Knights or Justice?

Prologue: "The Worth of a Word"

by AstroCitizen

"Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you."

–Dwight D. Eisenhower

A suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

United States of America

A quiet Sunday morning, one week before Operation Wild Hunt

Mother said, "Every little thing matters."

Tham always wondered if, as a second-generation Korean-American, that was one of the old ways she wanted him to continue, or simply a bit of good advice. Either way, these words to live by zipped through his mind when he'd turned around and the customer who'd called to him gave him a rather curious look on sight.

Is it that obvious? he wondered, trying hard not to look down. He was certain if he followed her gaze, he'd see where despite his diligent scrubbing there was still a trace stain on his apron from splattering his breakfast frappe on himself that morning.

Worn over Tham's functional button-up shirt was an official apron of the Word's Worth book emporium chain. Like all the rest it was an inventively-designed number made of a maroon-dyed cloth stitched in a pattern meant to evoke old leather book covers. This included a set of interlocking stripes along the side which formed the "spine" where employees' names were clearly embroidered along with the store logo in a kind of golden-yellow thread. As opposed to plain old "Hi, My Name is…" tags like everybody else does, Tham thought, for once wishing for the latter. A nametag I could have just moved and covered the stain up a bit more.

"Excuse me," the young woman repeated herself, now composed again. "I need a map of the city, and would like something that gives me a bit of everything: Cuisine, the sights, hospitals, government, and so on."

Saying so, she gestured to the wall behind Tham, its shelves teeming with books about Philadelphia, mainly historical but also with guidebooks for tourists and biographies of its more famous sons and daughters. It shared display space with a multitude of folded maps of varying purposes and name brands. Having restocked it more than once, he picked out a handful that he considered a smart visitor's best choices and, explaining the pros and cons of each, handed them to her one at a time.

As she flipped through them, glancing at the contents of each in turn, Tham took in the young lady. She was in her mid-twenties at most with a kewpie doll-like face, accentuated by huge blue eyes. Her blond hair was worn waist-length in the back with a bowl-like set of bangs that practically came down over her eyebrows. Her clothes – a green-yellow blouse, white slacks, shoes with low heels – were elegant but not flashy, nor did they have a particular brand name visible. The same went for the tiny purse hanging by her hip. A looker, but done up in a nondescript way that she would not be terribly memorable to anyone who saw her.

Making her selection, the young lady returned the other maps to Tham before asking what the store had in the way of books on warfare. As he led her over to the relevant section, he made a tiny bit of small talk as a preamble to the formality currently demanded by corporate.

"Are you from out of town, ma'am?" This was met with a tiny wry chuckle.

"Yes, very much so," she responded pleasantly. "I want to learn a bit of everything before I leave," she added, holding up her maps in way of explanation.

Tham decided to forego asking if she was in town for business or pleasure; it was an intrusive question and frankly he always thought it sounded rather tawdry. Thinking he'd left the small talk hanging, he decided to tie it up by saying, "In that case, welcome to the Birthplace of America… and cheesesteaks."

Total silence came from behind him. Oh, shit, he thought, coming up short. He'd been warned about using this by his friends, either because it sounded lame or how easily it could provoke a moronic argument over Geno's and Pat's. Nothing had dissuaded him until just now, however, as he imagined himself being reamed out for acting the fool around customers.

Turning around, he then realized she probably hadn't even heard him. He'd taken a shortcut through the manga section, which she'd stopped in the middle of, blinking in a slightly amazed manner. She plucked one paperback off the shelves and allowed the pages to zip past her eyes as she trailed her thumb against the ends of the pages. Looking back up at him, she said with a hint of curiosity, "They're in… English."

"Yes, ma'am. They all are," he said, trying to sound professional again. "The companies that license to print them here translate them. Also, they usually flip them over so the pages don't read right to left." After a beat, he added that the store did have a foreign language section, but they were mostly famous old works from Europe.

She simply nodded in understanding, an unreadable expression on her face as she plopped the book, a volume of Giant Mars Warrior Jade, back on the shelf before she started walking after him again.

As they continued on, she suddenly asked him if he'd said something to her beforehand. Guardedly, he responded that he had just welcomed her to Philadelphia while using one of its nicknames, "The Birthplace of America."

"Uh-huh," was all that she said at that.

Once in the military section, he showed where the books were divided into historical reference – the American Revolution being prominent, of course – and technical material. While she gave one of the more well-displayed books of the former an appraising look, the young lady was more interested in the latter, quickly crouching on the floor as she built a small pile of books on either side of her. One column of books was of the technology, paraphernalia, and vehicles used – firearms, comm. systems, tanks, and fighter jets – while the other was on the various arms of the military, their charters, tactics, and their training methods.

Or a very vague warning of what awaits you in boot camp, depending on how you look at it, Tham thought warily as he looked back at the afore-mentioned historical book, its dust jacket adorned with the ubiquitous portrait of the Founding Fathers. Sorry, George. I love this country, they took my parents in when most every other place would have sent them to a ghetto or back home. But if they bring back the draft – his mind drifted momentarily to a day when absent parents and an unblocked cable channel had shown him Full Metal Jacket in all its blood and curse-word encrusted glory at the tender age of eight – I'm gonna take an ice-pick to one of my eardrums and become an the air raid warden!

With a slight shiver, he returned his attention to the blond woman, who was now standing up again, snapping her fingers on alternating hands in thought as she looked at the shelves before her. Her expression was the same as his dad while trying to choose between his ego and asking for directions. "O-kay," she finally said, making a choice. "Last question: Where are your books on Knightmares?"

"Oh, those are right over there in the psychology section," he responded happily, pointing to a shelf two rows back directly behind her, a big sign reading "Dream Analysis" sitting plainly on top.

The young woman saw it easily, but then started glancing back and forth between it and him. "'Psychology'? For Knightmares?" she finally asked, saying the first word as if for the very first time.

"Or-rr-rr…" Tham said, stretching the word out, his mind racing as to what she wanted, "the psychiatry section, if you prefer."

Her expression was still blank, but with a hint of confusion and borderline suspicion there. Suddenly, that changed as a light bulb went off in her head, suddenly becoming happy, albeit with a hint of the mischievous. "Ah, I see now. Psychology… nightmares. Got it." Crouching back down to her stacks of books, organizing them in some order of priority he couldn't discern, she thanked him perfunctorily, tagging on that she wouldn't need him anymore.

After "you're welcome"-ing her, Tham turned and walked away, slightly put off by that last bit of weirdness. He also had the mild feeling he'd forgotten something, then chucked it up to the customer having a blond moment – or maybe blondes call it having a brunette moment, he chuckled mentally – as he walked back the way he came.

This of course took him through the manga section again, where he saw the Mars Warrior book had been laid atop the other paperbacks rather than slid back in place. He tsked at that, such behavior being a pet peeve of his since he started at Word's Worth. As he reached for it, he also remembered her thumbing through it and worried that she may also have bent up the paper…

"The paper"? Newspapers! Oh, crud!

He suddenly remembered what he'd meant to ask her earlier and turned on his heel. Speed-walking back to the military section, he began to call out. "Ma'am?! Hello! Sorry, but it's me again!"

As he turned the corner, the woman shot up to her feet, an alarmed look on her face as her hand shoved something back into her purse. He couldn't quite see what it was in time but it was definitely some small plastic device. Oh, Lord. Please don't tell me after all that, she was just going to take pictures with her iWhatsit, he thought annoyed.

He then saw where none of the books she'd pulled out had been opened, and were still being organized in some way evidently. Also, the maps she'd selected were sitting on the edge of a shelf. Between this and that what he'd seen in her hand was definitely plastic assured him that whatever she was doing, at least she hadn't been shoplifting.

Screw it, he decided. Just do what you came over to do and leave it alone. You need to finish up the restocking.

"Sorry to intrude, ma'am, but I forgot to mention: USA Today is offering a discounted subscription through Word's Worth until the end of May. We have free sample editions stacked up by the cash registers and the information counters if you'd like to sample one." This all came out in a more-or-less professional tumble of words, Tham wanting to get this over and done with.

Slightly embarrassed as he was with himself, he pretty much missed the look of intensity on the young woman's face, her body language shifting to fight-or-flight mode. She paused for a moment as her mind integrated what he'd said and composed a response, her heart rate slowing back to normal.

"USA Today… the newspaper. Yes, I actually saw those on the way in," she said with a certain hint to her voice he couldn't identify. "No thank you," she added with relieved finality.

With a friendly but noncommittal nod of his head, Tham finally returned to dealing with the maps then headed into the stockroom, where he had the day's shipment of magazines and newspapers to deal with. As he did so, he looked around and thought that he or, preferably, someone else had made a mistake. Seeing his boss, he waved at her.

"Sorry, Bernice," he said as she came over, the bespectacled woman not much older than himself having made it a morale-boosting rule to keep things informal as long as customers were out of sight. "I can't find the new USA Today. The extras for the promotional deal, that is," he explained.

"There's not going to be any, Tham. What's there is there until they're either all taken or the promotion runs out."

"Uh, the ones out there now are nearly a week old. Won't it be hard to push the deal when we're giving out-of-date copies?"

Bernice let out an annoyed breath, but he could tell it wasn't directed at him. "The home office won't throw away money on extra copies every day. Another reason we should really be offering two-day gift certificates for their web site, anyway." The last bit came out sotto voce as she repeated an idea she'd actually written to the branch office months ago with little to no response.

It was too bad, Tham thought as he carried the available newspapers to their assigned spot on the magazine racks. The front page story of the free samples was about the continued recovery in Japan following the earthquake, including contributions by the super-aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ronald Reagan as a temporary power plant and depot for medical supplies. It was an important story, sure, but in his opinion it was headlines like on today's edition that would have hooked readers:

"BELLE REVE WARDEN ARRESTED IN CORRUPTION SCANDAL"

Belle Reve, the notorious maximum security penitentiary retrofitted to house convicts with super-powers and other abnormal abilities, had apparently been turned into a front for its occupants rather than their jail. Dr. Hugo Strange, the staff psychiatrist-turned-warden, stood accused of establishing a revolving door in the prison's system, giving the convicts the perfect excuse of being safely incarcerated while crimes were committed with their M.O.'s. The doctor's motives were in question, seeing as there was little indication of him receiving a cut of their profits, but still his actions were plain to see.

The article went on to talk about a major shake-up in the future for the prison's administration, along with faint speculation of the previous warden, an iron guts ex-lobbyist named Waller, returning to the job. Sparse mention was made of involvement by the Justice League in the investigation, most of the credit instead going to an F.B.I. branch office. The inference was still there though, saying suspicion of the warden ran as far back as last November, following the artificial blizzards that hammered the country along with the attempted assassination of a foreign dignitary.

Not much compared to the excitement last year, like those giant plant attacks, Tham thought. But it's been kind of quiet the last few months, plus Kate and William have been getting most of the attention lately.

As he continued skimming through the story, the image of the customer he'd dealt with a few minutes before receded further and further, becoming a vague memory of a blonde tourist in a green top.

Indeed, a few weeks later, Tham couldn't be able to recall her at all, and certainly not in connection with what had happened in the meantime. Not that he would have time to do so, busy as he was with blood drives, helping to distribute food and blankets, and occasionally helping to dig through rubble for what scant survivors were still trapped. Although, if he'd noticed the short flash of light that came from behind the shelves in the military section after he'd left, he probably would have.

Disclaimer: Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion is the property of Sunrise and Bandai Entertainment. Young Justice is the property of DC Comics, Inc. and AOL-Time-Warner.