He feels an open summons and lets it grab him -
Somewhere very, very far away, someone is decorating the interior of an empty warehouse. The people he plans on inviting here should feel right at home, when he's done. In the meantime, there's a pile of Halloween decorations against one wall awaiting repurposing, and he has a box of black and red permanent markers and is drawing a spooky circle on the floor, with mirror-written fake Latin about demons scrawled sinuously inside it. (No one's going to be looking too closely, or reading too well in the lighting he plans to provide. It doesn't have to be perfect.)
He has just finished the last scribbled curve to close the circle.
Won't he be surprised.
"...Stuff stuff. The stuff is just stuff, it still has to run on physics, but I can cheat on some details, especially if there's an extant version of the thing, and if it's two thousand and twelve I know a lot of science fiction gadgets relative to what you probably have."
"All right," he says. "So how about I tell you my problem and you decide if you feel like helping. The deal is, last week this clod calling himself Bane caved in a football field in the middle of a game and announced on live TV that he's taking over Gotham, on the authority of this big menacing round thing next to him." He gestures to approximate the size of the thing in question. It's pretty big. "Walks a guy onto the field with him, guy says he's a physicist, guy says the big menacing round thing's a nuclear bomb, guy says he's the only person in the world who knows how to disarm it, Bane kills the guy. And the next day he broke a buncha people out of prison and gave them all guns, but that I can handle, it's the nuke that's a little out of my league."
"...Okay, this is hard, and you really would have been better off with an angel, but I can probably do something. You know where it is? Is it on a hair trigger or a timer that would not allow me to throw it into the sun if I picked it up and made a little space shuttle and zoomed into the sky?"
"Okay. I could try to muffle it in something, if it's too dangerous to try making off with it, but I'd still have to know where it is. And I'd need to re-read some of my physics notes to have a good guess as to what you wrap up a nuke in, but fortunately," he conjures up a little stick of a computer that projects a large screen of information for him, "I can do that."
"Thanks, made it myself. I think I can cram them under a coat if I tailor-make it, which, what else would I do -" He folds up the wings nice and tight, and then he is wearing a long black leather coat which is sort of lumpy in back and over his shoulders. "Do I look street-legal?"
"The Joker, of course." He smiles. "Sorry, sorry. It's a long story and kinda hard to summarize. You could say I'm an entertainer. You could also say I'm a retired terrorist. Although I haven't quiiite got around to announcing my resignation. Somebody's been hogging all the media time."
"Killed some people, blew up a building or two. Nothing too exciting. Although Johnny might have a different take on it." Out of the warehouse they go, and into a nondescript little car parked in the loading bay; he's still talking as he opens the door and gets in. "Those law and order types can be funny that way."
He shrugs.
"And then she threw me off a building and caught me on the way down. It's never gonna work out between us, what can I say."
"I'm not trying to scare you. No comment on whether or not I could. Maybe if I got to know you better. No, but I mean - clowns are this thing that's supposed to be fun and lighthearted, but people find 'em creepy all over the place. The jokers are the wild cards, not really in the deck and not really out of it either. I wear an expensive suit, but it's purple and scruffy and the vest clashes with the jacket. There's a whole aesthetic to it, see?"
"We-ell, that's a story. See, I stole some money from the mob, and through some crazy hijinks, that led 'em to hire me to find somebody else who took the rest of their money. Which I did, and then there I was with the thief - what he actually did was more complicated, but for simplicity's sake, call him a thief - on top of a great big pile of cash, and I lit the whole thing up in front of one'a the guys who hired me. Of course," he grins, "I was only burning my half. It's a joke, see? Make 'em think I'm in it for the money, and then burn that theory to the ground."
"You're such a charmer," he says, half-giggling every word. "C'mon, we're almost at my place, if you wanna give me cake you can do it there." And he resumes progress toward the back of the garage's top level, where he parks.
"Getting them in the first place wasn't exactly unpleasant," he says serenely. "Fixing 'em up would probably be just as much fun. But I like 'em, anyway, and I get by okay like this. I'll ask you for it if it seems like a really good idea for some reason, but I'm nnnot jumping at the chance."
It's clean, but cluttered - playing cards litter the floor, although most of them have been swept under furniture, and there are piles of assorted sharp objects on two of the three small tables in the living room. (The third doesn't have room for anything other than one ancient-looking TV.) There are mysterious stains, scratches, and scorch marks around the front door. The kitchen, adjoining the living room and separated only by a long counter island, is by contrast completely immaculate.
"I'm not a fashion model - although I am flattered - I'm a demon, and he summoned me, by some combination of dumb luck and freak accident," says Cam. Then, realizing belatedly that it's 2012 and he's still wearing his new leather coat, he shrugs the coat off and unfurls his wings a little.
"I'm re-reading my old physics notes to find what you might want your nuke wrapped up in, since it may be that I do not have time to put it in a small spaceship and haul it into space. I already made you a - call it a Geiger counter. It picked up some things." He tosses the Geiger counter to John. He resumes re-reading his physics notes with one hand while he handles his churro with the other.
"The major question is how to get close to it once we know where it is - since I bet there's somebody by it, possibly somebody with an 'on' button. Also, it is looking rather difficult to contain nuclear explosions even with 2159 tech. You really would be better off with an angel for this job, although they'd still have to get close to the thing. It's possible you should just summon an angel, I can teach you how."
Cam finishes his churro and conjures a clipboard with a piece of paper clipped to it, and a pencil. "I'm not positive it'll work. I don't know why I'm here. Maybe whatever glitch let me land in the wrong universe doesn't apply to angels, or to anybody but the first summon, or something, I couldn't possibly tell you. But if it works like it should -" He sketches a angel-summoning circle. "You draw this on the floor, any medium works, I've seen everything from blood to suntan lotion to watercolor, and then you get an angel. Since this circle is not incompetent, the angel stays put in the circle until you have agreed on a task for the angel to do and what the angel gets out of it. Then they can leave exclusively to complete the task and collect their payment. You can get rid of the angel by concentrating on meaning to do that for a minute or so at any time before they finish their task or after they've got what they agreed to take as payment, but not when they've held up their end of the bargain and you haven't. Some people like to pay in advance for that reason. Daeva of any kind can't go home on our own recognizance once summoned unless we kill our summoners but angels are sort of culturally unlikely to do that. Not that that's a guarantee. If you can't agree on anything with the first randomly chosen angel you get, you dismiss them by concentrating on meaning to do that for a minute or so and you have to draw a new circle, old one's used up. I'd recommend a specific angel but I don't know any who are noticeably better than average and all my knowing's way out of date anyway."
"My name is Tony. Nice to meet you," she says with an attempt at withering sarcasm that lacks the requisite edge. "I don't know, what even is there to trade me in 20 fucking 12? I mean, that's not saying I won't do it, it's defusing a nuclear bomb in a city, I'd do it for a paperclip, it's just I'm really into techie stuff and all the things I'd usually ask for are going to be hopelessly out of date and compatible with nothing."
"...yes you can," she says, eyes lighting with a speculative look. "Okay. Have your demon buddy make me... how complicated are you willing to get, here? 'Snazzy new computer off the top of your head' is fine, but 'I left some blueprints at home, can you get those and then make me a few things' is better. You could save me so much work."
"That is a pretty snazzy leather coat," Tony agrees, stepping out of the circle. "I can poof your wings for you if you want, but I guess you might still have a gruesome time of it putting them back on later if I wasn't around, how does that even work? Also, poof." She sweeps one wing in front of her and transforms it into a fluffy cloudlike material, which detaches from her back without trouble. Then she rolls that up into a big ball, rather like poofy glowing clay, and puts it down on the couch next to Cam, and commences doing the same with the other wing.
"Sure, no problem!" She puts the second ball of fluff down on top of the first one and reaches for the nearest of Cam's wings, which - "poof!" - becomes a glowy white wing-shaped cloud which she proceeds to roll up into a third ball. "You have a tail, that's adorable."
"It was originally some kind of clean power initiative. A man calling himself Bane stole it and got someone to turn it into a bomb for him, and now he's declared anarchy in Gotham. The bomb is supposedly in a guarded truck somewhere, being moved around the city to make it harder to find. I can verify that there are guarded trucks going around, but I don't know which ones are decoys or if they're all decoys and the bomb is actually somewhere else."
"Okay..." says Tony, circling it to make her inspection. "Yeah, this is doable. You know what would fit perfectly in this? A first-generation Estelle Apsis. The interior even almost matches; the upholstery came in this shade of grey. Just take all the guts of the Apsis and tuck it in this chassis with these hubcaps."
He doesn't even have to tell the Joker to put on his seatbelt. Cam, on the other hand...
They turn a corner, and there's a truck up ahead.
"I'm gonna guess that's our target," mutters John.
There are a pair of odd-looking beige tanks escorting it - but at the moment, both are in front of the truck, out of the group's way.
"Cam, if I take the doors off the back of the truck can you put them back on just how they were when I'm done messing with what's inside? If we do it fast enough, they might not even notice we did anything. And then we can dowse some more, see if they've got another one."
As soon as they're within what she judges to be a comfortable distance, the rear doors of the truck dissolve into air.
There is a large menacing round object inside.
Then there is a large and not particularly menacing cloud of glowing fwuff, and then there is a large menacing round object again.
"Okay, put the doors back," she says. "No more working parts in that thing - it's solid titanium all the way through."
"Tony has completed her task and is now authorized to shake John down for goodies," Cam mentions. "And can't do a whole lot outside the scope of said shakedown. Probably you want to stop the car and I should make her whatever she wants and you should send her home and you can call her back in later if you want."
"I show up in the circle and all I get to say is 'yes, summoner' or 'no, summoner'," Cam expands, "depending on if I like the deal they propose or not. They are concerned I will tempt them out of their souls if I get to say anything else. Tony could probably answer summons every week for a century and never get gagged once."
Cam smiles a little. "I don't think this should be common knowledge among summoners. Because the situation where it comes up, practically speaking, is one where you have a summoner who's that desperate and a demon who's that much of an asshole. I would rather those two find something meaningless to trade than have common knowledge of its meaninglessness and have to move onto something with effects."
"If you are subject to the same rules of afterliving, which would surprise me because no one has landed thinking it was 2012 since 2012, you are now much better off. Limbo is terribly disappointing. But yeah, I probably should have warned you. I didn't know about it last time I was teaching somebody to summon."
"I like blue, and I can probably pull off a color change with careful bleach and repigmentation anyway, and I'll get funny looks if I show up with non-bat wings and if I change the shape much I'll have to re-learn how to fly, so it's probably gonna be the same. Why, what are you going to do next, pink polka-dots?"
She proceeds to outline a list of things, all of which exist back home in the form of detailed blueprints but have not yet been given physical form. Apart from what she refers to as her new wings, it's all infrastructure - the facilities to make facilities to make things with. It's very complicated, and her blueprints are very exact.
It's not just wings; it's an entire suit of metal armour, fitted with complicated mechanisms that let it disassemble and reassemble itself and accomplish all manner of other fascinating tricks, powered by a small cold fusion reactor, with the wings attached to the back as an exquisitely animated assemblage of sleek metal feathers that incorporate the same lift technology found in the palms of the gauntlets and the soles of the boots. In its unpainted state, it gleams a pale gold not unlike the wings she was wearing when she arrived. Tony scrambles into the thing as soon as it's finished, pops open the faceplate, and beams some more.
"Am I cool or am I cool?"
"I won't even start having mixed feelings about it till the next time we get a Limbo concordance, because I don't wanna miss a letter from my parents, or a chance to give them one, but if you just sort of leave me running around off-leash I will do things and if there are any you'd take offense to and send me home for I'd rather know in advance."
"Fine. Okay. So our friend here," he gestures at the Joker, "has some kind of philosophical objection to promises. As far as I can tell, he just doesn't make them, and if he does, he's probably lying about something. Or kidding, for his very special definition of kidding. But if he goes as far as to actually say 'no promises', that means he would be promising something, if it wasn't against his quirky cynical self-obsessed religion. It's sort of the closest you're gonna get."
"Awww, Google. Phone books! Trouble is, I can make stuff, but 'data and phone service on a preexisting network' is not 'stuff', so in case it's inconvenient to acquire same - you don't still have pay phones now, I think, and if you do they're definitely gonna be gone in eight years - can I get an address?"