of earnest schoolboy pleading) "'Please, Mr. Gryphon sir, I would like my leg back. Can you arrange that with the vast mad science resources at your command? I've been saving the money from my paper route ALL YEAR.'"

Dick eyed him. "Isn't that kind of cheating?"

Terry snorted. "Please. It's not like I suggested you ask him for that spare MJOLNIR Mk X combat body I know he's got stashed somewhere. Hell, Dick, it's the 25th century. They do limb regens in shopping malls nowadays. It's just that Gryph would do it for free if you asked nicely." He grinned. "Or you could go find another Laz - "

"NO," said Dick forcefully.

Unperturbed, Terry plowed remorselessly on, making the thumb-and-pinky "telephone" gesture next to his head with one hand and saying, "'Ra's? Dick Grayson. Listen, I got a little problem, hopin' you can help me out with it.' Even odds that would work for you. You can talk anybody into anything."

Dick sighed resignedly. "And I'm getting the idea now that this is what it feels like."

"And so the student has become the master," said Terry with a martial-arts bow. "Be careful if you do that, though. I mean, you go to al-Ghûl country, next thing you know Talia's getting ideas and the next generation of assassins has the Grayson eyes."

Dick facepalmed. "Jesus, don't even joke." He glanced at his wrist, not because he wanted to know what time it was, but because the comm unit in his watch had just vibrated for his attention. "Grayson."

"We have a 334 in progress at the ProtiGen Center," the voice of the NAPD evening dispatcher announced. "The Titans are handling, but we'll need CID down there when the punching stops."

Grayson chuckled. "OK, Rhonda, I'm on my way. Grayson out." He switched off the comm and turned back to Terry. "There are times," he admitted, "when I do miss the lack of procedure. It's been a long time, though. I don't know for sure that I've still got what it takes."

Terry grinned as the two men made for the door to the stairs. "Yeah, you do. Look, just think about it, yeah? You don't have to decide right now. It's just an idea I've been kicking around since Steph joined up - we've had people in both towns for years anyway, why not go all the way?"

Dick pondered in silence all the way to the street. Not until he was about to climb into his car did he pause, hand on window frame, and address Terry across the roof:

"OK, look... I'll talk to Gryph about the leg, and then... we'll see what happens. No promises. It's too early for that."

Terry nodded. "Fair enough." He reached across the roof and shook Dick's hand. "You know where to reach me."

"That I do. Oh - and Terry?"

"Yeah?"

Dick swung behind the wheel, ran down the passenger window, and leaned across the center console to remark with a grin, "If Barbara kills me for this, it's on you."

Terry laughed. "No worries, man. Time I'm done, I'll have her back in the saddle too." Terry thumped the car's roof as Grayson pulled away from the curb, then called after the departing car, "Good hunting, Inspector!"

Then, whistling a cheery little tune, he walked away and vanished into the gathering evening.

"Contract Negotiation" - a Future Imperfect mini-story by Benjamin D. Hutchins with Chris Pinard
title by Geoff Depew
special to the Eyrie Productions Discussion Forum
© 2012 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited