Chapter Seventeen - A Sneaky Peak

There was a knock at the door, but for once, it didn’t set Emily’s heart racing or send a cold sweat down her spine.

“Athena, can you check the door, please?” Emily asked. She was at her desk, homework opened on her laptop.

“Sure thing, Big Sis!” Athena said as she hopped over to the door. “Hey, who is it?” Athena asked.

“It’s Sam,” came a faint reply from the other side.

“Big sis, it’s minion Sam,” Athena repeated.

Emily nodded. “She sent me a text, it’s okay. Let her in.”

The door opened and Sam snuck into the room, a backpack thumping in next to her. “Hey kids, hey Boss,” Sam said. “I got some stuff, but that’s for later. How’s everyone doing?”

“We’re alright,” Teddy said. She was laid out on the floor, an arm wrapped around a Trinity who was currently being used as a blanket. The other two Trinity were standing next to Emily, ‘helping’ her with her homework.

“Cool, cool,” Sam said. She shuffled over to Emily’s bed and sat down on it, which seemed to be what everyone was doing recently. “So, what sort of nefarious deeds will we be doing tonight?”

“Nothing, I hope,” Emily said.

Sam pouted. Actually pouted. Emily could forgive that in her sisters, they were basically preteens, but Sam was--at least according to her age--a proper adult. “That’s no fun.”

“Yeah, it ain’t fun, Boss,” Teddy said. She squeezed the Trinity she was hugging closer as if in protest.

“Hey! You’re choking me,” One of Trinity’s other bodies said.

“Teddy, don’t choke your sister,” Emily said. “And Sam, don’t encourage them, please?”

Sam shrugged. “Sure. Still think that you’re missing out here. Inaction’s not going to help you in the long run. You’re on the news right now, you know? It’s time to capitalise on that. Do something to grow your empire, or maybe work on your PR.”

“I thought you were trying to be a silent observer for your thesis paper,” Emily said.

Sam grinned. “The non-silent bits aren’t going to go in the paper,” she said.

“Isn’t that... I don’t know, lacking in academic morals?” Emily asked.

“Emily... I joined a villain as a minion. I don’t think a bit of academic dishonesty is the most morally wrong thing I’ve done this week.” Sam bounced back to her feet. “So! If we’re not going to be villain-ing, then what should we work on?”

Emily sighed, then leaned back in her seat. She was about to put her arms on her chair’s arm when she bumped into Trinity, who had a head on the arm. She started running her fingers through the girl’s hair, vaguely amused at the way Trinity’s ears twitched whenever her fingers brushed by. “I have a few ideas, I guess. Cement’s papers indicated that he has a few safe houses. Alea Iacta is in a safehouse still, I don’t know if he’s returned to school or anything. Anyway, that’s two things I want to do. Look into the other safehouses and bases, and touch base with Alea Iacta.”

“Your other minion,” Sam said. “Alright, cool. I vote on checking out the villain lair first.

“I vote lair,” Athena said.

“Me too,” Teddy said.

“Me three,” Trinity replied. Then she started giggling at her own joke.

Emily reached into her desk and almost lazily pulled out her notebook with the addresses and locations of various safehouses. There weren’t many. Three safehouses, two of which were apartments and one which they’d been to already and where they’d fought Black Shield. The lair locations were just below that. Two places... more or less. “Check this out,” she said before handing the notebook to Trinity who ran it over to Sam.

“Okay,” Sam said as she scanned the page. “So, what am I looking for?”

“The last two. There’s one lair in a place called the... Garter Belt. It’s a little dance club-slash-bar.”

“I know the place,” Sam said.

Emily paused. “You’ve... been there?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, they’ll let in any girl if she’s hot or confident enough,” Sam said. “I’m both, so free drinks, you know?”

“Uh, sure,” Emily said. She dismissed the warmth trying to cling to her cheeks. There was no way in a million years she’d go to a place like that. “I think that 's where Homie worked from before he got arrested. The place might still be running?”

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“Another protection racket to set up?” Sam asked.

“I think it might be more legitimate than that,” Emily said. “More of a money laundering place, maybe? Anyway, it’s the other base location that’s piqued my interest.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “The address isn’t telling me anything.”

Emily turned to her laptop, then opened a window that had been left minimised. “It’s right here,” she said. “I don’t know what the building is, but it doesn’t look big.”

Sam came closer, then squinted at the screen. “Oh! I know that one.”

“What is it?” Emily asked. “The street view isn’t very helpful.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, okay, so history lesson time. Way way long ago, like back in the early nineties, there was this thing where they wanted to have an Eauclaire metro. It would connect over to a couple of places. The centre of the city, the campus, then a few spots on the edges and maybe even to the next city over. It wasn’t going to be this huge system, but like, it was supposed to be cheaper than a bus once everything was set up.”

“I don’t remember there being a metro,” Emily said.

“Cancelled,” Sam said with a dismissive shake of her head. “Like, within a year or two of it starting up. I think it was a mess of budget issues, and there was a gang that started up with the construction crews. Then there was a bunch of corruption stuff. It was a whole thing. But long story short, nothing got done and the project died off.”

“And this building was part of that,” Emily said. “Maybe Cement had a base inside there?”

“Could be, yeah,” Sam said. “Don’t know how far along they came with the construction, but they were at it for a year or two, at least. Might be a whole bunch of old caves under there. I think there were some kids that went exploring once and got lost. Lots of drama. Then they blocked off all the access routes into the underground bits.”

Emily hummed along. “Okay. I guess there’s no harm in looking into it. There might be more information about Cement’s organisation in there.”

Sam was already halfway to the door with Emily’s sisters bouncing after her. “I’ll get my car warmed up!”

Emily watched them all file out of her room, then with a panicked “W-wait for me!” she rushed around to grab her shoes, then ran after them.

Half of her sisters had, of course, forgotten to get dressed properly before leaving. So they ran back in and searched for jackets and running shoes and boots they could wear while out in the city.

Once Emily made sure everyone was ready for a trip across the city, they headed down and over to the parking garage where Sam’s car was tucked away and waiting for them.

“It’s not too far from here,” Sam said. “We could walk, even, but I’d rather ride.”

They reached the car, squeezed into it, then they were off and heading across the city again.

Emily worked on her soft skills and asked Sam about her day. Fortunately, Sam was more than willing to fill the void with constant chatter about teachers, classes, and her increasingly wild plans for the near and far future.

Sam had been right when she said that the station wasn’t too far from the school. It was right next to some of the older shops in what was once the middle of the city. There was a defunct mall, now filled with stores that sold luggage bags and flowers and phone cases across the street from a UrgerKing that hadn’t been renovated since the early 2000s.

Sam parked at the far end of the mall’s lot, then pointed across the street. “That's the one. The grey box.”

The would-be metro entrance wasn’t quite a grey box. It had more potential than that. But it wasn’t exactly nice either. It didn’t look like the place was seeing much use.

“The door has a sign on it,” Emily said. “I can’t quite make it out from here, but it doesn’t look good.”

“It says closed,” Athena said. She squinted through her big glasses a little more. “And that trespassers aren’t allowed.”

“Why’d you have glasses if you can see so good?” Teddy asked.

“Because I can’t see so good without them, idiot,” Athena said.

“Girls,” Emily warned. “Calm down. Let’s snoop around, maybe there’s an entrance at the back or something.”

“I’ve got a lockpicking kit,” Sam said .”And like, three hours of Outube tutorials under my belt.”

“... Great.”

***