Chapter Nineteen - Mobile Base

The tunnel went on seemingly forever, swallowing every bit of light they had and leaving the distance as nothing but shifting shadows, even through Emily’s temporarily enhanced senses.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Emily said as she stared ahead.

“Well, we’re already down here,” Sam said. “And it’s not like we can get lost. No intersections, just a straight path down, you know?”

The passage was relatively clear. There were a few wrappers left next to the edges, and a coating of dust covered everything, but for the most part, there was little to see in the tunnels as they walked on and on.

In reality, Emily knew that they hadn’t moved far. For all their bravado, none of her sisters were moving at more than a shuffle, and she could see how tense they were. Which was about half as tense as she was.

She kept expecting some city inspector to show up and give them an earful. Or worse, a cop.

“There’s something ahead,” Athena said.

“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Teddy replied. She was putting up a brave front, but she also bumped into Emily’s side at every step because of how close she was staying. Emily let her hand fall down and Teddy instantly grabbed onto it for reassurance.

Athena turned out to be right. The large form of a train car appeared ahead of them.

“That’s a weird train,” Sam said as she brought her phone up in one hand.

The caboose wasn’t what Emily expected from a subway car. It was a bit lower, and made of what looked like riveted steel sheets with a door in its middle and steps leading down to almost ground height. There was a single round window, no bigger than her forearm, and covered by a curtain within.

“Trinity, want to go around the edges?” Emily whispered.

“Got it,” Trinity echoed herself before she ran to either side of the train car. It didn’t take long for her to report. “There’s just three of them. And the one at the front’s weird.”

Emily frowned, then walked over to the right so that she could see herself. Trinity wasn’t wrong. The entire train was three sections long, with the front-most clearly some sort of engine. “Maybe it’s a maintenance train?” she asked. The people working on the station needed a way to get around too. She imagined it made sense that they would have their own little train for that.

“Maybe,” Sam said. She grabbed one of the railings at the rear and pulled herself up to the back door. It clunked open at her prying. “Not locked,” she said.

Emily and her sisters lined up behind Sam, one part curious, one part wanting to seek shelter within the tighter confines of the trains.

She was expecting something like a mobile workstation, maybe an empty car, or one filled with cargo. Instead... “This is a living space,” Emily said as she inspected the car from over Sam’s shoulder.

Athena reached out and flicked a switch against one wall and everyone tensed for a moment as lights along the car’s ceiling came on.

The car was long and narrow, with a corridor down its middle. The entire thing was split in half, with rooms on one end that had bunk beds, and then a wide section at the other end that had a TV, a small kitchen space with a camp stove and microwave, and even a little desk to work at.

“Huh,” Sam said. “Like a bigger RV.”

“A what?” Trinity asked.

“An RV? Uh, a recreational vehicle? People use them to travel around and camp. It’s like a bus you can live in. This looks like that, but bigger. The decor is a bit seventies, but it looks clean, at least.”

Emily nodded along. The car was obviously not something new, but it had been well maintained, she suspected. No visible rust, not too much dust, no detritus or things tossed aside.

Teddy let go of her hand and moved into the kitchen area where she opened some of the cupboards. “Hey, canned stuff.”

Emily followed her and took a can off a shelf. It was still well before its expiration date. “This can’t have been stocked before the metro closed,” Emily said.

“Maybe the city is still maintaining things?” Sam asked.

It was possible, but Emily felt like something was off. She expected a place that workers frequently used to be a bit messier, more worn out. “Let’s look at the next car,” she said.

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The cars were connected via a set of doors lined through a grate catwalk. The next door wasn’t locked either, and it led into a vastly different room.

Black floors and white walls; cubicles along one side, and a large table in the centre surrounded by high back chairs. One chair, at the far end of the room, was taller than the rest by a good twenty centimetres.

“Oh,” Teddy said as she looked around. “This is a lair.”

“Um,” Emily said.

“Yeah,” Sam said as she followed. “This is totally a villain lair.”

The room had a divider at the far end that hid the door into the next section. Other than the few cubicles near the entrance, there wasn’t much in the room itself. Athena found another light switch, then a switch that lowered a projector and screen from the ceiling along one wall.

There was some hardware left in the cubicles. Internet routers and the like, but the sort that looked rather expensive. And, of course, there was a whiteboard on one wall with a map of the metro, covered in tiny notations.

“I guess this was Cement’s base,” Emily said as she took it all in.

Sam poked her head around from around the dividing wall at the far end. “A mobile base. There’s a big engine in the next car and the controls for it too. I think it’s a diesel engine?”

“So this whole thing can move?” Teddy asked.

“That’s what mobile means,” Athena said. “Which you’d know if you were.”

“Athena, apologise,” Emily said.

Athena pouted and crossed her arms. “Sorry Teddy,” she muttered.

“I don’t even know how that was an insult,” Teddy said.

Emily could tell that Athena was visibly biting her tongue from flinging another insult at Teddy. Fortunately, she stayed quiet.

Crossing the room slowly, Emily inspected the simple but elegant decor while running a hand over the surface of the table. There was more dust, though it was faint. She reached the throne-like chair, then hesitated.

“Oh, the boss is gonna sit,” Trinity said.

Suddenly there was a rush as the girls found seats around the table. Teddy to the right, Athena to the left, Trinity squeezing all three of her bodies next to Teddy.

Her sisters watched her as she carefully slid the big chair back, then stepped into its place and pulled it up behind her.

She watched her sisters, who were all grinning ear-to-ear.

Somehow, it felt right.

“Having fun?” Sam asked.

Emily ‘eeped’ and jumped on the spot. She was entirely spooked out of her daydream.

“Hey, minions sit at the boring end of the table,” Teddy said.

“Yeah,” Athena agreed. “Or you can stand at the far end and cross your arms to look intimidating. But no bothering the Boss when she’s in her villain throne.”

“It’s not a villain's throne,” Emily said.

Teddy reached over and patted her hand. “It can be a supervillain throne if you want.”

“I, uh, really don’t.”

Sam pulled out one of the seats near the far end of the table, then leaned back and set her boots onto the surface. “So, what are we going to do with this place?”

“Can we do anything with it?” Emily asked.

“Yeah, we should take it over,” Teddy said.

The other sisters nodded unanimously. “Teddy’s right,” Athena said. “Plus, look at the map on the whiteboard. There’s some routes that bring this place close to the school. If that Cement guy was worth anything, then there has to be a secret entrance near there.”

“Oh yeah, secret tunnels under the city,” Sam said. “That’s kind of awesome.”

“We really don’t need all of this,” Emily said.

“We could leave the last car behind and use it as a cool place to hang out,” Teddy said.

“We could use the tunnels to pop out from all over and take stuff from the streets before those no-good good guy trash trucks take it,” Trinity said.

Emily rubbed at her forehead. She had the impression she had just inherited a lot of trouble, somehow.

“We’ll see,” she said. “We need to find out if this thing can even move first.”

“I can get on that,” Sam said. “How hard can moving a train be? It’s not like it can even turn.”

“Right,” Emily said. She was having doubts. “I feel like I should be telling my mom about this.”

***