(4) Sinless Days: Settling In And Sneaking Out

--- Bell ---

She wanted to apologize for snapping at Scarlet the previous day, but she was finding it difficult to do so given how rarely the two of them fought. A side effect of growing up in a lab with only each other to rely on.

This lack of knowing what to say is what led her to simply going with the flow as Mercer helped them set up their room. (Which I didn’t know we had to do given how we already have beds?)

But apparently this wasn’t enough for Mercer who after dealing with some nervous guy wearing glasses had begun lugging in all sorts of furniture from a large truck outside. Something Scarlet was eager to help with, while Mercer left her in charge of putting together the furniture that hadn’t been assembled upon arrival. (Why get something you have to put together? Isn’t furniture supposed to be already built when you buy it?)

(We could help…) Her other-selves offered .

Part of her wanted to dismiss them out of hand, but after snapping at Scarlet the other day she was tempted to give them a chance if only for her sister’s sake. Unfortunately, since she still wasn’t sure how far she could trust them she decided it was best to keep them on a short leash for now even if she was willing to hear the voices out. (For now…)

Which is why she continued to work by herself to try and decipher the instructions that had come in the box -(thankfully with pictures)- in an attempt to use a screwdriver to assemble the bookcase Mercer had gotten her for all of the books he’d also gotten her.

“How’s it coming?” Mercer asked as he dropped a pair of bags full of new blankets -one red, and one blue- on Scarlet’s and her beds respectively.

“I’m uh, I think I’m halfway there…” She answered looking from the page to the shelf and realizing that something looked wrong.

(You… put the middle board on… upside down…) Her other-selves helpfully informed her.

“Oh…”

“Don’t worry it’s an easy fix.” Mercer assured her as he picked up the screwdriver, removed the board, and pieced it back together correctly all in the time it took her to get a single screw in and without looking at the instructions.

“Eh., don’t be discouraged.” Mercer told her upon seeing her face. “Once you learn how to break down and reassemble a gun made by an eldritch horror that thinks the impossible shapes are valid blueprints everything else becomes easy.”

She couldn’t help but frown at several parts of that statement.

(Don’t ask…) Her other-selves warned her, their echoing tone just down enough to tell her she really didn’t want to know.

Unaware of this Mercer smiled as he handed back the screwdriver. “Still you’re doing alright for your first time, keep at it and the rest will be as easy as it apparently is for Scarlet to lift a couch by herself.”

--- Scarlet ---

The sun had begun to set by the time they’d finished bringing in all of the furniture Mercer had gotten them and set most of it up.

Stolen story; please report.

Once they were done her and Scarlet had a room with two beds, two desks, and two bookshelves as well as freshly cleaned carpet that Mercer had gone over three times with some kind of wet vacuum, each time dumping what seemed to be mud from the machine into a sewer drain on the street.

The desks and bookshelves were both made of a black wood, and while she couldn’t think of any reason why she’d need them, Bell seemed to appreciate them as she unloaded a bunch of books Mercer had given her onto them.

On either side of the room were their beds both with big blankets fluffier than any should could remember, and differentiated by a red blanket for her and a blue blanket for Bell. All of which was a distinct difference from the cold gray tiles and metal of their old lab cells. Something she hadn’t fully appreciated until she put her feet on the soft carpet for the first time, and found that she didn’t mind walking around barefoot on them.

(Everything is just so soft and warm here!)

She couldn’t help but grin as she fell on her bed, increasingly glad she’d given Mercer a chance when he’d offered to help her.

Rolling over she found Bell running some little device over a book’s pages, causing it to read out a story to her or something. Which was cool of Mercer to get Bell but (is a little too… still for me.)

She’d gotten enough stillness from staring at unmoving metal walls for the last decade.

“Hey, girls I’ve got something to show you two.” Mercer told them from the doorway.

She gave Bell a look since even if she ignored them her other-selves tended to know what was going on more of the time than either of them, but her sister merely shrugged.(Meaning if they know they’re not telling.)

Getting up they both followed Mercer down to the living room where a new couch sat in front of a TV notably larger than the one that had been in Betty’s clinic.

“Alright, so let’s see… the account should be…” Mercer messed around with the remote for a moment before the screen filled with a number of colorful pictures. “And there you go.”

“Uh, what’s this?” She asked as Mercer tossed her the remote.

“Figured if you two get bored the TV is now set up with an account for you two.” Mercer explained. “This way you two have got something to do while I’m dealing with… work stuff.”

“That’s nice?” She told him a little unsurely, since while the TV at Betty’s clinic had been something to do, the shows on it hadn’t been all that interesting.

She accidentally clicked something on the remote and one of the pictures began to move as in a night filled city someone began to draw a circle in chalk.

“Oh, eh, you’re the right age for fullmetal and besides you’ve probably seen worse.”

--- Mercer ---

With the girls hopefully suitably distracted for the evening by the TV as they binged anime, he went ahead and snuck out via the roof to deal with one of the few tasks on his plate he absolutely did not want either of them following him on.

Namely, breaking into the police station.

On its own this wasn’t a particularly hard task for him, but if he had to take either of the girls with him it was liable to end poorly with the way he wanted to handle things this evening.

The police station itself was located on what most people considered the southernmost edge of Sinner’s Way. A relic from back when the district was still known as Saint’s Way and the city was trying to build a new residential district surrounded by economic centers of growth all with a brand new police station to keep everything nice and orderly.

Unfortunately, like with the rest of the Way rather than its intended goal as a beacon of law and order, the station of the way instead became a beacon of lawlessness and corruption. Which while not necessarily unique given how many of the cops in the city were corrupt, was a significantly worse problem in a station where the cops were closer to hired thugs for whoever footed their bill.

He was pretty sure the only reason the hellhole hadn’t been shut down, was that the city government liked to pretend it was hard on crime and that the Vigils weren’t the only thing keeping the city from becoming a government authorized gangland. (Of course hard on crime just means for profit in this city.)

Once more he contemplated whether the city’s legal system was effective enough to justify not burning the whole thing to the ground, before shaking his head. (No, better to manipulate and play the system. After all, whatever rises from the ashes will be twice as dirty and twice as vicious as the original.)

He was proof of that.

“Right, time to get to work.” He told himself, as he gave the station another once over before deciding that it was best to [X]- remind them he was watching and could always get them.