Chapter Thirty - Gentle Persuasion

E-Wright: When can we meet?

Mel: Not any time soon.

E-Wright: But the drive?

Mel: I know. Still filling things out. Should be free by this evening. Calm your tits.

Emily shoved her phone away and stood up to pace. Time was ticking on and it felt like... like waiting in line at the dentist’s office, knowing that they were going to tear out a cavity with their little drills and not being able to do anything about it.

Worse, at least the cavities were her own fault. The drive thing... wasn’t.

“Are we going?” Teddy asked. She was all dressed up. That was, she had changed from her pjs to her cargo shorts and a hoodie and slid her boots on without tying the laces. Her costume was firmly stuffed into Emily’s bag.

“Yes,” Emily said. “Yes we are.”

Her dad had once told her that sometimes you needed to help yourself. That without making the effort to get something, you wouldn’t get it, and that relying on chance alone was a complete waste of time.

She picked up her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. Then she stopped next to Teddy to tie her shoes before the girl sent herself spiralling down a staircase.

“Let’s go,” she said while extending a hand for Teddy to grab.

It was only when they were outside that Emily realized that she didn’t know where they were going. “Uh. Did you grab Alea Iacta’s number?” she asked.

“Nope,” Teddy said. “But I know where he hangs out twice a week.”

Emily squeezed her eyes shut. “This isn’t off to a great start,” she said.

“It’s that way,” Teddy replied.

Seeing as how she was already almost certainly doomed, Emily just sighed and gestured for Teddy to take the lead.

A few minutes later, after crossing half the campus on a winding path that looped over itself a few times, and after asking Teddy if she was sure she knew where she was going, they arrived before the old theater building near the centre of campus.

“This is it,” Teddy said with confidence that Emily was pretty sure she didn’t deserve. They’d passed by the roads around the building twice before Teddy finished retracing her route.

“You sure?” Emily asked. The idea of just... walking into a building she wasn’t meant to be in felt incredibly wrong on so many levels.

Teddy nodded and moved ahead, but pushing on the door did a whole lot of nothing. “Uh. It’s locked.”

“Oh, well then,” Emily said. “Back home it is.”

“Hey!”

Emily froze up, but Teddy was a lot faster in turning around and looking towards the voice calling out to them. “Oh hey,” she said. “It’s the black guy.”

“Teddy!” Emily squeaked. “You can’t just say something like that.”

She turned to see that the person calling out to them was a tall young man with rather handsome features and a concerned look in his eyes. “Hello,” he said to her before looking down at Teddy. “And hey to you.”

“Hello comrade,” Teddy said. “I’m looking for comrade.... Jacob. Do you know where he is?”

“Oh,” he said. “And here I thought you were going to break into the theater again.”

“Teddy!” Emily said. “You said you just walked in?”

“I did!” Teddy said. “The doors weren’t locked or anything.”

The man raised his hands. “Wait, wait, she’s probably right there. She just did a bit of trespassing is all. We had a meeting about it last night. The doors should stay locked from now on.”

“Oh,” Emily said. “Okay. Good. Um...”

“I’m Matthew.” he said. “The director of the volunteer theater group, and I’m one of the senior members of the less volunteer group. Is Teddy here your, uh...”

“My sister,” Emily said. “She’s my little sister. We were looking for Jacob?”

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One of Matthew’s eyebrows jumped up. “Him huh? He isn’t here today. No practice. I... don’t think he has classes right now. So he could be anywhere.”

“Oh,” Emily said. “Do, do you know where his dorm is?”

Matthew eyed her for a bit. “What’s your relationship with Jacob? Because, I have to say he’s not the most... I don’t want to talk bad about someone when he’s not around.”

“Emily is Jacob’s boss,” Teddy said.

Matthew perked up. “Oh. Yeah I remember him taking on some work at that latte place. You should have just said so. He pull a no show?”

“S- something like that,” Emily said.

Matthew shook his head. “I’ll text him, ask him if he’s in his dorm.”

“Can, can you not tell him that we’re coming?” Emily asked.

“Catch him unawares, huh? You give him an earful, alright. And if you want you can send me his work schedule. God knows that boy needs some discipline in his life.”

“S-sure,” Emily said.

Matthew let her copy Jacob’s address off of his phone, then told them to stay safe before they went on their way.

Another trip across campus, this time being led by the directions on Emily’s phone, brought them to an apartment building two streets over from the campus proper.

It wasn’t the Quantum Mothman House, but it was a nice-enough place. A bit older, a bit more run-down, and there was an uncomfortable number of cigarette butts left in the unmaintained grass next to a few bottles, but it wasn’t... terrible.

Emily had seen worse. In movies.

She stepped into the stairwell that was the apartment complex’s lobby, then found Jacob’s room number on the mail slots to one side.

Three flights of stairs later and they were at his door.

“Can I knock?” Teddy asked.

Emily was too busy catching her breath to deny her, so she watched as Teddy slapped the door three times.

There was movement on the other side, someone stumbling over something, swearing, then rushing over to the door.

It opened to reveal a lanky Jacob wearing nothing but a wifebeater and CucumberJoe Poly Pants boxers. She looked up and locked eyes with the boy who was holding onto a gaming controller in one hand and a set of headphones in the other. “Oh, shit,” he said.

“Let us in, please?” Emily asked.

“Or I’ll eat you,” Teddy persuaded softly.

They were let into an apartment that reeked of sweat and soda and that had so much dust collecting in it that the edges of the floors were discoloured by it. “What are you doing here?” Jacob asked. “I have a roommate.”

“Is he here?” Emily asked.

“No. But still.”

“I need your help,” Emily said.

“No,” was his immediate reply.

Teddy huffed. “The Boss was asking nicely. You need to do your duty for the proletariat and your boss by doing what she says.”

Jacob backed up a step, both hands raised. “Hey, hey, none of that. Not in my own house. I saw what you did to that guy on the net, I don’t want to get KOed by little miss teddy bear over here.”

“We don’t want that,” Emily agreed. “We just need your help with one thing. It’s... there’s an information broker who knows a lot about, um.” Emily wasn’t keen on lying, but she’d never been in a situation quite like the one she was in. “He knows a lot about all of the villains in Eauclaire. And he put that information on a computer, and it was stolen. We need to track it or else we’re all in a lot of trouble.”

Jacob’s shoulders slumped. “You think there’s stuff about me on there?”

“Probably?” Handshake definitely knew about Alea Iasta’s more public stunts, she was sure.

“Come on, I just wanted to spend the night being angry at the jerks on Federation of Fables.”

“I’m... sorry?” Emily said. “We don’t need much. We just need to know where to go. Where to find someone called Homie.”